Help me out guys…is this a Porsche or Henschel Type Turrent on the cyber-hobby kit?
http://www.dragonusaonline.com/item_detail.aspx?ItemCode=CHC6349
thnx
It is the early turret, designed by Porsche , manufactured by Henchel. The Later Henschel turret entered production after these 50 “early” units were fitted. This kit is sitting in my local LHS by the way. Hobbyland in Ft. Wayne Indiana.
Steve
I have the kit and wanted to get some aftermarket zimm for it…I was surprised the turret type wasn’t listed on the box or something cause all the other Dragon Kings say “Posche Type” or “Henschel Type”.
That is not correct. The turrets for both versions were designed and build by Krupp.
The reason that the first 50 were fitted with the turret designed for the Porsche prototype was that the decission to go for the Henschel design was taken so late that 50 turrets for the Porsche version had already been build, instead of scrapping them they were used on the first Henschel chassis’.
Thanks for the correction.
regards,
Steve
Here’s how you can tell:
On the Porsche turret the cupola protrudes from the side armor, on a Henschel turret it does not.
A Porsche turret has curved front armor, a Henschel’s is flat.
The Porsche turret has a curved mantlet, while the Henschel turret’s mantlet doesn’t curve but rather tapers into the barrel.
Porsche:
Henschel:
The main deficiency of the Porsche turret was that the curved frontal armor and curved mantlet created a shot trap, meaning that any hits to the lower half of the frontal armor or mantlet would deflect downwards through the hull - not an overly desirable effect! The Porsche turret did have slightly better side deflection because its armor had a greater slope, but it wasn’t enough of an advantage to counter the poor mantlet design.
Hermesminiatures,
Thanks for the breakdown…that curved front armor is a dead givaway!
In Death Traps, Belton Cooper related an incident during the Battle of the Bulge in which a US self propelled gun, 105 or 155, blundered into a Tiger II on a road. Not having anything better to do, the US crew fired a shot into the German tank, and much to their surprise, the manlet shot trap allowed the high explosive round to knock out the tank. Panthers had a similar problem than was not corrected until the late G model introduced a mantlet that was vertical on the lower face.
Thats funny, because all Tiger II’s in the battle of the bulge were “Henschel” versions so they didn’t have the shot trap.
Another deficiency of the Porsche turret was that the protruding commanders cuppola produced a weak spot in the side of the turret; a good shot to the left side of the turret would crack the armor.
I quoted the book from memory, so perhaps I got the battle wrong. Or possibly a Panther was mistaken for a Tiger II, either at the scene or during a subsequent retelling.