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Pz.Kfz. VI Tiger I (Late) 1:35


Mike

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Tiger I (Late)
1:35 Academy


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The Tiger tank was part of Hitler's obsession for bigger, heavier and stronger, which drove him to extraordinary and dizzying heights of impracticality later in the war, but in this case served him well. The goal was to mount the extremely successful and powerful 88mm cannon used in the Flak 36 in a tank with sufficient armour to withstand any round fielded by the enemy, and this was achieved, but at the cost of reliability and thirst for fuel. It also made for some interesting bridge-crossing as the finished article weighed in at almost 60 tonnes, which was too much for many smaller bridges of the day.

There was a competition with only two contenders, and it was the breakdown of the Porsche designed prototype and subsequent fire that decided in the favour of the less ambitious Henschel design which became the Tiger, and then the Tiger I when the King Tiger came into being. When it first reached the front it caused panic and disaster for the Allies, being able to do almost everything it was designed to do, including knocking out tanks long before their guns were in range. Even when the Allies could get into range, it wasn't until they get VERY close that they had any significant chance of crippling or destroying the mighty Tiger. In fact, in the early days, the most effective weapon against it was the 105mm gun mounted on the M7 Priest, although that must have been a harrowing task for an open-topped vehicle with little protection. Many of the early Tigers were lost to mechanical breakdown due to the excessive strain on the transmission, and had to either be dragged off the field by half-tracks under the cover of darkness, armoured protection, or failing that, destroyed to stop them falling into the enemy's hands. Tiger 131 was unlucky enough to do just that while trying to free a jammed turret mechanism after a lucky shot hit the turret ring. It was brought back to the UK by a circuitous route by a Major Lidderdale (if the book is correct), where it remains today and is the only working Tiger I in the world at time of writing.

The Tiger underwent many and constant changes throughout production to improve performance, fix problems and to simplify construction, but these are generally lumped together into early, mid or late productions for the sake of us modellers. If you want to get maximum accuracy of fit and finish, check your references for certainty.

The Kit
The Academy Tiger I is a middle-of-the-road kit that has an attractive price-point while giving plenty of detail to satisfy all but the most detail hungry modellers. This late production model has additional parts where necessary due to differences in design, as well as some parts that have been freshly tooled just for better detail and accuracy. The turret has been re-tooled with new weld-bead detail, and the top panel has a fine rolled steel texture moulded in, as well as the important seam that splits the sloped front of the roof from the flat rear. The hull deck has also been re-tooled with the same texture, weld-beads and the additional central seam that was missing from the earlier tooling. It also removes the moulded in driving lights from the corners, which were replaced with a single central mount in later marks.

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The box is a pleasing satin finish, with a slightly "widescreen" feel to it due to the dimensions of it, and inside are eleven sprues in sand coloured styrene, with the duplicated (upgraded) parts almost immediately visible. There is also a fret of Photo-Etch (PE), a PE Zimmerit tool, a long length of synthetic braided cord, two rubber-band style tracks, a run of poly-caps to secure wheels, decals, instruction booklet and painting guide, both of which are in black and white.

Before we move too far ahead, it is worth saying a few words on the Zimmerit. It was an anti-magnetic mine paste that was applied at the factory to prevent attachment of magnetic mines to vertical and sloped faces of armoured vehicles. It was grey in colour and applied with a tool in pattern that gave it extra thickness without adding too much weight. As well as the more usually seen columns of short horizontal lines, there were waffle patterns as well as square patterns, depending on where the tank was made. Check your references, and remember that vehicles produced after September 1944 were without the paste as it had been discontinued due to unfounded concerns that the paste could be ignited. It's important to check your references if you're going off-piste for the decal choice of your model. If you are weathering your Tiger, the paste was a greyish hue when chipped, and likely to be primer colour underneath. The instructions go to great lengths to describe the application of the Zimmerit with the provided tool, which has 0.5mm and 0.7mm serrations on two faces of the oblong tool. It does not however cover the quite regular patterns that were used in application, particularly around the mantlet and final drive housings, but a quick Google should turn up plenty of pictures to help you there. Throughout the instructions, the Zimmerited areas are marked out with grey shading to help you plan your build.

