Small Scale Military Headquarters

Hello all, I'm new to the board but have been lurking for awhile. This forum is great, the knowledge you guys have is amazing! Anytime I have a question I've been able to find a thread that helps or a link. Glad to be here. I'm fairly new to the collecting world, been collecting 1/72 scale WWII figures for about 4 years and just got into WWII 1/72 armor about 2 years ago. Anyway, I do have a question about the new Dragon King Tigers with zimmerit, I've noticed they don't have any tow cables, shovels, etc., on the hull. Most of the KTs I've seen in photos, etc, had the cables, even with the zimmerit. Is this an oversight by Dragon or did these particular tigers not have the cables? One is tank 214 from sPzAbt 506 and tank 111 from the 101. Any insight would be appreciated, and if this is a dumb question, I apologize, again I'm still a little new at this.

easy8

Welcome Easy8!!!
I will try to answer your question to the best of my ability..
Many King Tigers were rushed to the battlefront without the "extras".. I am not sure about how barren these two KTs appear to be, other than it would be interesting to see what the Dragon KT kit looks like and to see if it has the accessories included.. It may very well be an oversight, much like the lack of the spare track links on the turrets of the late TigerIs issued about 6 months ago.. The kits didn't have the tracklinks either..

Thanks for the welcome hworth, from what I can see on the pics of the new KTs they have absolutley nothing on the hull sides...and I wasn't aware that the late tiger 1s were supposed to have track links on the turrent...thanks for the info, I still have a lot to learn about German armor! I wonder why they would put them on the mid production models and not the late ones? Makes you wonder about their "research" department.

easy8

I don;t think that the Zimmeritt coating has anything to do with what tools, cables, etc. are placed on the tank - the CyberHobby King Tiger 'Hungary' has Zimmeritt' paste and has cables and tow-hooks, etc.

That's good to know smh_1021, I hadn't really looked at the White Tiger closely, I was just curious as to why Dragon left off the cables, etc., on their newest zimmerit KT tanks (PzAbt 506 and PzAbt 101). I guess I'm wondering if these are accurate representations of some KTs with zim that didn't have the cables or if Dragon just didn't put them on. Most of the actual combat pics I've seen of KTs with zim had the cables on them.

easy8

I have a book called 'Tigers in Combat' and briefly flipping through the pages found a number of King Tiger pictures during various stages of the war. I found a number of pictures of the King Tiger (with Zimmeritt paste) that are fully equipped with track links on the turret, tow cables, etc.

I also found a few other pictures where there were track links on the turret with no tow cables, tools, etc. (and vice versa) and some where there was no equippage whatsoever.

So, I have to say that I think Dragon is simply offering a different version of the tank. Just my opinion.

Hope this helps.

The only thing that would have made me feel a lil' better about the two (2) versions just offered is if the tanks had the 'hooks' or 'mount-points'
with no equipped mounted. The pictures I saw seemed to simply have empty mount-points - of course, putting such small mount-points on the model may have been a 'pain' as a modification because, on the models where there is equippage, they are simply glued on the model, not hooked on anything.

Just another opinion.

Thanks smh, that clears up my question for me. My research was only limited to some websites and all the pics had the zim KTs with cables. I agree having the mount points would help for accuracy, but not for ease of production on Dragon's end. Not a big deal to me, just saw the difference and it peaked my curiosity...thanks again for the info, and maybe I'll pick up the book you mentioned, I see that used in a lot of posts as a reference for German armor buffs. Thanks for helping a newbie!


easy8

It is an awesome book - most definitely, get it.
Breaks down into each Panzer battalion.