Tank Emplacement Timber reinforced. Design for the Japanese Type 97 medium tank 1:56 scale No3 of 16 variants

Continuing my theme of the Pacific Theatre of Operations and my desire to provide my gaming friends with a very visual games board I realised I had not considered that the Imperial Japanese Army made extensive use of dug in and heavily defend tank and self-propelled guns. So began a journey which has resulted in 16 variations of an emplaced tank.

Emplacement 03 sees the introduction of an infantry fire pit to the front of the tank. Covered in logs the pit offers you the chance to insert a weapon from your bitz box and so provide the tank with a very modest support from a rifle, smg, lmg or if you push the rules a mmg.

The emplacement is approximately 160mm by 85mm and about 18mm high. The flat internal open area is 90mm long by 41mm wide. It is intended to represent a low profile defensive structure clearly gaining from cover and hard for the enemy to aim at accurately.

They Type 97 Medium tank was designed by M. Bergman of New Zealand whose permission I have to rework his files to create something new that can be adding to the gaming communities range of models.

I have test printed the files and used a time saving 0.15mm layer height to print the models. I would recommend using 0.1mm layer height if you are printing them for yourself.

The tank fits snugly in. Insert from the back of the scenery and push forward until the tank comes up against the front. Then press down on the back of the vehicle. It is a snug fit but so far I have not had any problems lifting this vehicle in and out.

The Type 97 is a 4 piece model and the emplacement just a single file. The vehicle took about 5 hours and the scenic emplacement 10 hours to print at 0.15mm.

I will be bundling the tank emplacements together. Variants 01-04 will form the first set. Variant 05-08 the second set etc. I will then put all the bare earth emplacements into a set of 8 and the leaf covered ones into another set of 8. Finally of course a set of all 16. So await my posting these options if you like the terrain pieces as it might save you some money.

This model was designed by Neal Bowskill Copyright June 2022. These files may not be used to print for commercial gain.