There are ten decal choices, which will inform you choice of parts throughout the build, so it would be an idea to choose which of them you will build sooner rather than later. The lower hull is the first part used in construction, to which the suspension arms are added, plus two inspection hatches on the underside and an escape hatch in the centre of the hull. If you are applying Zimmerit, the instructions advise to apply it only above where the fenders will be later in the build, and you can use those as templates to mask off the styrene so it doesn't get any putty on it. The lower glacis plate also receives a coat of Zimm, plus two riveted flanges and as choice of towing eye styles, depending on your decal choice. Next up are the road wheels, which are the later steel-rimmed type, with internal rubber damping to conserve valuable and scarce rubber stocks. The inner wheels are put together in pairs with a small poly-cap sandwiched between them, and are installed over the inner half of the outer wheels with their poly-cap in place, after which the outer-outer wheels can be added to complete the interleaved wheelset of the Tiger. The driver sprockets and idler wheels have a medium sized poly-cap between their halves, with two types of idler wheel at your disposal. Choose wisely, and with the benefit of references if you can. The driver-sprockets fit onto axles that are pushed through from the inside of the final drive housing, which is then attached to the hull trapping the short axle in place, while the idler wheel has a stub axle glued from inside the hull, onto which the wheel is pushed when the glue has cured. You also have a choice of two types of rear towing hitches, and more Zimm to apply to the lower section of the rear bulkhead.

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The tracks are of the rubber-band type, and if you've read my reviews before, you'll know I don't really like them, but these are well-moulded apart from lacking the hollow guide-horns, so with a bit of mud they should look fine. To close the loop you'll need to heat up a metal tool and melt the stubs that project through holes in the track, while avoiding sizzling your skin. I would have preferred the glue-friendly ones personally.

The main rear bulkhead is also Zimmerited, with cut-outs where the exhaust shields need to go, and if you are doing decal option 2, you will need to slice off some tiny bracketry before you start with the Zimm, and in all instances you will need to fill the holes for the redundant air-cleaner cans that were fitted to early Tigers. The twin exhaust stacks are built up from two main parts with individual supports for the end-cap, and a small part that fits within. You'll probably have to fettle the seams between the larger parts, which might be better done before you add the smaller, more breakable parts. These install in the rear bulkhead holes, with the armoured shields around the lower junction, and the starter greeblies are placed between them. The rear mudguards fit onto their mounting points, after which point the pioneer tools can be fitted, which vary if you are doing option 2, but otherwise you have the jack on the right, and track link tool on the left, just above the tubular convoy light. The outer shields go onto the exhausts on four locating pins, and if you want to add some realism, you could file away some thickness in places to simulate dents and dings, which these parts got in spades (and probably with spades on occasion).

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The top deck isn't a single part, as the vents on the engine deck varied over time, so it made sense for Academy to tool it in separate parts. You'd be well advised to keep it flat while the glue cures, and popping onto the hull will probably be the easiest solution, although check for sag between the parts of the engine deck before you skip away for a coffee. At the centre of the engine deck is a large access panel with a armoured mushroom vent near the middle, plus another rectangular raised vent and two grab handles for the opening thereof. This is shown added later, but in order to keep everything square and level, you might want to add it at the same time as the grilles are installed. Once the deck is dry, you'll probably want to paint the grilles before adding the PE mesh panels that protect the engine from small debris and shell fragments. The front deck is covered with pioneer tools, which fit into holes in the deck that match up with pins on their simplified tie-down "lumps", which you could elect to replace with some of the PE alternatives around if you wanted, or leave as-is if you don’t. The two crew hatches are handed, and have a small tab of styrene projecting into them, which you must remove before adding the hinges in the open position, or leave there for a closed hatch. The hatches themselves have separate vision block covers, vision blocks (which aren't clear), and latches, and if used closed, the hinge attachment point should match up with the plastic tabs you didn't cut off earlier, and you'll need to remember to put the right hatch on the right hatchway.

The glacis plate on the Tiger I was vertically positioned, and as such received a coat of Zimmerit, although not generally on the kugelblende around the bow machine gun. There was however often a sun-flower petal pattern around it in the Zimm, in order to give a neat join, so check your references before you start. The driver's armoured viewing slot also remains un-zimmerited, as does the central driving light and its bracket, but the sloped front panel is zimerrited, but take care not to do the fenders. Using the long length of cord supplied in the box, you cut two lengths of 195mm and glue their ends into the plastic towing eyes, draping them on the top deck as shown in the scrap diagram in the instructions, then pinning them down with their clamps. As these cables were often attached to the front towing hitches in the field for ease of hooking up these break-down prone leviathans, you could always look at your references for alternative poses if you're feeling brave, and take it from there.

