“Curse these damned four armed freaks!”  General Woolycock threw his hat down on the chart table and waived his hands in the air.  “Green Martians – Red Martians, they’s all freaks to me.  Why are our stout fellows overrun every time those Green Martians charge?   We have magazine rifles and machine guns.  They have spears and rocks to throw.  We should be giving them a taste of the bayonet, not running like frightened children!”

 “Please General, have some tea.”  Captain Rantallion, the General’s aid said as he decanted a generous portion of fine Scots Whisky into the General’s teacup.   “Some of those green fellows are quite large.  Rifle caliber bullets don’t seem to do much to stop them. They are awfully tuff.”

 “Good tea, Randy.  Good tea,” said the General, smacking his lips.

 “Our chaps do well enough when they are in fortifications with artillery support.”  Captain Rantallion  said as he refilled the General’s cup. 

 “Stuff and nonsense!”  General Woolycock held out his cup for another refill.   “How can we attack from a fortification?” 

 “Perhaps a mobile fort of some sort.”  Randy corked the bottle, set it back in the liquor rack and pulled a pamphlet from his jacket pocket. “A mobile fort with artillery support built in.   Something like this.”  He handed the pamphlet to the General.

“Ah, ha…hem-a-hem,” mumbled the General as he pulled his glasses out and adjusted them on his nose.    “What do we have here?”  

“A large steam powered armored vehicle, mounting a breach loading six inch naval rifle and two Gatling Guns.”

 “Naval – smaval,”  said the General,  “We will have no talk of naval rifles here.   Hence forth it will be referred as an Army rifle.”   He looked back to the pamphlet, drooling over the fine engraving showing the Steam Tank’s massive tracks grinding its way over the recumbent bodies of enemy soldiers.   “Oh yes, oh yes!” the man’s glee was truly frightening.   “How does it work?”

 “It will be no problem, Sir.  These things are classified as Land Ships, so the Navy will be responsible for them.   Sailors will man the guns and take care of the nasty details such as engineering and maintenance.”

“Oh, I don’t know if I like that so well.”  The General frowned.

Captain Rantallion smiled like a fox.  “But they will be under your command.  And should anything go wrong – the Navy will be responsible.”

 “I see!”  The General smiled.  “See to it that a dozen or so are shipped immediately to the Martian front.”  He rubbed his hands, and reached for his teacup.  “Let’s have some more tea.”

 Reviresco’s Steam Tank kit is designed to be built over one sixteenth inch cardboard or illustration board and  comes with interior detail, including the steam boilers, ammo chests, six inch Naval Rifle and Gatling Guns.   The entire fighting compartment of the vehicle rotates so the main gun can be brought to bear on targets to the sides or rear of the vehicle. The overall size of the completed kit is 9.5 x 4 x 4 inches.  The multi-layer .pdf provides for six different color schemes, making this kit a definite must have for the Victorian Science Fiction collector or gamer.