Tiger 1 Concept

[Wardukw]

Ok i was watching a YouTube vid on the Tiger 1 but none other than The Chieftain..and anyone whos this gent knows he knows what hes talking about once hes done the research   
Well he spoke about the original idea for the Tiger which didnt include the 88mm gun but the first verison was with a taper bore 75mm gun with tungsten core mounted on the Tigers hull but in a small turret..that didnt quite work out as tungsten is a rare earth element and theres not enough for this purpose so a high velocity 75mm gun was the next idea ..a L70 75mm was going to be used in quite a small turret and that got me thinking .
I want a quick build with bugger all stratch building involved and thats what i doing.
Now i have the remains for a Dragon Tiger 1 which is one i cut in half for part of the chassis for another wiffy Tiger for a dio ill get back too.
Oh that Tiger with the turret which you guys had questions about is going bye bye..i found pics of a supposed 88mm AA turret on a Tiger and it looks very cool..so ill replace it with that.
Ive already rejoined the 2 halves together and are now sorting out the suspension for it.
This ia not going to be a concept ..oh no gents this is a wiffy ..so it did enter service and did see combat and there will be a back story ..i just have not idea right now tho how to start it..bit i will 
So the build is dead easy.
A modded Panzer lll turret which looks extremely close to the one they were thinking of using so thats a plus ..long 75mm gun and some extra armour.
Weathering is going to be ..nuts 

[rickshaw]

Dragon has beaten you to the punch.  You can buy a 75mm armed Tiger I kit from them...   

[Dizzyfugu]

That turret looks a lot like the Panther's, just with more sloped side walls. But its shape seen from above really reminds of the Panzer III or IV turret, but it's surely bigger. Tricky to replicate that!

[Wardukw]

Yup Dragon have but mines going to be wiffied  Rick mate    and looking at that turret Dragon did it looks different to the pic of saw in the vid..it looks to tall and the commaders cupola wasnt even in the pic that i saw so they wiffied that.
Ya probably right Thomas but ill figure that out even if i cut the Panzer lll to bits and widen it as in the pic it did show the same sort of crew hatches as the lll and lV had and i want to keep them but i am going to use the Tiger 1s commanders turret as the Dragon one is a very nice piece of kit.

[Wardukw]

Well after a wee bit of doing this and doing that ..mostly ruler work and thinking i want to just build a model with bugger all stratch building involved has gone bye bye.
The Panzerlll turret is not going to cut the mustard .. its just to small even if i cut it to bits and make it wider so im going to build a completely new turret.
Basically it will be a enlarged Panzer lll ..wiffied a bit of course as the gun im using isnt a wiff ..the gun is for a Panther which according to the chieftain was the gun which was going to be used in the original idea even thou it wasnt for the Panther at the beginning ..it ended up going into the Panther and ill use a Pak 40 muzzle brake cause i have a heap of those to play with .

[zenrat]

Well after a wee bit of doing this and doing that ..mostly ruler work and thinking i want to just build a model with bugger all stratch building involved has gone bye bye...

Don't you hate it when that happens.

[Old Wombat]

Big fan of Nick Moran.

As he points out; the PzKpfw VI Tiger was an excellent tank for its designed purpose. Unfortunately, for Nazi Germany, by the time it went into action there was no real prospect of it ever being used effectively in that role.

A "Breakthrough" tank is only useful if there is any chance of the breakthrough being successfully prosecuted by the follow-up "Breakout" forces (primarily PzKpfw IV's & PzKpfw VI Panthers) & the Wehrmacht didn't have enough tanks or troops to achieve that against the Soviets.

[Wardukw]

Well after a wee bit of doing this and doing that ..mostly ruler work and thinking i want to just build a model with bugger all stratch building involved has gone bye bye...

Don't you hate it when that happens.

Yes i bloody well do mate ...but...the turret is looking quite early small production so its not prefect like the normal turret the tiger has  but still looks ok at the mo.

Agreed Guy ..Nick knows his stuff not only of course his experiences but his research and i do love how when some one asks him a question about something hes never touched he tells em he dont know in the way he does..damn funny when he explains it 
The break through tank idea was up and down with this tank and im happy im not going that way ..its original idea which makes it look quite different .
I am using some tiger turret parts ..as ive got those and the Panzer lll bits i have are from a very early release from Dragon and they aint that great.
And because its wiffy world i can have some fun with it 

[rickshaw]

I know Nick from my days on Tanknet.  He's a funny man.  He is also an ignorant man who doesn't take into account his personal height in his "get out of a tank damn quick" or the ergonomics of the vehicles he is surveying.  He was refused in the Irish Army to become an armoured car driver, being over six feet in height.  He later moved to the US where soldier's are big and because a tank commander.  He doesn't take that into account when examine vehicles such as the Sentinel.  Yes there are problems with the design but for a first effort it wasn't bad.  It worked most of the time for most of the crew.   He is overly critical most of his criticism is because he is six inches taller than the average Australian was in 1940.

