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Better quality version. I don't see any evidence of photoshopping here, it looks like a cobbled-together tank from the last months of the war.

The thing could have been sitting idle for ages, or at least parked up for a lack of parts, all manor of reasons, then dragged out of its malaise to fight again.
The late tracks and roadwheels, with the S-mine launchers, early(ish) turret, immaculate mudguards, and pzIV bin all seem to me to be a very well preserved or forgotten machine that Im certain we will never know the details of.

Would make for a most wonderful build I'm sure

According to google the photo was taken in Czestochowa Poland in January 1945. I don't know if that's correct or a guess by someone but the sign above the shop would suggest the country is right at least.

Here's a bigger picture of the front angle:

I would venture to suggest that the hull should be dated by the wheels, these are the big indicator. The turret could well have been pinched from anything that they had lying around, as it is known that by the end of the war they were doing cut and shut jobs on anything that still moved. Having a PzIV turret bin would tend to support that theory. Zimmerit was out of fashion late war and what is on the Tiger was not applied at the factory, it's way too rough, so maybe the crew decided to ignore central command and apply some in the field from old stock that they found. So this looks like a lower hull that somehow survived a few years, and had a few repair jobs along the way.

Isn't that Wittmans last ride?

Bill

Yes, it is. And that would be a standard Tiger turret box then.

wibblywobbly wrote:I would venture to suggest that the hull should be dated by the wheels, these are the big indicator. The turret could well have been pinched from anything that they had lying around, as it is known that by the end of the war they were doing cut and shut jobs on anything that still moved. Having a PzIV turret bin would tend to support that theory. Zimmerit was out of fashion late war and what is on the Tiger was not applied at the factory, it's way too rough, so maybe the crew decided to ignore central command and apply some in the field from old stock that they found. So this looks like a lower hull that somehow survived a few years, and had a few repair jobs along the way.

Your logic is sound and I agree, that is the best explanation however the S mine launchers were deleted by then.

The fact that the turret has a pistol port and the S mine launchers are on the chassis tells me this tiger may have hit a mine or taken enough damage to the wheels and tracks that they went ahead and switched out the whole set of wheels (which I have never heard of). The only way I could be right is if this Tiger did sit for along time as you suggested. So long that the original wheels were no longer available.

But wasnt that the case with the Ferhmann Tigers? http://tiger1.info/models/products-page/AC13299
According to David Byrden almost complete early Tiger tanks with switched wheels and tracks.

In the Decal sheet option he tells us more about each individual Tiger of these.

I'm making an assumption that the early rubber-rimmed roadwheels on what was either a damaged hull, or, a designated early hull assigned to training were removed & sent to the front to refit a combat vehicle(its easier to send a stack of wheels for an existing tank than the whole lot to refit it to late running gear?)and the new steel running gear was then supplied to the training school and also used perhaps to train technical units on how to carry out and maintain the new running gear as well as train the fighting crews in heavy tanks ??

One thing to supply a new version of a tank already fitted out with the latest hardware- quite another to have the same gear sent out on a train to the field and installed on what is most likely a damaged machine with a huge amount of pressure to turn it around and send it back out to fight.

Of course this is nothing more than a supposition, but who will ever know