After becoming quite frustrated with the PE ice cleat tie downs on my T-34/85, I decided to take a break and finish this model. It’s built from Dragon kit 6254, with metal gun barrel and PE intake covers. Also added LionRoar’s skirt armor set and wired the Notek light. It’s painted with Tamiya acrylics, basecoated with primer color and camouflaged with Dark Yellow and JA Green using silly putty for masking. Weathering is mainly pigments and airbrush fading with a little dry-brushing.
Not exactly a show-quality build but I’m happy with it.[;)]
Great job. My personal preference is for a lighter dunkelgelb, but that’s a matter of taste. This is one fine looking beast. That last picture feels like you’re looking at a fort, not a piece of machinery.
Very nice looking build. Your weathering is quite convinsing. My only observations are you should have added more dots for the “Ambush” scheme, and some bare metal on the drive sprocket. It is nice to see the wire for the headlight as many modellers just leave it off. All in all it is a nice build.
Overall I like it alot. Nice camo and good weathering. As for the obseration about the dots, I thought the same thing, but my refs show many different versions of the ambush scheme, some calling for minimal and others for lots of dots. Some even only have one color of dots. So it’s your call. One observation, are those kit tracks? For indies, they shoud be laying on the wheels. In the pics they are lifted. Could be an easy fix.
Thanks for the compliments everyone, As far as the tracks go this is one of the last 13 Tigers made, a vehicle of sSSPzAbt 502. I figured that less than two weeks from the factory to being destroyed by Russian armor wouldn’t give a whole lot of time for the tracks to loose tension, especailly since there wouldn’t have been a whole lot of moving around in urban combat.
espins1 - the dust is cheap Mungyo pastels I got at Hobby Lobby and mixed to the right color, and in areas where there would be lots of accumulation I airbrush acetone before applying the dust. I think it works better that way than MIG’s "official’ method of turpentine over powder effects since I find that messes up the effect too much. I also primed with a fairly coarse enamel to get lots of “tooth”, making dry pastel effects stick a lot better.
Nice job on the weathering and finish. The radio aerial sticks out at me though, it seems out of place amongst the rest of the vehicle’s appearance…is it unpainted wire?
As far as the tracks go, I understand your logic but don’t agree with how you’ve applied it, at least as a defense of “realism” on your chosen appearance. The “dead” track system of the Tiger II and reference photos show that the tracks rested on the tops of the roadwheels starting from about the 2nd set of wheels back from the sprocket all the way back to the idler since there weren’t any return rollers. Those tracks were heavy steel and gravity is a relentless creature. Ordinarily it’s not an issue due to the fenders hiding this but since you’ve removed one, it’s there to be seen. It’s not meant as a criticism, only a comment on the reality dimension, as ultimately it’s your build and if you’re happy with how it turned out, that’s great.
The tank is awsome! One suggestion… or question haha Why the Turquoise backdrop? To its playing tricks on my eyes haha… I think if you were to re-shoot it with white as a background the tank would look diff.
I will fix the tracks then, they seem to come off the third road wheel when in motion and the second when stopped. Didn’t realize until too late that the idler was not keyed for a reason…
Will paint the antenna too, although I read that some of the last batch of Tigers didn’t even have radio gear installed. When the Russians are at the factory door, being able to communicate with insane leaders comfortably sequestered in a bunker somewhere obviously wasn’t a priority…[;)]
Looks like a decent build. If you are interested in historical accuracy, which I believe you are, stating that you are depicting a very late produced Tiger B, I would suggest that you add a few features that this kit doesn’t have. The most obvious one is the rainguard over the gunners sight aperature…(inverted “U” shaped guard). This was a feature of Tiger II’s after January '45 production. Also, if it is one of the VERY last as you say, it should have the 18 tooth sprockets. In March 1945 a new single link track adn sprocket were produced. There is also a very strong argument that the AA ring was deleted from the cupola on these final KT’s as well.
Jentz and Doyle don’t mention any 502nd KT’s in Berlin. For my own information, I would appreciate it if you could relate your source on the unit defending Berlin, I would be very interested in learning about it. The unit operational history states that the first engagement was at Sachsendorf on 22 March, and by 27 April, only 5 operational tanks were left.
First I’d like to say that you have produced one fine model here. I like your ambush camo very much, the size of the dots looks right and there are not too many which you often see on a model.
But when commenting on model where the builder say it represents a particular vehicle produced at specific date, I also have to comment on accuracy, you take this info and use it if you want to either on this model or a future, these comments are not meant as critisism but as help.
Tigers II’s produced after November 1944 didn’t have a jack and the mounting for it was also droped, the mounting for the jack block was retained for a while but then droped as well.
At the same time a new cast mantlet was introduced.
The number of fuel vent lines on the rear deck was increased to 4 where it only had 1 before.
If you have pictures of the vehicle that shows it without these features I would be happy to eat my words, and very interested in seeing those pics.
I have read online from two different sites (one is http://ipmsstockholm.org/magazine/2004/05/stuff_eng_canfora_tiger_ii.htm, a similar model, 502nd Tiger in Berlin, and the other is http://www.wargamer.com/Hosted/Panzer/ktiger3.html) that the 502nd lost its last five Tigers spearheading a breakout from a surrounded advance defense position about 15mi east of Berlin, followed by 100,000 troops/volkssturm/civillians in an attempt to make it to back to the “safety” of 12th Army and Berlin. The last two Tigers were destroyed fighting on the outskirts of Berlin on May 1. Also remember that this is SS 502nd not Wermacht 502nd. It was previously sSSPzAbt 102.
The single link tracks and 18-tooth sprockets were used on some Porsche turreted Tigers in Normandy. One Henschel Jagdtiger may have had them but the very late Tigers didn’t. Only february '45 Tigers seeed to have the single link track in great numbers. Of course it was more efficient not having to replace a cleat link and a connect link if one was damaged, but the singles never seemed to be used very much.
As far as fuel lines and gunner’s sight guard, I wasn’t really worrying about them…the guard must have been what the Dragon instructions were telling me to remove for a PzAbt 501 Tiger…[:-^]
Thanks for the info, I appreciate it. I have read the accounts of a couple of Tigers trying to lead a breakout, but the unit wasn’t specified. I appreciate the knowledge.
might want to adjust the color balance in the pics. the whole thing looks a bit too green, including the parts that i don’t think should be like the tracks.
