Would tamiya's tiger 1 initial Afrika kit work for this paint scheme?

https://armorama.kitmaker.net//features/1408

(great looking tank, by the way)

Thanks!

First off, I am not a "Tiger Expert", so this is just an observation on my part.

Are you are referring to Tamiya's 1/48 German Tiger I Initial Production (Afrika Korps) , Kit Number: 32529:

The paint sceme you are refering to appears to be a winter camo sceme:

Which was applied to a tiger that was at Leningrad:

Based on the type of Tiger and if it is a winter camo sceme, I don't think it would apply to a Afrika Korps Tiger that has the Feifel air cleaners (dust filtration system) installed.

If you have your heart set on that exact unit, you'll need to modify the Tamiya 1/35th scale kit. The winter tank belonged to the 502nd Battalion at Leningrad, one of the first nine issued, and had no side skirts or mounting lugs for them, no Feiffel air filter system, no shrouds around the exhaust, and had a set of handed tracks, which were mirror images of each other (all subsequent Tigers were issued with two pairs of "left" tracks, and just fitted backwards on one side). Dragon's Initial Tiger kit depicts this exactly.
If you just want a gray and white winter scheme, you could use Tamiya's Early Tiger and build one issued to the 503rd, some months later. Grab a copy of "Tigers in Combat, Volume 1," by Wolfgang Schneider, and you'll have all the Tiger reference photos you need, as well as comprehensive unit histories of the Army battalions that used it, and some nice color drawings by Jean Restayn. It was reprinted as an outrageously cheap paperback by Stackpole (available for around $20 US from Amazon). The original hardback edition from Fedorowicz was over $100 (and well worth it--large size, glossy photo paper), but this smaller version is still a great value for money.

Great thanks! Does anyone have any pictures of the white and grey tanks from the 503rd?

Thanks!

Try this collection of all known photos of the 503rd.
But I don't see any tanks that are unquestionably grey under the white.

David

The photos I used as my reference point in painting #100 in the winter camo scheme were seen on E-bay sometime back and I saved a copy off. You can see the actual photo below as well as a cropped version that clearly shows this is #100 pre-capture and in the whitewash-and-gray combination.

Hey guys,

Does this look like grey on white? Check out pg 16 the middle photo. Is this 503rd?

http://books.google.com/books?id=Q9oLHzg4zBMC&pg=PR9&dq=Tigers+in+combat+volume+one&client=safari#v=onepage&q=Tigers%20in%20combat%20volume%20one&f=false

Thanks!

No. It's a year too late for a gray finished vehicle (it's winter 1943/44), and has the late cupola with swiveling hatch, not the original drum cupola with the hinged hatch cover. The caption identifies it as belonging to the third company of the SS 101st battalion.

Thanks! How about this one? It does not look like a it has feifels, so i do not think that it is early. Is it middle or late possibly?

http://www.alanhamby.com/gallery6.shtml

thanks,

The link leads to a whole page full of photos, so I don't know which tank you mean. In any case, the terms early, middle and late are modern contrivances not used by the Germans. Tigers were improved piecemeal over the production run, so the best you can do is compare a vehicle's visible features with a reference book like Thomas Jentz's "Germany's Tiger Tanks D.W. to Tiger I: Design, Production & Modifications." The Tamiya Initial kits are suitable only for the 501st Battalion in North Africa, as it had unit specific modifications (notably the exhaust shrouds, mudguards and revised headlight locations). The Tamiya Early kit is more adaptable to different vehicles produced in late 1942 and early 1943.

Sorry, it is the bottom one on gallery six