Hello.

Having a look through my stash today,I was comparing the kit side skirts of a Dragon Tiger 1 (late) with the PE set I have which I intend to use on the kit when I finally get round to building it.

What struck me is how thick the kit plastic part is. It is also moulded in one long strip whereas the real side skirts were four separate panels,often being misaligned or dented due to the natural wear and tear they were designed to endure.the plastic kit parts just look too pristine and perfect to accurately represent side skirts!

My question is this: does anyone know how thick the original 1:1 Tiger 1 (late) side skirts were? Would thin PE ones look too thin?
I've searched but so far found nothing indicating the thickness of the original side skirt.

Thanks in advance!

They were, as far as I know, just sheet metal. Designed to stop mud and dust, not projectiles.

Given that, 5mm is likely to be too thick for them and as 5mm is roughly 5 thou in 1/35, they would have been pretty thin. The etch parts are likely to be closer to scale as moulding very thin plastic is difficult to do without a high failure rate.

Still, David Byrden is the subject matter expert on Tiger E so maybe he knows.

The references I've seen suggest the Tiger I's skirts were 5mm thick sheet metal.

Just a bit of related info: the skirts you see on the Tiger IIs and later, the Panthers and Hetzers -- were developed to counter Soviet AT Rifle bullets -- just like the schurzen and thoma plates of Mk III and Mk IV tanks and variants like the Sturmgeschutzen. The hull wall above the wheels was a weak spot that could be penetrated by AT rifle rounds. The skirt or shurzen plate would cause the bullet to tumble and shatter on the armor plate.

The side skirts were about 4mm-5mm thick.

I'm curious as to the "about" . . . Wouldn't they have been a standard sheet thickness and known with certainty, or were they a custom but as yet unknown thickness?

KL

I haven't measured them exactly, that's all.

David

Thanks so much for the info everyone. Much appreciated!

On a side note,I've noticed that some side skirts are bolted straight onto the sides of the tank while others are bolted onto raised blocks corresponding to the positions of the bolts, was this due to zimmerit being applied on some tanks?

If you're talking about Tiger tanks, I don't think that ever happened. Please refer me to the photos that you saw.

David

Look at this site: http://tiger1.info/EN/Side-skirts.html
It should tell you what you need to know.