The turret always seems to be the fun part of making a tank (certainly according to my son), and her we have some more new parts. The mantlet is new, but this won't matter much once you've covered it with Zimm, but check for the correct pattern before you get the putty out, as this is perhaps the most complex area of application, as well as the most detailed. The mantlet front piece is backed by a further two layers behind it, one of which has the hinge pins for elevation. Into the front you then place the cylindrical barrel armour, the inner shroud and bezel, and finally the barrel itself, to which you add the separate three-piece muzzle-brake. Academy have cleverly used single piece sections for the barrel, breaking it at convenient locations to reduce the amount of clean-up. The brake is designed in the same way, and breaks down like an aftermarket piece, having an insert that slots inside, and a cap that closes up the vents on the sides. With this complete and cured, it can be set between the two halves of the turret sides, which making sure to keep the front clamped or taped to prevent the gun from dropping out of its mounting. The vertical seam at the rear of the turret will need looking at to ensure it is level with the surface, but don't waste time polishing it out if you're going to slap Zimmerit over it! The turret roof has eight vision blocks added, which are again not clear parts, and then the commander's hatch & machine-gun track can be added to the late-style cupola. Add the additional track-links and their brackets to the turret sides, build up the gunner's hatch and shell-ejection hatch (the latter on the side), before the roof is dropped into place, and the rear stowage bin is installed on the turret rear. Install the turret on its bayonet fitting, and then you can add the side skirts below the section of the hull sides you have previously Zimmerited.

A crew member figure is included in the box, and a painting guide is printed above the final stage to assist with his completion. He has a little bit of an odd-shaped head/face though, so if you have any of those handy replacement resin head, an otherwise adequate commander figure can be saved from the spares bin.

Markings
Academy have been generous to a fault with their decal options in this kit, having ten options available, but this has restricted the space available for each option, which has led to no top-down views of the camouflage schemes, which might cause some consternation. By this stage in the war camouflage was the norm due to Allied air superiority, so every single option has camouflage of some style. From the box you can build one of the following:

  • Pz.Abt. 505 No.312 Central Russia, July 1944 – Sand/green/red brown tiger-stripe, with optional sand/red brown 2-tone version. Black 312 on a yellow barrel shroud. Grey barrel.
  • SS Pz.Abt. 101 Michael Wittman near Caen, France August 1944 - Sand/green/red brown camouflage and white 007 on the turret.
  • SS Pz.Abt. 101 Komp.2 Michael Wittman near Normandy, France June 1944 - Sand/green/red brown camouflage and red with white outline 212 on the turret.
  • SS Pz.Abt. 102 north France, August 1944 – red brown/green camouflage with sand demarcation bands, and white outline 221 or 231 on the turret.
  • Pz.Abt. 503 Normandy, France, July 1944 – sand with red brown/green camouflage. Black with white outline 313 on turret.
  • Pz.Abt. 505 Central Russia, July 1944 – Sand with dark green camouflage stripes on hull. Grey barrel with 300 on shroud.
  • Pz.Abt. 506 Ukraine, Spring 1944 - Sand/green/red brown camouflage – yellow 2 on turret sides.
  • Pz.Abt. 508, Toscana, Italy, July 1944 - Sand/green/red brown camouflage. White outline 3 or 1 on turret.
  • 9th SS Pz.Abt. Totenkopf, Radzymin, Poland, August 1944 - Sand/green/red brown camouflage. White outline 912 on turret.
  • The Grossdeutschland Panzer Division, Gumbinnen, Lithuania, August 1944 - Sand/green/red brown camouflage. Black A22 on turret.

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Decals are printed by Cartograf and are of their usual high quality with good register, sharpness and clarity, with a closely cropped glossy carrier film. Included with all the decals for the tank are a number of uniform insignia decals, with a helpful key under the last profiles to show both where they should be placed, and what regiment each collar and shoulder tab relates too. Unfortunately this last part is in Korean (I think?), with no English translation, so not of much use.

Conclusion
It's a nice kit at a competitive price, and you'll have a fair few spare parts lying round after that may come in useful. It's not super-detailed, but neither is it bland, and the addition of the newly tooled parts have improved it from the earlier tooling. Having to do your own Zimmerit might seem a chore to some and a challenge to others, but there are aftermarket sets in resin or PE, so it's not a massive issue if you don't fancy your chances of completing the task yourself.

Recommended.

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Review sample courtesy of
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Cheers chaps - and Eduard have just delivered the upgrade sets in PE for it numbered 36320 & 36218 (fenders & detail sets respectively). I'll have a pore over them & report back later :)

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  • 4 weeks later...

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