US Crab tank,

I really like this model overall design, the kit in its original form not so much but it gives you the basic building blocks for a great Victorian Sci Fi model that easily lends itself to being put into service for several nations.

I need better pictures of this one!! but you can see some of the decals I created using Corel Draw and the Alps printer. It has typical US period shipping info and national markings as well as a crew applied name “Custer’s Revenge”

The first one I did was for Steve Gauche and his American “Rough Rider” force. Steve was not really interested in “Victorian Sci Fi” at first being a more traditional historical gamer but warmed to it at least to the point where he thought it was “quite a bit of non traditional fun” and decided to paint up a force of US “Rough Riders” ala Teddy Roosevelt and San Juan hill look. Being as he was not really interested in doing any vehicles for them I built a few, The “Crab” tank here and the “Battle Wagon” elsewhere in this section.

Once again as with all the “Sheltrum” stuff I have replaced parts and modified others to reach this stage.

• The smoke stack was replaced with a larger one built from polystyrene and rivets added. 100 rivets added.
• Legs were cut, drilled, and brass pinned for strength.
• Flag pole insert added and flag.
• New gun Barrel added and insert for removable smoke added.
• for Steve G “US Rough Riders”.

Japanese “KANI” class tank

It was long before the Japanese managed to procure one of these tanks and start producing them in large numbers. Some say they salvaged one off a sunken US navy frigate bound for China. This well could be since only a few years later during the “Boxer Rebellion” the Japanese copy of the “Crab” sidled

up and parked right next to the “US” version during a force review of colonial forces in “Hong Kong” prior to deploying onto mainland china.

This is the third one of these “Sheltrum” resin VSF tanks I have built.   This is the second Japanese styled “crab walker” This one was done for Chris Snell and it only took me two years to get around to it! (I did a Japanese one for myself as well!) the first one being the original American version

Love the look of this model when its done!