1/18 King Tiger Re Vamp In Progress

[Vonberne]

I am in for one Henschel King Tiger.

[pickelhaube]

Real world comes first. Congratulations on the job!

Thanks !!

Boy we needed this job.

Most of the time the guys bitch about working over time.

To a man each are ready , willing and able to work the over time .

Things around here are slow real slow . If the guys wanted to quit they would have done so already.

The thing is NONE of the other granite companies are hiring. JUST NOT ENOUGH WORK OUT THERE.

La Place is a town just west of New Orleans and they suffered greatly from Issac .

That work is trickling in SLOWLY .

But the majority of that work is going to cheap Chinese granite and their installers.

So I am still chomping at the to start the K-2 but the starting date is on hold. AGAIN.

This sucks but you guys have been waiting for a few years now to get your hands on the K-2 .

Hopefully a couple more weeks will not kill you all.

[norman888]

Not to detract about the KT but.......
How is the FW190A mod going----did I miss something??

[pickelhaube]

Not to detract about the KT but.......
How is the FW190A mod going----did I miss something??

At this time the going has not started .

[normandy]

At the Pickelwerks.........

[pickelhaube]

At the Pickelwerks.........

What a cool looking pic.

I have not seen that one before.

Makes me wish to be in that factory checking things out .

Of course I would have to turn a blind eye to the unfortunate forced slave labor and bombs dropping on my head.

[maritime96]

Do any of the Uber Historians in our ranks have any idea how long it took to put one of those tanks together? I know from my reading how low German production numbers were on tanks and vehicles, due to how complicated they were - but from that photo it looks like they were almost hand building these things one part at a time. For a prototype I could understand, but not very efficent for a "standardized" vehicle.

[normandy]

I don't have an answer to production time per tank......I never thought of it.
I found some production #'s per year: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_arm ... rld_War_II

.....and some more Pickelwerks pics.....

[maritime96]

Thanks for the Link Normandy, now just looking at the production numbers for the Tiger II they say that in 1944 the Germans were able to build 428 of them. So lets say they only worked a 5 day work week ( I know that is probably wrong but I don't know otherwise, and Im sure it could average out with bombings, work stops, etc.) - so a 5 day week would give you 260 days in the year to work 428 tanks divided by 260 days comes out to them building approx 1.646 tanks per day. When you consider that in 1942-1943 the US made 53,500 (approx.) Shermans, you can really see how we just destroyed the Germans with mass production.

[[CAT]CplSlade]

Hitler's obsession with demonstrating the might and superiority of the German war machine wouldn't allow him to make the necessary adjustments to actually winning the war. Pumping out relatively cheap and simple tanks in massive amounts didn't sit well with his vision of fear-inducing death machines that were visual proof of Aryan supremacy.

We should be happy he slipped into delusion I have the feeling our hobby might not have existed under the eyes of the Third Reich. Who would dare build a model of an inferior machine built by the sub-human races?

[HardenSteel]

I'm in!

HD

[Mad Sam]

I found some info on Tiger II production;

Allied bombing caused the loss in production of at least 657 Tiger II = 940 planned v 283 produced from September '44 until March '45 when the Henschel factory was overrun.

The highest monthly total produced was 94 in August '44 which dropped following a series of bombing raids in September - with 63 vehicles produced, dropping to only 26 in each of October and November.

The total time to complete each Tiger was estimated as 14 days, and there were usually 18 - 22 tanks in the hull assembly shop and 10 on the final assembly line at any one time.

[maritime96]

Thanks for chiming in Mad Sam, great research to get the numbers. 14 days to build a Tiger II tank that is a dam long time to build a vehicle that could possibly be blown to bits in it's first few minutes of combat if you ask me. I still find it ironic that the Germans were working on some of the most state of the art technology in the world at the time, but still failed to get their heads around fast built mass produced tanks to help win the war. Tens of thousands of simple good tanks worked a lot better than a few hundred monster tanks, missles or stealth jets.

[[CAT]CplSlade]

Mostly Hitler's fault. He kept meddling in everything as if he somehow knew better than the professional engineers.

Insisting the ME-262 be a bomber, for example.

