Hi everyone.

From photos, it looks like the side mudguards on the Tiger I Afrika lack the support brackets that the Early, Mid and late versions had. We're they bolted right onto the hull without these brackets or are my eyes playing tricks on me? Also, when these guards were lost for whatever reason, did the mountings get ripped off as well? If so, would this have left holes in the body of the tank or were these welded flush? I was thinking of depicting my build missing a section or two of fenders and I was thinking of leaving the hull flush where teh mounts would have been located.

Thank you in advance.

Alex

This article about Tiger side skirts should answer you.

David

David: you are the guru. That answers my question. Tiger 813 clearly shows no end supports and it looks as though there were no other support brackets either. Thank you. Alex

As expected.
The end supports simply had not been invented when the Tigers were supplied to s.Pz.Abt.501.

But the question about 813 is which type of simple side fender it had... that is linked to the mudguard type at front and rear.

David

Great question. I'm looking at a photo of 813 now and it seems like it had a one piece mudguard yet the front section is bent upwards and seems to be its own piece.

Methinks you should read again. The mudguards always came in 4 segments.

I've looked again at my 813 photo and I'm sure the tank had the 2nd kind of mudguard, which goes with the wide folding front and back flaps.

David

Now I am confused: the site says, "The first change to the skirt design was to simplify them by making them from a single sheet of metal. This museum photo shows the second type. Some of these simplified side skirts reached Africa on the last few Tigers of s.Pz.Abt. 501."

Check the profile. The first one was made of 2 sheets.



David

David: reread the link. The one sheet refers to the lack of the lip at the top. These are the mudguards I have in photo etch (Voyager). I guess, without the support brackets they could get pretty dinged up. Thank you Sir. Alex

The mounting nuts for the side mud guards: were they ever repositioned? Tiger 142 looks like it has darker areas along the side of its hull that indicate where these may have been located before being repositioned and rewelded. Thanks. Alex

The mounting lugs on 142 were added when it was already painted green and marked up. That's why they made such a mess.

David

That makes sense. I'm building a clone of 813 yet I might have to change it to 142 because I misaligned the mounting nuts on my model as well. I can't remove the small resin pieces without damaging the model. Thanks David. You are a welath of information. Alex

[quote]That makes sense. I'm building a clone of 813 yet I might have to change it to 142 because I misaligned the mounting nuts on my model as well. I can't remove the small resin pieces without damaging the model. Thanks David. You are a welath of information. Alex[/quote

Did you use super glue to mount them onto the model ? If you did maybe a drop of Jet Desolve might be enough to soften the glue and remove the pieces intact . Don't use acetone it might attack the plastic .

142 was a very different Tiger, if you're interested. Check out their specific details on my 501 Tigers pages.

David

I have never heard of Jet Desolve. Because of the unique mounting of these resin pieces and their size, I drilled a small hole into the side of the body and then glued the pieces in because there was no way I was going to be able to sand them and keep my sanity.

David, I'll look more into 142. I may just have keep up with the build and see where the road takes me.