Tale of Three Tigers

Wow , it’s been quite a while since I up dated this project .  I must admit I got hung up on a paint scheme for my last Tiger , tried a few that didn’t really work so I had to strip off the paint and have a rethink . And as well , the poses of the Warlord plastic Fallschirmjager made it difficult to fit them together on the tank engine deck . So after some waffling about , I decided to swap a couple of legs , giving the figures a smaller foot print , as well one guy had his legs replaced by a seated pair from the plastic Seated German set . Having purchased the odd 2 or 3 ( or 10 ) extra s figure sprues during Warlord’s sales , I had lots of arms  in the parts box to pick through to create the right  pose .

Its a bit like a 3D puzzle getting the figures to fit together in a tight , natural looking group , very much trial and error , thank goodness the liquid glue I  use gives you lots of time to tweak the poses before it sets . And even then you might have to adjust a hand to look more natural resting on a surface .  But it worked out in the end giving me 6 FJ tank riders . Of course I’ve still got room for a couple more up front by the Driver / Bow gunner’s hatches , so I guess another FJ sprue will be on my next Warlord order . I’m still waiting for Rubicon’s German tank crew figures to be released  , so for now crew is minimal

As I mentioned earlier , I was able to build four turrets from this 3 Tiger Zug kit . I decided to build the 4th  as a knocked out turret , So I added a couple of shell strikes on the side of the turret , one a little deeper than the other , dislodging the spare track link . I painted this turret the same ambush scheme but  gave it a different vehicle number and changed the placement of the German national insignia . I intend to make the crew remove able so I can use this tank as a knocked scenery piece

All in all , the Tiger II was a great kit . It’s nice you get the option of the “Porche ” or production turret . As a modeller  I would have liked to have seen separate tow cables  , but as a game piece it understandable why they molded them on . Warlord / Italeri still have some work to do to get their supplied crew figures in scale with the vehicles but as there are now  other options in resin , metal & plastic this isn’t so much of a problem any more .