[Wardukw]

That issue Rick is pretty much the same for everyone whos tall..im 6'2 and ive been in plenty of machines which are to small but as ys said he doesn't take into account that since 1940 ee have gotten alot taller..my mate Tony is 6'6 and he can drive a mini without a drivers seat in it ..he just hangs onto the bottom of the drivers door but theres no way he could ever fit into a Sherman ..hes just too damn big..hes like 200+kgs and built like a tree trunk..a big one .
Hell its even a bloody uncomfortable for me and yup i have been in a Sherman and i didnt like it..to cramped and i cant even get into a Staghound.
I guess you could say its his personal opinions which he just seems to forget that everybody isnt his height.

[rickshaw]

I have sat in a Leopard AS1's driver seat and I am Five feet 8 inches tall, I was at the upper limit allowed and was cramped indeed.  Most WWII people, particularly Europeans were protein starved and so tended towards what most colonials would call "tiny" in size.  The US Army conducted ergonomic studies towards the end of WWII and came up with some truly amazing maximum sizes for soldiers - up to over 1.5 metres shoulder width and up to nearly 2.5 metres in height.  Downunder the Army has adopted a different approach, they have instead tested the crew positions for what maximum sized diggers will fit.  That is because they tend to buy COTS - Commercial Off the Shelf equipment rather than manufacture it themselves.

[Wardukw]

Oh i know all to well about how the military like to use big guys..give them heavy crap to carry like 12kg machine guns or when theres bridges to be built they like giving them big arse hammers and hell even i was takin advantage off as a kid cause i was 6' tall when i was 13 and dad made me to all the heavy stuff on our farm ..he was 5'6...got my height from my mum who was the massive height of 5'8 
I kinda went a wee bit more and yeah food really helps..ate alot of meat growing up and grains galore with  a crap load of fruit.
But if ya look thru history some of those protein facts dont make some sense..look at the Vikings..not as big as they seemed but there diet made them very powerful guys ..what they lacked in height they made up for in strenght but then again you have that tribe in Africa who dont eat like we do yet the average height is like 6'6+ .
Thats always a problem when you buy non made to measure ...you have to find the right sized ppl to fit and Americans in WW2 were not as tall as ppl think or for many yrs afterwards in fact..ive driven alot of US made vehicles which i could barely fit in from full sized pickups to Corvettes.
A friend had a 79 455 Pontiac trans am..with the seat moved as far back as i could there was still bugger all space behind that steering wheel.

[rickshaw]

When I was at Uni, the university postman was over six feet 10 inches tall.  Of course, he was given a Honda Civic to get around campus in.  He took the front seat out and drove from the back seat.  When ever he came into the tavern, he had to dodge the pendant lights and duck to reach the bar.  Apparently, he used to play volleyball.  Quite well, I'd imagine.  Anyway, soldiers come in various sizes!  Tall, short, broad and narrow.  When I was in the army,  we invariably gave the GPMG to the biggest bloke in the section but it usually ended up in the arms of the smallest digger.  He used to use it just as well as the biggest bloke.  I preferred the M16 or the F1 SMG myself as the section commander or 2-i-c.

[Wardukw]

Dude that is gotta be the tallest postman ever and anywhere ..he could put the mail in the first and second floor post boxes without even going to the second floor 
I dont mind the M16 ..A2 or A3 ..liked the M4 more with IRS ..great for lights and laser designators and the odd M203 
Ive played with several verisons of the FNMAG including a custom modified MAG which was cut down as a CQB prototype ..it worked but didnt get used for anything other than experiments.
Like the guys in my unit were all over place and i wasnt the tallest..beaten by half a inch    ..we didnt have a dedicated GPMG gunner ..it wasnt a section either..we all knew the MGs inside and out and we'ed use it for when the mission required it.
I was also a fan of the L1A1 ..a good if not heavy long range rifle  and set up with match grade ammo and a good scope targets at 900 metres are easy 
If my memory serves the F1 is the newer version of the WW2 Owen SMG  and modded from the Sterling SMG which i didnt like..not enough hitting power in 9mm.

[rickshaw]

The F1 was a unique development post war.  The only similarity with the Owen Gun was the top mounted magazine.  When they quizzed soldiers what they wanted in their next SMG, the diggers responded with the top mounted magazine.  Before that, they'd experimented with a pistol grip mounted one which was not liked at all.

The M16 is a fuzzy bunny of a rifle.  Too prone to stoppages and spitting out it's magazines.  I don't know if the M4 is any better in that regard.  It has to be kept very, very, clean to work properly.  The L1a1 is a superb rifle.  Hard to stop it working unless you really, really try with it.  The F88 Steyr is similar.  Apparently the L1a1 only won the competition because Churchill (current PM at the time) preferred it to the bullpup competitor.  The only good thing about the M16/M4 series of rifle is all the Gucci gear you can hang off it easily.   When I was talking to the RSM of the Australian Army at a conference he was dismissive of the SASR's demand to armed with the M4.  He'd have much preferred that they took the F88 but the decision was out of his hands.