OK, I am learning how to post photo's but I am not there yet. There is a picture of Otto Carius Tiger 1 that raises some questions for me. The picture is from the summer of 44. The tank is under the trees and the view is of the left side and front of the tank. There are a group of infantry around the tank. The sunlight is filtering through the trees so determining a camo pattern is almost impossible. Some of the zimm is missing on the front of the hull by the driver.

1. It appears that the turret Zimm is the same size pattern as the hull zimm.
2.The left side fender skirts appear to be bent almost straight out, not down angled as they would normally be.
3.As hard as I look I cannot see any turret numbers. I have seen this picture with several contrast changes. Some said they see a 17 but I,m flagging that as shenanigans.

I am assuming this picture was taken shortly after his battle with the Stalin tanks when the press was taking some pictures. If so wouldn't this be a more accurate representation of the vehicle than the Dragon box art?
Tamiya has the wrong mantlet type and no zimm, Dragon has the correct mantlet but different size Zimm between the turret and the hull. Both have the white numbers that are missing from the photo. With Tamiya you could use add on Zimm and duplicate the front zimm damage and use the mantlet from the Dragon porsche tiger 1 mantlet. In the picture I was trying to verify the early track type but I am 50/50 on what I see.

This is where I really could use the rivet counters help.

Thanks

I found a slightly different angle of the same scene and you can easily see the German cross on the side of the hull and the white outline is quite noticeable. therefore any number on the turret side would be quite noticeable if it were in white.
A third view also indicated it was the early track.