Hi guys.

I have the Tamiya 35-201 tank crew set in which one of the figures (a half figure) depicts an SS tank commander wearing dot 44 SS panzer wrap jacket.

BUT...it has a distinctive seam down the back, which I know should not be present on SS panzer wrap jackets.

However, while researching this, i found one single example where an HBT SS dot 44 wrap has a seam down the back.

I'm really confused now...would it be accurate at all to have an SS dot 44 wrap with a seam down the back?

Thanks so much!

Mike

Hi Mike,
I think you have answered your own question! If you have found an instance of the SS Camoflauged Panzer wrap with a back seam, it is not inaccurate to model it as such. I suspect your discovery was made in Steven's and Amodio's "Waffen SS in Colour Photographs". I would comment that most of the clothing and equipment in this source came from "Ulric of England", and as such there are certain suppositions as to provenance of some items, particularly the parachute clothing at the back. However, it is more than likely that the Panzer wrap we are concerned with was made privately. This was not by any means unknown at the time, elsewhere in the book is an example of the pea dot jacket with pleated patch pockets etc, which would also have been made up, possibly by a unit tailor to the officers specifications. I'd just go with it, I did with my example of this figure, which in my view is one of Tamiya's better offerings.

Thanks Steve.

I really appreciate the info. Yes, the particular Tamiya set 35-201 is very nicely detailed...and the specific commander half-figure is very valuable to me as I need an SS panzer commander figure!

The example of a camouflaged SS panzer wrap in HBT with the back seam was from a militaria discussion forum...the garment in question was,as you said, speculated to be privately commissioned by its owner using standard issue dot 44 HBT fabric.