Bending Tiger History?

[DanL]

OK, just finished my first tank, a Tamiya King Tiger. The bug has bitten. I also have a bunch of parts for a HL Tiger1. Enough to build a tank. My name ends in "...ski", so I want to do a Polish tank. Combining the ideas of a picture I saw of a Tiger1 in the Warsaw uprising, pictures of captured Panthers with Polish markings, and the following reference, I'm going to build the Tiger1 with the rough overpainted Polish markings.
Anybody else ever model this?

From http://www.ww2f.com/wwii-books-publicat ... 944-a.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
"German Panzerkampfwagen V Panther
Two tanks were captured on August 2nd in Wola district.
Both were pressed into service by "Radoslaw" Group.
One was nicknamed "Pudel" / "Magda".
One was lost on August 8th and second on August 11th.

German Panzerkampfwagen IV or Panzerkampfwagen V Panther
One tank was captured on August 4th in Ochota district.
It was pressed into service by "Gustaw" Company.
It was lost on the same day.

German Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger
One tank was captured on August 4th in Ochota district. It was pressed into service but was lost on the same day."

[Wolftone]

What a top idea. I have a Me bf109e which i plan to finish as one captured in France on the 22 november 1939, which gained the raf camouflage & cerial no AE479 in June/July 1940. The plan with all my German tanks is to eventually display them in diorama's where they are either knocked out or captured by allied forces.

[Tankie]

Sounds a great idea -its an entirely credible approach even if not strictly historically accurate. If you wanted to be closer to 'likely reality' you should probably build it as a late Tiger since the Germans weren't very flush with surviving older tanks at the time of the uprising, hence their reliance on KT's & Panthers. For example the PZ3 reference picture is pretty unlikely to have occurred so late in the war - I doubt many 'early' short barrel PZ3's were still around. Having said that, it shouldn't matter how you go about it if you are happy. My other hobby is Model Railways and they often used to release models that are popularly called 'neverwazzers', like an engine built in 1960 painted in smart pre war colours. Also in smaller scale tanks there is a current fetish for releasing 'paper panzers' (tanks that never advanced beyond the drawing board or mockup stage) because of multiple duplications of standard types driving the manufacturers to release something different, so lots of people are happy to go down this type of path.

[Saxondog]

Dan, I have some information and resources that may help you determine the number,type and service of polish military units. The other issue you may not of considered is the actions of Polish Patriots in British service at D-day that may of used captured German Armour as well. I'll post here or e-mail you tonight.

Sax

[LMN118]

Hi DanL, my knowledge of the Eastern Front and the actions that happened around that time is fairly limited. In fact nearly entirely limited to what I've read in Carius's book.

However I do have a picture of a Tiger I copied from a book somewhere. It is an artist plate showing a colour scheme however, the foot note reads:

Tiger tank of Fallschirm-Panzer Division "Herman Goring", Kodersdorf, Germany, April 1945. This tank was captured by Polish troops.

Judging by the date it was captured near the end of the war and probably not used in action by Polish forces. So looking back, not much use to you!

Although all sides used captured armour is was generally considered not a good idea. From "Tigers in the Mud" he mentions that crews didn't like using Soviet armour after some pressed T34's were destroyed returning to German lines by German forces.

[DanL]

Thanks all for the historic reference information.

I saw a picture, on a Warsaw uprising site, of a single Tiger 1, numbered 411, in a Warsaw street. I can't find that picture now. The related text said that tanks were found very vulnerable in that urban warfare situation.
I suppose that perhaps limited ability to swing gun, potential to get trapped in debris/narrow streets, molotov cocktails, good cover supporting close attack, etc etc made a tank more vulnerable.
Anyway, I would like to find that picture again as the basis for the "captured Tiger" scenario.

[DanL]

Here's a pic of the proposed scheme....