Hi Alexander

Wow ! fully built with all the extras it looks great, and I don't even like Tigers much.

Sorry I cant help with the colour suggestions, Afrika Korps colours are not my field of expertise.

Whatever shade you go with, good luck ! No one can definitley say with true authority what is exactly right or wrong anyway.

cheers
Neil

Very neat build Alexander. Lots of details for this scale. Looking forward to the painting and weathering.

Excellent work. I wait the painting. I always have admired modellers that they can to work with PE parts. It is a laborious work. I prefer plastic pieces.

Regards.

Pedro.

Hi Alexander,

Excellent build! The amount of detail you have packed into this is oustanding, hats off to you for your work with that PE

The details you have included in the kit match an Africa Tiger the most. You will however need to change a couple of details to be truly accurate. Firstly you will need to remove the spare tracks from the turret as they were not carried by Tigers in Africa. Secondly you may wish to remove the headlights from the hull top and mount them to the front plate. This was a field mod done on Pz.abt 501 Tigers but not on Px.abt 504 Tigers so I guess its optional. Fianlly the tracks you have used are the later type which have the ice cleats, again not a feature in africa.

See the pictures below, the first is a Pz.abt 501 with the relocated headlights and turret numbers. The second shows the difference in the tracks





As for the colour, well its debated what colour they were. Some say light brown, others olive green and maybe a mixture of both. From what i've researched i'm leaning towards light brown. This is a picture of the bovington tiger supposedly before restoration showing a brownish colour.



I hope this is of help to you. You could still change it to an eastern front tiger but I think you may need to change more features

Cheers
Matt

The Bovington Tiger was painted brown in England shortly after the war.

If you're interested in accuracy, my offer still stands.

David

Przemyslaw, Neil, Frank, Pedro, Matt, David thanks for your comments.
David your offer is appreciated thanks a lot, I wait your feedback.

From what I've found, I should probably remove the extra tracks from the turret as Matt notes (thanks for the feedback Matt). About the spotlights I know they could be found on the chassis too so no big deal.
If I hack the ice cleats from the tracks I assume that it would make them suitable for Africa (not an easy task though).
Anyway here is what I've found and the vehicle I am thinking about.


More soon, P.A.

Well, the first thing I'd say is that I don't trust any modern Tiger plans except those by Hilary Doyle.

Looking at the plan that you posted, it has 4 bolt heads on the forward turret roof. There were in fact 8 and they were further back, straddling the roof bend line. The first person that I know to make this mistake was J.L.Rue in the book "Tiger in Detail" but you seem to have another draftsman's work there; may I ask where that's from?

Another curious thing in the diagram is the turret rear bin. He's drawn it as wider at the bottom than the top. The Tiger had no such bin. Or perhaps he simple doesn't understand geometry?

Anyway, as to the accuracy of the kit; I'm afraid that it's not very good out of the box. I don't even recommend it as a starting point if you're interested in good accuracy.

The only unit that had those special angular exhaust shields was s.Pz.Abt. 501. After reviewing all of the known photos of the unit, I can see no evidence that they ever had a turret bin like the one in Revell's model. They had an earlier, wider bin, where the sides were parallel and had supporting bars bolted to them. The model contains the later bin where the sides flared outwards.

The photo-etch bin that you've applied is also the later kind. This never had support beams on the sides. Were they in the photo-etch set? May I ask whose set it was? The front mudguards are correct for this unit, 501, so the turret bin shouldn't be in the same set with them.

Also, most of the tanks in the unit had their headlights moved to the front. Only a couple of Tigers, for example 241, have them on top of the hull roof.



My best advice is to model a Tiger that's a bit battered (in fact, you have done so) and lost its exhaust shields completely. Then you could put this tank in Russia, and retain the tracks on the turret.

Shall i go on? I don't like to point out problems unless asked.

David

David,

Thanks for the extensive feedback, you seem to know more about the Tiger than I know about my own car!

Since removing the rectangular covers is the most time-economic solution, I'll play along.
I'll be posting photos soon.

P.A.

P.S. About the questions you asked I'll look it up tomorrow.

Made some progress with the Tiger.

I used Vallejo grey primer and after that made some shadows with dark grey.


My effort for CM



More later, P.A.

Very nice! Looking forward to seeing more.
Cheers,
Tim

@panzeralexander – Alexander,

I think your doing a very good job on your build. I like your take on the CM, I’ll have to give that a try on the current Braille build I have going.

I’m glad to see you are open to suggestions and are willing to make whatever changes need to be made in order to arrive with a well built and detailed model. My hat is off to you sir!

Waiting to see more,
~ Eddy

After quite some time I have made some progress with this build. I applied washes, pinwashes, chips and oils.





Next it's predusting, track weathering and pigments.

More soon, P.A.

wow verry nice, gj on the PE.
looks like a 1/35
cant w8 for the next update

jan.

Jan, thanks for the comment. The tank is almost complete. I have already started working on some figures. I used vallejo pigments and ak interactive products to weather it.









More soon, P.A.

Hi Alexander. Looking great! Looking forward to seeing the figures and it all finished.
Cheers,
Tim

Great painting and weathering. Excellent model Alexander. A good reference for us.

Regards.

Pedro.

Tim, Pedro, thanks for commenting.

Merry Christmas and best wishes to all Armorama community.

P.A.

Great painting and weathering!

Hi Alexander

this build was up to your usual high standards, its a very nice presentation piece

cheers
Neil

@PanzerAlexander – Alexander,

This is turning out to be one of your best efforts. My favorite part is the built up mud on the lower front end of the vehicle, looks very convincing. One of these days I’m going to have to try my hand at an African Tiger build, yours is very inspirational.

Happy Holidays,
~ Eddy

Dear neighbor Alexander, this tiger was excellent. Congratulations.

I hope everyone is doing ok it's been a while since I last posted any progress on my models. The reason is that I suffered an achilles tendon rupture in early January so I was immobile for 2 1/2 months. I got back to my feet again three weeks ago and I am slowly catching up with my life.

I am planning a small vignette to go along with the tiger of some troops passing by the tank and having a chat with 2 of the crew members. I'll be using 6 metal figures and some random stuff like barrels, jerrycans, shells, tools. I am currently working on the figures, so take a look and feel free to comment.

What I have almost ready. I think I got the figures from AB.


The setup I have in mind


P.A.

@PanzerAlexander - Those figures that you've done look astounding!!! How on earth and what do you use to paint all those tiny details like the belt buckle, buttons and epaulettes?

Cheers,
Jan

PanzerAlexander,

Hope you are recovering from your injury well. Good luck and good health.

That is an outstanding job on the Tiger and the figures. Very impressive, those figs are tiny! Well done man.

Gary