Small Scale Military Headquarters

Gutting a 1/16 Heng Long RC Tiger that I paid $5 for. Too heavy with all the innards. Already removed the barrel, Dremeled out the hole and put in an aluminum barrel and muzzle brake since the barrel is not of accurate length on them. What I really like about these tanks is that they have the Fifel air filters. You can keep or remove them depending on which series of Tiger you want to build. Plan to paint in Dark Yellow and make it as a Tiger used by the Afrika Korp in Tunisia. One thing I don't like is that the tools, except for the shovel, are moded in. Will Dremel them off and add aftermarket tools and smoke dischargers.

Update.
For those not familiar with the HL Tiger, the gun mantle is reversed, in other words the side with the binocular sites is on the right side instead of the left. As can be seen in the photo, I have turned it around to be on the correct side. Easy enough. Well, not so fast Panzer breath. When its turned around correctly, it no longer comes close to fitting because of the molded in brackets and circuit boards in the turret. Since the RC didn't work anyway, I ground out all of the brackets and removed all of the innards of the turret. Well. that left nothing to attach the mantle to. So I drilled out those things that the whole gun rotated on in the real tank (anybody know what that thing is called) and inserted a screw to hold the gun and mantle in place. I'll cut a small piece of sprue and glue over the screwhead to make it look original. Lot of work just to turn the mantle around.

Nice work. It looks 100% better already with the correct gun tube length and the correct mantlet orientation.

If you're going for historical accuracy, you may want to replace the air filters with the earlier version. The feifel filters that came with the HL Tiger is the late simplified version.

Also you might want to rethink Dunkelgelb.

Check the web on the color of Africa's Tigers and if I remember some off-green came up with photos.

Those off-green-olivish photos were poorly done re-colored photos attributable to what was probably a misinterpretation of Dunkelgelb over Dunkelgrau, which resulted in something resembling olive to some people. I would stick with dunkelgelb.

One thing you might want to reconsider is the mantlet however, it is the wrong type for any of the tigers in Tunisia, even the late arriving replacements for the 1.kompanie s.pz.abt 504. you need one like this:




-Kevin

" those things that the whole gun rotated on in the real tank (anybody know what that thing is called"

I think the gun is supportred by pinions.

PanzerArm is quite right. Tunisia Tigers didn't have the reinforced armor over the gunsight ports.

Here is my somewhat successful effort at removing that armor from a 21C Tiger.



I still have to thin the armor around the gun and at the edges.

Also, what you drilled out for the screws were two of the turret lifting points. They weren't connected to the gun istelf.

As for the filters, they're close enough to get away with. What you may want to do is back-date the muffler shields if you do a 501 Tiger. The Inital Production Tigers had angled shields.



Last but not least, you need to decide if your Tiger is to be from SpzAbt 501 or 503. 501 Tigers had relocated headlights, trimmed front fenders and no escape hatch on the side of the turret. 503 Tigers were Early Production, and were pretty much in issued configuration. Dragon's 1/35th #142 is an excellent reference for a 501 Tiger.

501 Tiger.



Good luck. Please keep us updated.

it starting to get great keep it up

flpickupman wrote:
Last but not least, you need to decide if your Tiger is to be from SpzAbt 501 or 503. 501 Tigers had relocated headlights, trimmed front fenders and no escape hatch on the side of the turret. 503 Tigers were Early Production, and were pretty much in issued configuration. Dragon's 1/35th #142 is an excellent reference for a 501 Tiger.

the 503 was never in North Africa.

Yep, it can very difficult trying to make a half way accurate replica because of what you have to start with. You can really open a can of worms when you make a statement that you have seen photos of this or that Tiger equiped a certain way. I have seen two photos attributed to Tigers in Tunisia that have the built up area holding the binocular gunsights. When it comes to photos, I try to look at the surroundings and terrain and decide if the photo could be legitimate as far as what the photo is describing. There is one photo in particular in "Tiger I on the Western Front" by Jean Restayn that shows a Tiger allegedly in Tunisia with the built up area around the gunsight. It's easy to say that its not a correctly labeled photo but you would be hard pressed to say that its not Tunisia becasue of the terrain which is the same as the other photos surrounding it. And half the Tigers you see have no headlights at all becasue they have been knocked off in combat.

GooglyDoogly wrote:
the 503 was never in North Africa.

