Her Majesty's Landship Behemoth HMLS Behemoth was the largest of the British Landships in Ouargistan. Her weaponry consisted of a pair of naval guns in side-sponsons, plus a changing array of smaller armament. Her scant ground clearance, combined with tremendous weight supported on rather narrow treads caused her to become bogged frequently in the soft ground of Britain. It was hoped she would be more at home on the hard-pan deserts of Ouargistan. She was still in the process of desert testing when ordered to Al Bunrab, where her menacing appearance attracted a fearful storm of fire from the American landships. Ultimately her armor was penetrated in several places and one shell found the boiler, ending her short career in a tremendous explosion, the crater of which is still visible. Though Behemoth's sister-ship HMLS Leviathan, saw action in a number of later engagements, the class exhibited numerous deficiencies in service, and work on an even larger vessel along the same lines, HMLS Ponderous, was cancelled and the frame broken up for scrap after the debacle at Al Bunrab.

Click for larger version

Construction Behemoth was Steve's magnum opus. She was built mostly of foamcore and the thin olive cardboard from a Pendaflex folder, studded with enormous numbers of embossed rivets. The body is weathered by drybrushing with acrylic paint. Tracks are strips of black posterboard scored with a knife blade.The bogie wheels peeking out from under the side armor are large dress snaps, and the stacks are .357 cartridge cases. Her design is inspired by the early British tanks and the German Schwerer Kampfwagen A7V/U of WWI. Behemoth is 7" (178mm) long. Her main hull is 3.7"(94mm) wide, but the sponsons add another 2.8" (72mm). Her pilothouse roof is 3.5"(88mm) above the ground.

A rare period photograph showing HMLS Behemoth
alongside SMGS Wilhelmina von Holstein during
the Bunrabian campaign

.

RETURN to the Landships Page

RETURN to the Major General's Page

Copyright©1998 David Helber. No commercial distribution of images or text from any page on this site without written permission.