Hello, everyone.
Please, oh, puhleeease tell me that the Wermacht din’t get around to applying nasty, disfiguring, hard-to-apply, infuriatingly tedious (for modellers, anyway) ZIMMERIT [banghead] to the King Tiger before it went into action!
With best regards to all.
Steve Mack
Well Battle of the bulge was in December 1944 and zimmerit was discontinued from September 9th 1944 so there were a lot of Kingtigers in BOB that didn’t have zimmerit.
One of the most famous Kingtigers of BOB turret number 222 from s.SS.Pz.Abt didn’t have zimmerit. It was a November production.
Here are som pics of my rendition of it.
Here are some BOB camo patterns that you might be interested in. Unit histories are quite specific and available on the internet.
Regards,
Steve
No zimmerit on late king tigers , I believe the only ones to have it at this point were the Porsche versions .
If you did a model( henschell ) without you would not be incorrect ,we’ll put it that way .
Good info to know. I just got one of these from Hobby Lobby with a 40% coupon (just under $20 after discount). It looks like a really nice kit.
If you mean late King Tigers after the BOB, Oct '44 production,that is right. But, there are well publicized film and photo evidence that show SOME Henschel Tigers prior to and during the BOB with zimmerit. Also, no Porsche Tigers involved in this offensive FYI.
Steve
Indeed, Foss’s Encyclopedia of Tanks and Armored Fighing Vehicles has a nice closeup of a zimmerit clad Tiger II that has the Henchel turret.
On September 6th 1944 s.Pz.Abt 506 recieves Tiger II hull number 280215 from the factory, they recieve a further 12 the following day another 6 the next day, 3 on September 6th and 1 on September 12th. If we assume that all these had consecutive hull numbers that would be hull number 280237 for the last one and this would probably have been one of the last Kingtigers with zimmerit. The last of the so-called “Porsche” turrets to leave the factory was hull number 280047 so thats roughly about 190 Kingtigers with Henschel turrets and zimmerit ( this is not an exact number just a rough estimate )
I decided to do the tank without the zimmerit.[:D] Thanks to all who replied… I’ll try the stuff on another model.[banghead]
With best regards
Steve Mack