Hi everyone,

Does anyone know when steel wheels were introduced on the Tiger I (E)?

Reason I want to know is; I have a 1:18 scale Tiger E in panzer grey colour.
I want to paint it in a more interesting camouflage scheme with dark yellow as a base, but I don't want to to apply zimmerit and still be historically accurate.
So, a setting in Kursk, July '43 would work, I think.
Here is a link to the page with a great paint scheme.

http://www.alanhamby.com/paint.html

However, if you go to my gallery you'll see my Tiger and notice that it has steel wheels, while the one depicted on that page has rubber rimmed wheels.
So, can I do that paint scheme with steel wheels and still be correct?

Hope to hear from you ! Thanks in advance

Frans

Joker,
Hate to tell you but if you want to be historically accurate you're stuck with the zimmerit. The steel wheels were introduced in Feb. '44, zim was applied from Aug. '43 through Sept. '44, so all late Tiger I's had zim.

Mike

edit: I forgot, to be historically correct your steel wheel Tiger I should be painted in a base of dark yellow and then you could use red brown and green over that for your camo pattern.

Hi Mike !

Thank you so much for the info. I was wondering about the wheels and colour myself...
The 1:18 model I have is pretty well detailed. the more I read about the Aus. E, the more I see that Motorworks/21st Century has done a good job!
However,as I feared according to your information, the paint department screwed up in a big way by producing a panzer grey instead of a dark yellow.
Cause, if the panzer colour changed to dark yellow in '43 and the steel wheels came out in Feb .'44 the Tiger can not be gray ofcourse.
Well, now I know for sure that I have to paint and zimmerit the thing for sure.
Thanks Mike !

Frans