There was only one completed Tiger(P) saw combat (sPzAbt. 653) ever during WWII, served as a command tank on the Eastern Front in September 1942. This new kit features this tank accurately.
Features:
Newly tooled parts including the complete new turret, cannon, upper hull, fender and armor plates
Dust mesh photo-etched parts
High quality decals by Cartograf
With this new kit modellers can now build up the exact and only Tiger(P) ever on the battlefield.
it sounds good, i just hope its got the propper tracks[:D]
editits from Dragon
So you know which manufaturer is releasing this kit? Other than that, lookes like it could be a very interesting subject, even if the marking options are somewhat limited! Thanks for the info.
Oh good, another kit of a German vehicle of which one was used. Fully decked out and accurate. Even includes the beer stein that the commander used to leave on the turret deck sometimes.
Now, can we please have one accurate Sherman kit? Thank you.
And this ain’t even the first kit!
As mentioned above the Italeri kit’s been out for years!
Now there are TWO choices for a kit of a German vehicle of which one was used.
It’s all about market and demand I guess…rare/oddball/concept vehicles have that exotic look and feel to them I guess that draws people, kinda like asymmetrical aircraft or experimental concept platforms. When I’m looking to buy a kit, there’s always that factor at play, looking for things that are a little bit different or out of the ordinary as a fun build. That’s what landed me the Leopold ironically enough…
Period collectors for German armor have a strong level of buying potential because of the comparably greater variety of vehicles that the Germans used throughout the war vs. the US and Allied side. The Allies chose standardization and volume, the Germans chose variety/ad hoc/specialization and there you have it. Run down through the Sdkfz catalogue and it’s mindboggling how many variants of the different platforms there are out there…and not all of them have been made into kits so the market expansion of “new” releases is pretty powerful.
I understand you pain though Larry, there should be more representation on the Allied side for equipment and some makers, such as Academy, are offering more variety in this area with the Sherman chassis SP guns, Tank Destroyers, etc. As to their degree of accuracy at the heart of your complaint, I can’t comment beyond casual observance. [:D]
That may be, but that points up my original argument. They are more likely to buy a rare/oddbal/concept kit because it’s German vs. the same crowd on the Sherman side. Hence those kits get made even if they never saw action, or only one was made, or they were still on the drawing board at the end of the war…
As a side note, I have no idea who either Barkmann or Sgt. Pool are…[:D]
Thought your point was that German stuff got built because there was more of a variety in German vehicles than in Allied (not sure that’s true, actually).
You are a Texan and you’ve never heard of Lafayette Pool?!? [:0]
My take is that this is due to the capabilities of German tanks vs. that of the Sherman. There is also the perception, somewhat mistaken, that the vaunted German Blitzkrieg was due to the superiority of their tanks, which admittedly overlooks the fact that the Blitzkrieg victories were done mostly with Panzer II’s, III’s, and the Czech tanks. Between the early Blitzkrieg scaring the daylights out of people and the true superiority of the later Tigers, Panthers, and Tiger II’s, German armor takes on almost mythical proportions. Above and beyond all that, German tanks generally look the part of a really efficient AFVs, and thus are popular historical subjects.
In contrast, we had the Sherman. It was decent mechanical vehicle, albeit something of a hodge-pdge stopgap, but in 1942 it wasn’t too bad of a tank. Unfortunately, from 1943 on, it was getting to be increasingly outclassed on the battlefield, and by 1944-45 it was at a serious disadvantage. So I think a lot of Americans have a tendency to ignore it rather than admit that we had a second-class weapon.
My simplistic nutshell summary is that later writers ascribe German victories due to the superiority of their tanks while Allied victories were achieved in spite of the inferiority of our tanks. The irony, of course, is that with a weapon such as the Sherman, any useful exploits such as those performed by Pool, really should be trumpeted all the more loudly, because those successed are naturally balanced more in favor of the skill of the crew rather than simply having a better weapon.
