Hi,

I'm planning to do one for an upcoming campaign. Have read that there were 18 of these built and have used refurbished Tiger hulls. Some questions:

1. Zimmerit: would it be just on the refurbed Tiger hull -- or were there ones with full coat on? Was there one with no zimm at all?
2. Paint scheme: were all in tri-color camo, or were there plain dunkelgelb ones?
3. Early, Mid, Late: Was there such a thing or is it more a reference to the type of Tiger hull used?

BTW, which is correct -- Sturmtiger or Sturmmorser? Appreciate if there are pics / links I can refer to.

Cheers,

Tat

Tat,

There will be better experts here, but I looked into these after buying the Revell/Italeri kit a while ago. They appear to have had zimm on the Tiger hull only (not on the box superstructure), were mainly in some form of soft three-tone camo, and I thought they were all built on late Tiger hulls with the steel wheels.

Hope this helps,

Tom

Tat

They had, according to my references, zimmerit only on the hull, not on the armoured box..
The prototype was based on an early series hull and was painted dark yellow overall. All of the remainder had late series hulls, steel wheels, and tri-colour camo, usually not factory applied, ie soft edged.

Regards

Rob

Thanks for the responses Tom, Rob -- your inputs should help me narrow down the build plan. Had the same thoughts on the zimm but needed to confirm. Good to know there was one in dunkelgelb. Most of the pics I've seen so far had camo in some form of ambush scheme. Cheers -- Tat

Hi

Agree with the other comments regarding the variations etc.

As I understand it the prototype/orginal was built on an early version running gear showing rubber rimmed road wheels and the picture I've seen of it sports an all over plain finish. Any others I've seen have been steel wheelers with two or three colour camo schemes.

In 1/35th scale you have two real choices, the Tamiya one or the AFV Club.Sorry Tom, the Revell/Italeri one doesn't get my vote.

In 1/48 the AFV Club

Despite Terry Ashley rating the AFV Club highly I went for the Tamiya one as my choice but either one is going to be a good choice and hopefully an enjoyable build. Of course you have the additional interior kit to fit inside the AFV Club if you feel inclined to spend the same cost as the main kit again.

Alan

Alan,

No offense taken! I know the other two are better kits with sharper moulding. The Revell kit was going too cheap to resist, and I thought "what the heck?" Normally it's not a subject I would have given priority to... Of course, eventually I'll have to build it and see if it can be brought up to standard!

Tom

Thanks for chiming in Alan. Yet to be built is the AFV Club kit I ordered online a couple of years back. Went for it to go and try the brand -- got a bit disappointed though when I saw it came with vinyl tracks. All the while I thought the Tamiya was the one that had vinyl tracks till I saw some kit comparisons. Anyways not much worries, I think it will still build quite nicely.

Sorry guys my bad, I forgot to mention that I was planning for the upcoming Braille campaign. Have a couple of 1/72 Trumpeter Sturmtigers bought from a fire sale -- one says Early and the other as Late Production. Am leaning to do an Early with plain dunkelgelb finish. What I need to figure out now is how to zimm at that scale.

Again, thanks for the inputs.

Cheers,

Tat

Hi Tat,,

Trojca's "Sturmtiger and Sturmpanzer in Combat" has pictures of a plain yellow Sturmtiger without Zimmerit. It features the old style counterweight on the barrel, tracks with ice cleats and add-on armour on the lower hull front Most likely this vehicle was based on an early or early mid hull.

As far as I know, early, mid and late Tiger hulls were used for the conversion, but all were brought to late standard, including road wheels, so the differences aren't that huge.

The prototype itself was rebuilt to series production standards afterwards, but had no Zimmerit either. This one had a three-tone ambush scheme and now rests at Kubinka. It also has the early style counterweight and add-on armour.

I hope this helps - good luck with your project!

Philipp

Hi Tat

Yes the Tamiya may have individual links as opposed to the AFV Clubs vinyl bands but they don't have the holes in the guide horns so if you wanted to be accurate then after markets going to be the case for either. I'm going to get a set of the AFV Club ones, about half the price of Fruils.

Good luck with the Braille scale project. I struggle with seeing 1/35th so going that small's out of the question.

Alan

Thanks for the replies guys.

Philipp: am trying to recall where I read about one that had no zimm on, didn't think much of it as I've been assuming they all had. I also saw some museum pics that don't seem to have it on, and I figured it might just have been taken off during the restoration -- let me check on those again. A zimm-less build at this scale would sure make things less complicated.

Alan: Ok, so I guess that puts both of them on an even footing, trackwise. I'll keep those AM AFV Club tracks in mind when I go for the 1/35 build.

Cheers,

Tat

Hi Tat

With regard to the restoration pictures you spoke of I guess you mean the images shown over on Prime Portal.

http://www.primeportal.net/tanks/ulrich_wrede/sturmtiger/

You get to look pretty close to the body of the vehicle and either it never had Zim applied or when they restored it they did a very, very complete job on removing every single tiny piece.

I'm not sure of timescale as to when these were converted and appeared. Was it after the order to stop applying Zimmerit ? Obviously if the chassis had Zimmerit applied from when it was a tank, before conversion, I'd say it remained, but of course with the early Tigers some were made before the order to apply Zimmerit came into being. So it's likely they spent their time as a tank without and as such went to conversion in the same state.

Of course early Tigers had the rubber rimmed road wheels, and we've seen one of the Sturmtigers, the prototype, with this, but as stated already during conversion to the Sturmtiger these would have been "upgraded" to the steel ones. So this example on prime portal may well be an early Tiger that never had Zimmerit and was converted to a Sturmtiger without it but with its wheels replaced.

Alan

Hi

Me again

Forget all that about the restoration example not having it. Check these other pictures out.

Look at the fourth picture down on the right hand side, detailing the towing hitch. What do you see.......

Zimmerit

Alan

Hey, thanks for spending time on this Alan. Yes, the pic on the first link was what I was referring to. Quite a revelation on that second link – the restoration folks probably thought they’ve taken all of the zimmerit. But then again I wonder why they did have to take it off in the first place.

Here’s another set of walkaround pics I found: http://www.worldwar2aces.com/panzer-tank/sturm-tiger/. The rear-end shots show it all.

Take a look at the wartime profile pic (5th thumbnail). If this was the restored tank (as it was during wartime) then it really had zimmerit on the hull. It would have had camo as well -- and if I were to extend assumption this further, it may have looked like this:



Here’s another pic I have seen on the net. Would this be the one finished in plain dunkelgelb? Not too sure about the road wheels as well.



Found the above photos on this site: http://anonymous-generaltopics.blogspot.com/search?q=sturmtiger

Cheers,

Tat

The Sturmtiger in the museum was built as a Tiger around December '43 - January '44 and therefore must have had Zimmerit.

David

The bottom vehicle is simply dirty, in my opinion. The only uncamouflaged vehicle I know of would be the soft steel prototype. The highly specialized Sturmtiger units were used only in selected actions, and there would have been ample time to paint them. Given that the Germans had lost air superiority on both fronts, and these were high value assets, there would have been great emphasis on concealment.