Getting both sides on and secured by layers of PVA & apparently "hi-Impact" resistant gel super glue.
The dress making pins are bent over after the super glue is set, and the PVA is then applied in heavy beads to add as much support as possible.
I took the tools to the left side and distressed the guards as much as I felt they could realistically cope with in scale-real life being exposed to the rigors of mobile combat for the time this AFV might have seen field service.
A tough decision to make with my indicators being a tank training school machine stripped of accessories then hurriedly pressed into service .............how much damage/neglect/training collisions/combat line-of-march travel to front line could F05 had endured ??
Soon I will get the Taigen recoil unit set into full forward battery and complete the roadwheel setup........then its on like Donkey Kong !!
Good point !
Ive made the drivers off-side worse than his on-side simply as his line of sight and positioning of his Tiger on the move through obstructions would be difficult to judge.
As its F05 & no one really knows much about the finer details of it as no known pictures exist, it can be any way I want it, but I do wish to follow a path of plausible representation.
Getting the roadwheel adaptors made next week so should be able to keep on with progress over the xmas term.
Paint work is now also a consideration.
Im leaning towards a Dunkelgelb hull with a different pattern turret, we know these machines were made up of repaired hulls & turrets fitted with the late steel wheels & tracks to provide training vehicles so the likelihood of different hull/turret combinations is high.
The paint scheme is concerning me a bit.
Its a late war machine, yes, but it falls outside the normal scope and attention for such a weapon if it were in a combat unit.
Being used for training in Fallingbostal I assume it received a lot of maintenance also as part of training, but not new parts or suchlike due to its non-combat role in the school.
In fact having certain non essential parts removed and sent to units with tanks on the line.
This is all of course conjecture.....................
As for paint, we know this unit was formed from these training tanks, and a group of Panthers.
Im going to assume the Panthers were in combat ready condition, and had camo that reflected this.
The Tigers in KG Shulze(Fehrmann) were repaired and recycled tanks assembled with new wheels and tracks, but not likely fully repainted like they perhaps would be in a forward unit on the line.
Plus Tiger 1's were out of production, so parts & suchlike must have by then become really hard to get, when most of the heavies are T2's.
I will assume a DGelb hull with a 3-tone scheme , and a Dgelb turret with a quite different pattern with a replacement mantlet from another Tiger in another pattern, and a replacement all-grey gun.
Got the spare/armour augmentation track link hangers on the front plate.
Bent up some brass flat and secured in place with the hi-impact gel super glue.
I used some Mato early track to set the positions for the hangers, so I hope the Taigen late tracks I get will still fit.
Seeing F02 and 13 with spare track links on the turrets I can take a leap of faith that even at a training school, they still needed to change the odd blown link.
As it is the roadwheels and tracks have been replaced from early to late, so the track link stowage would also be changed I expect.
Yep, the Fehrmann Tigers sure do create discussion !
Known as Fehrmann Gruppe, but was instigated and actually commanded by Schulze..............
I still reckon the numbers were school identifiers 'F' for Fallingbostal not 'F' for Fehrmann .
Could have been say 20 tigers in the school, but only those few mentioned in dispatches were able to be fueled,crewed and armed at the time, or were in mechanically sound enough condition to leave the school & enter combat???
Questions lost to history Im afraid.
Its looking the part now. Distressed the drivers side mudguards after trawling through loads of various pictures.
The odd thing about them is they seem to take a huge amount of battering but stay attached to the vehicle.
Im wondering if they had sections missing due to the bolts holding them on coming loose ..........and the entire section dropping off.
Like this one :
Attachments
Left a bit............NO, the other left!!
Tiger_zimmerit_5.jpg (68.67 KiB) Viewed 2850 times
Thanks Mr Rainford, but, I deign to hope that one day I get close to Mr C's off-world ability.
There are only so many way to do a Tiger.............one of the modern machines however are a far more complex Rubiks cube to solve with any state of accuracy.
As long as I can get a fair representation of the to date unknown F05 from that famous yet futile few days, I will be happy.
Oh, and if I can bang the bejesus out of it along the way & not lose bits of it, thats an added bonus.
HERMAN BIX wrote:
Plus Tiger 1's were out of production, so parts & suchlike must have by then become really hard to get, when most of the heavies are T2's.
I will assume a DGelb hull with a 3-tone scheme , and a Dgelb turret with a quite different pattern with a replacement mantlet from another Tiger in another pattern, and a replacement all-grey gun.
Sounds like a good paint scheme. Using your logic you could go with an combination of grey, primer-only, dunkelgelb, or camo segments - hull, turret, gun - and add-on parts. But, some of those combinations might be a bit jarring and hard to process. I like the combination you've proposed; they'll blend better.
HERMAN BIX wrote: Got the spare/armour augmentation track link hangers on the front plate.
Bent up some brass flat and secured in place with the hi-impact gel super glue.
I used some Mato early track to set the positions for the hangers, so I hope the Taigen late tracks I get will still fit.
Seeing F02 and 13 with spare track links on the turrets I can take a leap of faith that even at a training school, they still needed to change the odd blown link.
As it is the roadwheels and tracks have been replaced from early to late, so the track link stowage would also be changed I expect.
My only concern with using the late links is the ice cleats. They'll push the track links about 1-mm further from the hull than the early tracks. Not sure if that will affect the spacing for the holders.
