Tiger 1 Build – Otto Carius ‘213’ in winter camo

[Estnische]

Another Early Tiger 1 build I’m afraid. And it won’t be as spectacular as some of the fully detailed builds on here.

At this stage, I guess you’d call what I plan to do ‘stand-off’ scale. Taking advice from when I joined, I’m doing this to please me. – I’m picking and choosing what I’ll include. Those things I’m choosing to model are based on the things I don’t like about the Heng Long Tiger and some of those choices may seem inconsistent with what can be easily replicated. As an example, the based colour should be Dunkelgelb. Here is a ‘colourised’ image of the schwere Panzer Abteilung 502 Tigers fresh from the factory from the imgur.com website. But because I’ve not seen any colour pics of winter camo, my mind can’t get away from grey as the base colour.



I’m going for the Early Tiger ‘213’ of the Abt 502 in winter camo as used by Otto Carius during the Battle of Narva. But I haven’t been able to locate an actual pic that is definitively ‘213’ in winter camo, so I’m basing it on this pic below from the front cover of Otto Carius’s excellent book ‘Tigers in the Mud’, borrowed from the tiif.de website. It’s actually the sister Tiger belonging to Oberfeldwebel Zwetti.



Obviously we can’t see behind, but this next pic is of 502 Tigers in winter, possibly in Narva, from the World War Photos website.



So at this stage, here is a list of the features I’ll take from these photos and others:
• Early cupola (naturally)
• Early headlights
• No Feifels
• Missing front roadwheel
• Turret mounted smoke launchers
• Exhaust shields

[HERMAN BIX]

You knock yourself out mate, you won't get any objections for a Carius 213 around here I can give you the tip !!
Just a side note, on the debut of my White Tiger at the RC tank club it did look out of context in 30 degree heat
That aside, there is plenty to get you tested doing a white washed cover, so hook in & let us all follow along.

[Raminator]

I wonder how much the Australian army saves by only having one year-round camouflage pattern? Not worth whitewashing the armour for an hour's worth of frost in the morning for a few weeks a year, surely.

With regards to a dunkelgelb-based winter camouflage, something like this?

[Estnische]

Yep, that would be it, but grey looks more cold, more 'right' to me.

[HERMAN BIX]

There are many units that ran grey vehicles with other colours, or just grey with white wash, so a bit of research on your options will back up your choice.
213 being such a famous mount does limit your artistic flair a bit, but as this is not a contest to see who can replicate in every historic fact evry detail, being your tank for you, by you is all that matters

[Raminator]

Yep, that would be it, but grey looks more cold, more 'right' to me.

For real. I aim for authenticity over accuracy any day; like Herman said, we're building these things for our own enjoyment.

[Estnische]

I’m starting with a new 2.4GHz Tiger 1 with smoke and sound, but no metal hardware. As you would probably know, some of the old Heng Long modelling issues have been fixed.

I won’t have to bother with the reversed mantlet.



And the pistol port is around the right way. The commander’s cupola had zero glue too – just a press fit.



But I’m not liking the shape of the turret bins – that will have to be rectified.



Still, there is plenty that can be improved and it’s the easiest of steps to whip out the plastic for some after-market goodies. The postman has arrived this week with the following:



Nothing you guys haven’t seen before. It’ll be interesting to see what it’s like to adapt to 1:16 where you can really notice things like bolts and clamps. I’m used to working with 1:32 scale slot cars where some of those things can be dismissed.

[HERMAN BIX]

Good start mate, I too was lucky with the basic form of my Tiger.
I will be keeping a keen watch on your progress, thanks for posting

[Estnische]

So a bit of action at last – some stuff coming off. Actually it feels a bit weird taking stuff off that includes detail, but ‘213’ doesn’t have spare tracks on the front and no Feifels, so they and their hoses and clamps come off.



In the middle of that lot is an antenna. Now there is a post on the back deck and an antenna came with the parts, so I stuck it on. Now when I took the upper hull of for the first time I discovered what most of you already know – it’s not connected to anything!

Now I can’t find many pics of 1:1 of the back deck of the Tiger with Feifels removed. How should I finish off the air intake? Cut off the spigots flush or fit the Mid-production cover plate?



Having removed stuff, it was nice to put something better back on, namely some metal headlights. That advice from Dad (ex-RAAF electronic tech) all those years ago about wiring came in handy.



Actually, looking close up now at these pics, I’d better add some wiring like the real thing.

[Estnische]

I haven’t done any military modelling since I was a child, so this will be a challenge. I’m used to working with 1:32 slot cars, so with such large flat surfaces a 1:16 Tiger is a mind-shift in scale! But it’s the camo finish which really has me a little spooked, so I’m going to practice on a 1:48 Panther kit I picked up cheaply.



I looked around at how to go about it and came across the colour modulation technique and weathering styles that are flavour of the month and thought that they should help stop my white Tiger from looking like a washing machine on wheels. So – here goes. After priming it, I layed down the shadow areas and panel edges in dark grey.



Then I tried to blend it with light grey, but almost lost all of the dark bits.



So, I turned down the pressure on my airbrush and put most of the grey back where it’s supposed to be. It seems close to the modulation technique, if not entirely consistent. I figure that when I shift up to 1:16 scale, it’ll be easier.