RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

Apologies for the rather geeky nature of this question, but this has been bugging me for some time - and I'm sure someone will know the answer!

I have many pictures which appear to show Tiger 1s being driven with the driver sticking his head out of the hatch.

I am pretty sure that the Tiger II had a raised seat position to allow the driver to do this, but I have not read anything about this being possible on the Tiger 1. Quite frankly, given the way the hatch is situated half over the pannier, it seems rather an awkward idea!

And yet there are all these pictures of guys sticking their heads out whilst the tank is driving along... Long arms? Nifty footwork?

I look forward to an answer!

Tim

Here is the seat I want for my Tiger.



The backrest and seat were padded and covered in fake leather material. I believe the backrest pivots into a high seat position.

I was reading that they ran out of the fake leather at the factory but believed the factory next door had pre war supplies for cars and trucks but when they requested supplies the other manager got a bit beurocratic. Insisting on paperwork. The tiger plant manager contacted the armorments minister who suggested that if the material was not handed over immediatly the other plant could be considered redundant and workers could be released for active service. Production resumed straight away.

I have finally managed to answer my own question - or at least found the answer myself!

According to the recently published Tiger Tank Owner's Workshop Manual from Haynes / The Tank Museum (see recent posts) the driver of a Tiger 1 could not operate the vehicle with his head sticking out of his hatch. Apparently whenever a guy can be seen in that position it's someone else (probably the loader) perching on the pannier over the track (or standing behind the driver's seat) so that he can help with directing the vehicle.

This is really common sense when you look at the position of the hatch in relation to the seat....

So why didn't anyone else find this question as interesting as I did..?!

Tim

I've often wondered about that myself. I've seen movie footage of Tiger 1s being driven with someone's head sticking out of the drivers hatch but never suspected it was not the driver. I always assumed it was some incredibly complex seating/control arrangement that made it possible. Just goes to show that the simplest solutions are often the correct ones.
Chris

I've been thinking about this too, i'm building a Tiger 1 (1/35) at the moment. Looking down through the hatch all i can see is the pannier, so all these years i been thinking you had the be a contortionists to be Tiger drivers. See, it's that old dog new tricks thing, i'm learning.

Have fun, John

The driver's seat was not adjustable in any way except to tilt the backrest. See: http://tiger1.info/EN/DriverSeat.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The driver's hatch was quite a distance to the left of the seat, and exactly half of it was over the pannier.
The driver, if he was reasonably tall, could contort enough to drive the tank with his head out the hatch; I don't know if he could change gear without ducking back in. But it would be uncomfortable and probably not something you'd do for long.

David