SpzAbt 504 if you will then.

It's been a little while since I've reviewed my reference materials.

PanzerArm wrote:Those off-green-olivish photos were poorly done re-colored photos attributable to what was probably a misinterpretation of Dunkelgelb over Dunkelgrau, which resulted in something resembling olive to some people. I would stick with dunkelgelb.

One thing you might want to reconsider is the mantlet however, it is the wrong type for any of the tigers in Tunisia, even the late arriving ones of the 2.kompanie s.pz.abt 504. you need one like this:




-Kevin

I take it thats a 1/35 mantle and not a 1/16, correct?

I honestly couldn't tell you. I found that image a while back while doing a google search for the same reason as you. I had to re-do the mantlet on my FOV 1/32 Tiger I to accurately portray a tank from the s.pz.abt 501. I'd look up the company logos on the image and see what you come up with, maybe it will be 1/16. It sure would be nice if they had a ready-made part for you to install, save you some dremeling work I had to do


-Kevin

Voyager makes a ton of accessories, but to the best of my knowledge, they are all small scale.

A few 504 Tigers had the reinforced mantlet, so you could opt out not to mod your mantlet.

To my knowledge no tigers had the reinforced mantlet that made it to Tunisia. I know that some of the later ones to reach N. Africa, like the one currently on display at Bovington, had some different features, like the introduction of the right-rear turret escape hatch and snorkels, but they still retained the initial non-reinforced mantlet. The 2.Kompanie of the s.pz.abt 504, which stayed in Sicily, may have had tanks with such a mantlet (I haven't ever researched that unit), but they never set track on Tunisian soil.

If you can provide photographic evidence to the contrary however I'd be all to happy to admit my mistake.


-Kevin

This website, has a pretty nice collection of Tiger tank pics, some previously unknown.
www.tiif.de

And here's some pics of a knocked-out Tiger I in Tunisia with the reinforced mantlet.
http://www.tiif.de/thread.php?threadid= ... bb0c4b708d

I found those sites last night during a search for reinforced mantlet pictures. If what the members of this site say are true about the tiger they are disputing as "111" of s.pz.abt 504, and that it says Bizerte-Tunis 1943 on the front plate as said by the owner of the photos, then it seems that one (not some) tiger of the ≈31 (I think) tigers that served in Tunisia had the reinforced mantlet. It is a bit hard to tell from the small photos, but I do think it has one. I still wouldn't do it with the reinforced mantlet however, as, unless you know the history of that particular tank, like markings etc, then it will be a difficult subject. Wish they would have put up larger resolutions, but I think one of the members was selling them on eBay and didn't want to give to much away for free


-Kevin

Probably going to keep the reinforced area around the gunsights. May or may not be totally accurate. The problem is that the way the mantle is molded, the reinforced area is not solid plastic. If I grind it off, I end up with a big hole where it was. That leads to putty and more grinding and sanding. I'm not one who insists on 100% accuracy down to every nut and bolt. Nothing wrong with that for the guys who like it. In this case, there is the chance the mantle will be accurate the way it is.

I agree with that assessment. Accuracy is all well and good, but not at the expense of a ridiculous amount of additional work.

OK, so its going real slow. Received these parts for it today. Correct air filters and exhaust. From what photos I can find, this is the type of exhaust that was used. Got them in case I didn't want to scratch build the angled shields. Put one of the old filters next to the new ones for reference. The small wheel is the loaders hatch wheel. Also, I found a very clear photo showing a Tiger in Tunisia with full width front fenders. No question that its in Tunisia because of the DAK soldiers standing around it. The DAK boots really give the photo credibility.

Parts are resin and still need some triming. The aluminum barrel is for a Panzer III I'm working on.

Full width front fenders? Such as the ones SpzAbt 504 had?

Is it too late to post in this thread after 5 years?

In s.Pz.Abt. 501, there was exactly one Tiger with the thick mantlet, number 223, which was later renumbered as 823.

In s.Pz.Abt. 504 there were plenty of these thick mantlets, though not on the Bovington tank obviously.

In s.Pz.Abt. 501 there were wide front and rear mudguards on three Tigers, namely 233, 221 and 213. All of which were renumbered into the 800 series eventually. And number 221 is now in a museum.

David

Probably not too late since the OP last posted as recently as April, but I don't know what happened with this build.