I decided to toss this together. It only has three sprues so it should go together in a flash.

Doing this while the paint cures on the Panzer and Tiger.

May as well build another while I wait. Lol. Call me crazy.

This is Tamiya's 35065. I know some people have said this kit has issues, it doesn't bother me any.

This is OOB no PE.

Cheers,
Dustin

I cut this piece of sprue off and this piece of flat part. I can glue it in behind the notch and then fill it with putty. Thoughts?

Lol, I know what you mean.. I look at all of these abbreviations on all of this German equipment and I'm like... Ok why does are there 20 different numbers/abbreviations.. And what does it mean! Lol

I definitely need to build my library. On that note, I received Tigers in the Mud, today.

Cheers,
Dustin

I built this kit back in 1984... Or something.... Anyway, I thought it was wonderful, and better than anything else I could find at the stores. Looked like a Panther, went together nicely and looked sweet all painted up. I had no idea it would ever be considered a dog. Is the Tamiya Tiger if the same vintage considered a dog, too?

Gary

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I cut this piece of sprue off and this piece of flat part. I can glue it in behind the notch and then fill it with putty. Thoughts?

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That will work fine. Sheet plastic can be bought at your LHS or online. Evergreen is a popular brand and comes in many sized and shapes including tubes, rods and strips. Great for scratch building and adding some details. Don't really know what size off hand just kind of eyeball it.

As for your title Panther Sd.kfz. 171 A. Panther is the unofficial name of this particular tank. Sd.Kfz. 171A is the official German Army designation. It is the abbreviation for SonderKraftZug meaning special purpose vehicle. Oddly enough for the Panther the A does not denote the first in the series but the second. The first was the Panther D. The reason escapes me. The A was followed by the G which was further differentiated by the early and late. Once you begin to build your reference library you'll become more familiar with these things so not to worry. I had absolutely no clue about any of this when I started building.

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I built this kit back in 1984... Or something.... Anyway, I thought it was wonderful, and better than anything else I could find at the stores. Looked like a Panther, went together nicely and looked sweet all painted up. I had no idea it would ever be considered a dog. Is the Tamiya Tiger if the same vintage considered a dog, too?

Gary

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Yes, the original Tamiya Tiger was way off by today's standards, but it was the best we had, and many amazing models were built using both kits.

Tamiya's Panther Ausf. A turret is simply the wrong shape (far too wide in front). To do an accurate Panther back in the seventies, you mated the Tamiya Panther A hull with the turret from Nichimo's Panther G, with a slab of .060" styrene glued to the front to correct the length, and the "chin" style mantlet backdated to the round type. The middle set of road wheels was molded as one fat wheel on the Tamiya chassis, and you could try to modify the Nichimo wheels, or just live with it. In the eighties, the first Model Kasten (non-workable) styrene tracks became available, which was a huge improvement.

Tamiya's old Tiger had a too-long barrel, a cupola with no vision slits, a symmetrical turret shell (the real one bulges out on one side), and again, the inner set of wheels was depicted as one fat wheel instead of a pair. And both kits featured vinyl tracks with no hinge detail on the inner face (although the motorized boxings featured black rubber tracks that looked more like fan belts than tank tracks--they worked for a while, but over time, the rubber would dry out and crumble, and of course, they couldn't be painted).

Eventually, Tamiya, Gunze Sangyo, Italeri and other makers jumped in with better offerings, but it took a remarkably long time to get these two tanks right.

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I cut this piece of sprue off and this piece of flat part. I can glue it in behind the notch and then fill it with putty. Thoughts?

---

That will work fine. Sheet plastic can be bought at your LHS or online. Evergreen is a popular brand and comes in many sized and shapes including tubes, rods and strips. Great for scratch building and adding some details. Don't really know what size off hand just kind of eyeball it.

As for your title Panther Sd.kfz. 171 A. Panther is the unofficial name of this particular tank. Sd.Kfz. 171A is the official German Army designation. It is the abbreviation for SonderKraftZug meaning special purpose vehicle. Oddly enough for the Panther the A does not denote the first in the series but the second. The first was the Panther D. The reason escapes me. The A was followed by the G which was further differentiated by the early and late. Once you begin to build your reference library you'll become more familiar with these things so not to worry. I had absolutely no clue about any of this when I started building.

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Sonder Kraftfahrzeug = Sd.Kfz. = Special Motor Vehicle...

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I built this kit back in 1984... Or something.... Anyway, I thought it was wonderful, and better than anything else I could find at the stores. Looked like a Panther, went together nicely and looked sweet all painted up. I had no idea it would ever be considered a dog. Is the Tamiya Tiger if the same vintage considered a dog, too?

Gary

---

Yes, the original Tamiya Tiger was way off by today's standards, but it was the best we had, and many amazing models were built using both kits.

Tamiya's Panther Ausf. A turret is simply the wrong shape (far too wide in front). To do an accurate Panther back in the seventies, you mated the Tamiya Panther A hull with the turret from Nichimo's Panther G, with a slab of .060" styrene glued to the front to correct the length, and the "chin" style mantlet backdated to the round type. The middle set of road wheels was molded as one fat wheel on the Tamiya chassis, and you could try to modify the Nichimo wheels, or just live with it. In the eighties, the first Model Kasten (non-workable) styrene tracks became available, which was a huge improvement.

Tamiya's old Tiger had a too-long barrel, a cupola with no vision slits, a symmetrical turret shell (the real one bulges out on one side), and again, the inner set of wheels was depicted as one fat wheel instead of a pair. And both kits featured vinyl tracks with no hinge detail on the inner face (although the motorized boxings featured black rubber tracks that looked more like fan belts than tank tracks--they worked for a while, but over time, the rubber would dry out and crumble, and of course, they couldn't be painted).

Eventually, Tamiya, Gunze Sangyo, Italeri and other makers jumped in with better offerings, but it took a remarkably long time to get these two tanks right.

---

Gerald,
Thank you for your answer. I've only been back into the hobby for over a year and am currently building planes. I used to consider myself pretty knowledgeable about WWII armor...but I never knew the Tiger turret was asymetricle. I'm gonna guess that all of those Stugs, Shermans, PzKwIV's, and Pattons I got from Monogram back then were all wrong?

Thanks,

Gary