Tuesday 27 March 2012

PzKpfw VI Ausf E - Tiger

I'm heading off to Dorset on Friday in preparation for Tiger Day at the Tank Museum. My Brother-in-Law Ray and I have Premium Tickets so as well as getting to see the museums Tiger strut it stuff in the arena we also have VIP access to the tank and the restoration team. Needless to say we are very excited about this event and in anticipation I decided to paint a Tiger IE from the 15mm Flames of War range.

A Lone Tiger IE stalks the battlefield




This particular model is the Tiger from the Wittmann box set (GBX16) although I have painted it as a stand alone vehicle just for fun. It doesn't fit into my current Army List but I may give this beast a little run round the games table on it's own just to see how it does against a dozen or so Sherman's.

Close-up of the commanders Coupala
The Panzerkampfwagen VI Ausf E (Sd Kfz 181) known as the Tiger was feared by the Allies far in excess of its actual battlefield presence. Only 1,347 were built between 1942-45 with most of those destined for the eastern Front. Facing the Allied invasion forces in Normandy there were only three German schwere Panzer Abteilung equipped with Tiger I's.

Pz.Abt. 503 transferred to Normandy with 33 Tiger I's in early July 1944
Pz.Abt. 101 reached Normandy in early June 1944 with a maximum compliment of 45 Tiger I's
Pz.Abt. 102 was transferred to Normandy with 45 Tiger I, reaching action in early July.

In addition the Panzer Lehr Division had ten Tiger I's but its likely that a maximum of 8 were operational at the beginning of June 1944. So at most there were just 133 Tiger 's in Normandy in June-July 1944 and in all probability far fewer at any given time due to mechanical issues or combat attrition.

The Tiger rotates its turret towards another unfortunate target
The real reason for the Tigers formidable reputation (a reputation that made every German tank a Tiger in allied tankers eyes) was it's gun. The 8.8 cm Kampfwagenkanone 36 L/56 was amongst the most effective and feared tank guns of its time. It had a very high muzzle velocity (over 3000 ft/s when firing armour piercing rounds) which gave it a very flat trajectory which in turn made it very accurate.

The Tiger I was notoriously unreliable, although many of the early problems had been ironed out by the time of the Normandy campaign. Its real undoing however was its build quality and the price tag that went with it. In simple terms the Tiger used nearly double the manpower and material to build than the smaller more reliable Panzer IV. There is no doubt that the Tiger I was a formidable design but with only 1,347 built it would always be outnumbered by smaller cheaper tanks like the Sherman (58,000 built) or the T-34 (36,000 built).

Tiger IE passing the larger Konigstiger

24 comments:

  1. My favourite tank ever, good work Lee!

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  2. Great job Lee. We expect video of the Tiger in action otherwise a mob with torches and pitchforks will be outside your house!

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  3. Very nice work Lee. The Tiger1 is a beautiful tank. Enjoy the weekend.

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  4. Nice job. I am very envious of your trip!

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  5. Great job Lee. It looks spot on.

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  6. Great paint job on it.. congrats!

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  7. Nicely done. Your hand-brushed cammo is excellent.

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  8. Beautiful paint job! Very interesting read, too. I hope you have a great time at Tiger Day, and I'll be checking back for more cool pics.

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  9. Nice. And I think it is nearly impossible to model German tanks without doing a Tiger at some point.

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  10. Great job lee, sounds like your gonna have a very busy weekend, you'll have to cancel Salute just to get the brownie points back?????

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    1. SWMBO has made it clear I owe her BIGTIME for this weekend. Two days away with my Brother-in-law and then a game with the rejects on Sunday so I guess that's fair enough! As for Salute, no chance of missing that barring illness or the Zombie Apocalypse.

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  11. Great paint job Lee.... Looks mighty menacing to me!

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  12. Lovely model and a very interesting post. Thanks.

    I'm surprised there were that many more Shermans built than T34's though. Love stuff like this - saddo really I suppose.

    Deeply envious of your Bovvy visit. :O(

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  13. Lovely work Lee! And, you get to see a real one up close in action. I bet it will be quite loud!

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  14. That's a stunning bit of kit and hard to believe that it is 15mm scale too! Great work Lee.

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  15. A lovely big cat you've got there Lee - well done!

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  16. Great looking paint job and useful info on the Tiger, although I know a guy who, when he played a WW2 game would deploy Tigers as if they were 2 a penny...

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  17. Damn ! I am so envious. Photos and vid please !

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  18. I'll be shooting plenty of video as will Ray. It may take a couple of days to work through it all but I will post it as soon as I can.

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  19. That's a very good 15mm paint job

    Well done

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