While sludging through ebay today, I came upon a kit (Dragon I think), for a Sdkfz 181 Panzerkampfwagen VI (P) in 1/35th. The pictures were obviously makers made up examples, complete with markings & 3 colour cam scheme.
My question is, I thought all the Porsche chassis went for conversion to Ferdinand/Elephant SP guns (and this definitely looks like Ferdinand/Elephant running gear), yet this is obviously a gun tank complete with Tiger turret. Now I have seen a picture of this vehicle, which was built as a prototype for the Tiger contract (actually won by Henschel in the end), but surely there can't have been more than 1 or 2 at the most? Would a short run experimental vehicle be issued to the troops? I could see spares availability being a problem on unit. If it was, which unit & where would it be used?
Any answers anyone?

Amazingly, it was issued and used. It served as a command tank for one of the Ferdinand/Elefant units, so at least the Germans were thinking about commonality of spares.

Thanks for quick answer David. I could see how this use would make sense. Come to think of it there were cases of short run experimental vehicles being issed, eg Heuleshreuke (spelling!!!) "Grasshopper" series of demountable SPs (1 in IWM), & various othe "Waffen trager" projects, so it looks like literally anything that would run was used!

are there any pics avilable showing P-tigers in action?

Hi All,

IIRC, "it" being the key word. Apparently it was the single copy.

Kinda like the Bergtigers, onlt 2-3 ever made, but pretty popular amongst modelers.

I believe only one was ever used. I do not know in what capacity. Over on ML there were a dozen threads from allied builders what a bunch of malarkey it was for Dragon to put out another German tank where only 5 were built and 1 put to action, while allied modelers wait patiently for more allied vehicles.

The tank was used as a command vehicle by the 653rd Panzer Battalion, this is the vehicle in the DML kit. The only thing missing from the kit (AFAIK) is the Zimmerit although there was some discussion about the turret accurracy over on ML.
HTH
Pete

well the Porsche King Tiger and the Jagdtiger
have the same suspension am working
on both!!
Ron

Just for informational purposes there were at least 10 Tiger (p)'s produced for test purposes ,Each one was different from the other in some way or another ...Different stowage different track widths different turrets ,so there are some interesting options that can be modelled...There were actually 3 sent to the 503rd for training ,but they never saw action, three others were turned into recovery vehcles for the 653rd and there was even a ram tiger project that was concidered..
If anyone is really interested in this vehicle, the Panzer tract book is very interesting ..Panzerkampfwagen VI P (Sd.Kfz.181) The History of Porsche Typ 100 and 101 also known as the Leopard and Tiger (p) by Thomas L.Jentz and Hilary L. Doyle Well worth the $19.95 price tag.
The rest of this series is great too by the way.

Rick