[maritime96]

I had read that about the ME 262, that Hitler insisted that it have bombs slung underneath it. I had also read someplace that there reached a point in the war where the Allies stopped trying to assassinate Hitler, becasue his decisions and orders were helping us too much. LOL

[pickelhaube]

I had read that about the ME 262, that Hitler insisted that it have bombs slung underneath it. I had also read someplace that there reached a point in the war where the Allies stopped trying to assassinate Hitler, becasue his decisions and orders were helping us too much. LOL

That was kind of the plot for the second Dirty Dozen .

They were supposed to assassinate Hitler but the higher highers had the team waive off the assassination because he was winning the war for the allies.

I think it could have been a made for TV movie.

Maybe based on real events.

[norman888]

Insisting the ME-262 be a bomber, for example.

Somewhere I recall reading a real good assessment of the Me262 and Hitler's so-called meddling. The main problem with the 262 was it engines that only lasted 10-25 hours instead of the 200-250 they were supposed to--mainly because of low supplies of chromium, titanium, etc. This was not Hitler's fault. Also at the time that Hitler wanted the 262 for offensive purposes (mid 1943), the jet was not needed to fight the daylight bomber streams.
They were already getting hammered by the Luftwaffe's piston-engine fighters. During the same time period the Luftwaffe bomber units were in decline and suffering heavy losses over England/Russia. It probably made sense to utilize the 262 as a bomber at that time.
Its funny, I'm not trying to defend any of Hitlers decisions in the least, but I beleive postwar that many bad decisions were blamed on him by his staff/Generals. We could also talk about how Hitler wanted the PzIII to be armed with a 50mm instead of 37mm gun from the beginning, but that is a whole other topic.

[normandy]

Can't wait for this Tiger Pickel.....oh and just some more pics.

[pickelhaube]

All right guys some good news and some not so good news !!

The good news.

I will finish my big downtown saloon job this next Friday.

I need to finish on this date or I will have to pay $100 each day until I finish.

No problems I will reach the dead line.

NEXT WEEKEND I will finish with the Hortens 100% I hope.

In the meantime I have had some of the parts made for the project ala 3 D printing !

Running parts and so on.

They look great !!!

Now I need to gather up mass quantities of RTV to start casting parts.

I am hoping that I can use about $750 of RTV for this project.

I have ordered a 5 gal unit of the RTV. ( actual it is 10 gallons part A and B )

So the not so good news.

I need $750 to pay for the RTV.

Some of you guys have chipped in already. Thanks Zelda and Maritime 96 !!!

If some of you can anti up , this project will get started before Christmas !!!!

Is it possible for you guys to pay $50 deposit for each of your Tigers ?

If so you guys will have a hands on , on starting this project !!!

Please PM me for my payapal address.

[normandy]

You got incoming........

[Heer]

Thanks for chiming in Mad Sam, great research to get the numbers. 14 days to build a Tiger II tank that is a dam long time to build a vehicle that could possibly be blown to bits in it's first few minutes of combat if you ask me. I still find it ironic that the Germans were working on some of the most state of the art technology in the world at the time, but still failed to get their heads around fast built mass produced tanks to help win the war. Tens of thousands of simple good tanks worked a lot better than a few hundred monster tanks, missles or stealth jets.

The germans had no choice. They had to pick quality over quantity. If they used low quality but numerous tanks, they would have lost the war even faster.

[pickelhaube]

With 30 potential K2's there does not seem to be any interest as far as the deposits go.

Only 4 guys have committed to this project.

I would like to start next week and as stated before I need to come up with $750 for the RTV to get the ball rolling.

It is now up to you guys to see if this project comes to life.

Thank you to those who have committed with your deposits.

Matthew

[pickelhaube]

It seems that the interest in this project is not there .

Maybe close to Christmas ?

Anyway this is my last request for deposits.

I would like to have the $750 for the RTV by Friday .

It is now up to you all if this project continues..

I have already invested in some 3-D parts .

Hopefully I can have something to show this weekend or Monday.


If there is no more interest , I will reimburse you guys who have paid in full and have secured your deposits.

Thanks to you that have contributed so far to this project

[Warbird Kid]

Matt,

Sorry for not "throwing my hat" into this project. Not a big armor guy myself but I appreciate you spanning your talents into practically everything that's been made in 1/18th scale.


PS. Check your PM's Matt!

[norman888]

Pickel check PM