Small Scale Military Headquarters

Have 2 of the FoV Late Tiger Is with the molded-in zimmerit that I found at Target.
Completely repainted 1 of them to look like Willie Fey's colorful Tiger 134, of ssPzAbt 102 in Normandy, using the decals from the Dragon/DML 1/72nd Late Tiger I model kit that I finally started building.

Anyway, I got to the point in the construction of the Dragon Late Tiger kit and discovered that it is pretty much an EXACT match in size with the FoV Tigers.

Very good news for those of us mixing the various 1/72nd Tigers from wherever we can source them.

And FWIW, the FoV Late Tiger turret roof is correct for a "final" production Late Tiger, and considering the medium, the detail is excellent. And for 1/3rd to 1/2 the cost of that fiddly-building Dragon kit!

Sure wish FoV would expand the range of Tiger I offerings to the other variants, like the Initial, Early, and Mid-production!

My hat's off to Unimax and their FoV 1/72nd lineup.

But I also seen the FoV 1/72nd M113 ACAV in Desert Sand cammo at Target - folks, it is OUTSTANDING! Has a crewman in the turret behind the .50 and a score of stowage to add. Very nice for you modern armor fans!

Below is a picture comparing a 1/72 Dragon Armor Tiger tank and Forces of Valor Tiger tank.

I suspect i have posted this before but I actually prefer the FOV Tiger to the Dragon ones.

The 2 ranges definately complement each other well and I have to admit to even quite liking the FOV 1-72 figures and crew.

I prefer the FOV vehicles in my meager 1:72 armor collection as well - having one of each that's been made thus far. What really sells me on the FOV vehicles in the inclusion of a commander in the hatch (or a crew in the case of the M3 Halftrack), the moving treads, plus the accessories with some of the tanks.

I have only one Dragon tank (a Panther G in the Normandy scheme) and on that I popped the hatch off, reglued it in the open position and put a in a commander figure - made from an FOV 1:72 German soldier

Tshintl wrote:Below is a picture comparing a 1/72 Dragon Armor Tiger tank and Forces of Valor Tiger tank.

Thanks for those pix! Speaks volumes as to the comparison.

And on that subject, notice the FoV Late Tiger has the expected spare links on the turret sides - they are not even included in the Dragon Late Tiger kit.

Luckily I have a Revell Early Tiger I kit that I can steal them from (because the Revell Early Tiger kit builds OOTB into an Early "African" Tiger that did not have links on the turret.), else I had to scratch build at least the empty track hangers.

All in all, Unimax has done a terrific job for the price point!

nfafan wrote:

Tshintl wrote:Below is a picture comparing a 1/72 Dragon Armor Tiger tank and Forces of Valor Tiger tank.

Thanks for those pix! Speaks volumes as to the comparison.

And on that subject, notice the FoV Late Tiger has the expected spare links on the turret sides - they are not even included in the Dragon Late Tiger kit.

Luckily I have a Revell Early Tiger I kit that I can steal them from (because the Revell Early Tiger kit builds OOTB into an Early "African" Tiger that did not have links on the turret.), else I had to scratch build at least the empty track hangers.

All in all, Unimax has done a terrific job for the price point!

Dragon' s Micro-tech Tiger have spare links , some more details and even a commander figure which makes it the best 1/72 Tiger to me . I got one for 19$ from Ebay and that isn't much more than for a regular 1/72 piece

I noticed Dragon left turret spare track links off all their zimmerit vehicles - Tigers, King Tigers, and Jagdtigers. Makes them look quite a bit worse and easy to pass on imo. The big jagds look especially bad as they often had a huge portion of their sides covered with spare tracks!

EnemyAce wrote:I noticed Dragon left turret spare track links off all their zimmerit vehicles - Tigers, King Tigers, and Jagdtigers. Makes them look quite a bit worse and easy to pass on imo. The big jagds look especially bad as they often had a huge portion of their sides covered with spare tracks!

True! What I ended up doing, was stealing the spare links from the little Revell Early Tiger I, along with the track-changing cable on the hull side - which Dragon left out. Used the Revell tow cables too, as Dragon's were a gimmick with the half-wire, half-plastic afair.

Ended up "cosmetically" building the Revell Tiger I as an Initial Tiger sent to Leningrad area; all gray and no turret storage bin, no spare tracks, no track cable, and no tow cables. It's passable.

As for my K-Tigers and J-Tigers; I have FoV's "Porsche" turret KT with the zimm texture, along with an ESCI/Italeri "Henschel" turret KT and ESCI/Italeri J-Tiger. Look OK together.

tmanthegreat wrote:I prefer the FOV vehicles in my meager 1:72 armor collection as well

I have to agree. I am currently looking at a Dragon M4A1 and comparing it to the detail on my FOV Sherman and, for my money, there is no comparison. FOV is every bit as good as Dragon ( perhaps better, IMHO) and, when purchased through Target, only slightly more than half the price. Not that I mean to fault Dragon ( I own quite a few!), only that, at the price, one would expect a substantially better model than that produced by FOV.