Two man tankettes were all the rage in the 20s and 30s, and the
Carden Loyd Mk IV tankette was the King of the Tankettes. The Mk IV was widely exported and was used as the basis for the Polish TK tankette series as well as the Russian T-27 and others, including Czech and Italian tankettes.
There are no 1/35 scale models of the Mk IV, so I'm using the RPM TK series kit (of which there are many, many variations) as an improved Mk IV, which used many of the modifications of the Polish TK series (hence the Mk IV "P" designation).
As a basis, I using the RPM TKW II boxing. This is a whif in a box; not only was the TKW design abandoned as a prototype, this boxing comes with a 20mm canon which would not have fit in the turret, with the gunner. The kit also comes with a somewhat basic interior.
It's really difficult to wrap my brains around how very tiny this tankette is. The
Derela site is a great resource for Polish armored vehicles. This image just give a rough idea how tiny the real TK-3 was:
Here's the start of my tankette. The kit's interior is tacked in place and the driver is from the Tamiya quad gun tractor. The engine is from a BA-20 kit; the kit's original engine is just a box. The real tanks seem to have had the engine exposed.
As Jeff called it, this tankette has the same problem as a cheap hotel or a tight pair of pants: No Ball Room...
One other minor issue with this kit and the interior - the superstructure with the turret and driver's cover (as shown on the boxtop) will simply not fit over the radiator, engine and gas tank, so unless I made some cutouts in the floor for a Fred Flintstone style "engine", something had to go. I opted to make my own superstructure.
On the original Mk IV, everything was well armored except for the head and shoulders of the occupants, which were unprotected. Some variants (and the Russian T-27) had a metal hood over each side which provided some protection, but this reminded me too much of the
Renault UE Chenillette with its claustrophobic, nightmare inducing interior.
Since this will be a scout tankette, I made an open top superstructure tall enough to
protect the heads of the crew with viewports:
The bolt pattern is from
Archer Fine Transfers I added handles made from wire and the rear deck fan area had been cut out and replaced with a fine mesh screen. I added a shield between the driver and the engine block exhaust area (the real tanks seem to have had one) and a screen over the top if the engine to protect it and the observer, as well as hide my lack of detailing. The radio is from the old Monogram Weasel and the instrument panel is scratchbuilt: