King Tiger Diorama by chadwijm6 - FINISHED - Airfix - 1/35

[chadwijm6]

Tracks are coming together....

[Baker]

2 hours ago, Egilman said:

So yes, it is possible that there were Tiger II's in Berlin in the final days of the war...

Yes.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/33rd_Waffen_Grenadier_Division_of_the_SS_Charlemagne

 

Ps
We're covering this entire buildlog with Tiger 2 history ... 😳

[chadwijm6]

20 minutes ago, Baker said:

Yes.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/33rd_Waffen_Grenadier_Division_of_the_SS_Charlemagne

 

Ps
We're covering this entire buildlog with Tiger 2 history ... 😳

 

Seems appropriate content to me. No problem at all. 👍🏻

[Egilman]

Well one does have to admit that the King Tiger has a Cachet about it that no other WWII tank has...

 

When it was in good repair and full of ammo and fuel it WAS the king of the battlefield in the hands of an experienced crew... Nothing else could touch it for effectiveness... But this is where it became the ultimate failure...

 

Getting it into battle in that condition proved near impossible...

 

It wasn't reliable, it had a weak final drive system based upon the Tiger I which they knew had problems, the weight of the Tiger II exacerbated that... It was a fuel hog with a range at best of 150k..  There were several occasion during the wart where a Battalion would leave their assembly point for the battlefield, around 40-45 tanks and none of them would make it to the battle... Either broke down or out of fuel... It was a handicap in offensive warfare...

 

It really shone it's abilities in the defensive battle though when it didn't have to move very much and fuel would last a bit longer... And this is where most of them were lost... They would fight until disabled, usually by breakdown, occasionally by running out of fuel and every once in a while being destroyed by enemy action... There was never a recovery vehicle that could handle the king Tiger and when the retreat started they didn't have the facilities to being them in for repair consistently and hence when they were in the position where they were fully operational except for fuel, the crews would disable them, (by draining the recuperator in the gun and firing a high energy projectile through it, it would destroy the recoil system, then set them afire where the ammo would eventually explode)

 

Estimates range to 35-50% losses this way..

 

By the end of the war the allies were developing guns that could handle the King Tiger, (the US 90mm and the Russian 128mm anti tank guns) not enough of them arived to really be tested in combat against the King Tiger...

 

A beautiful piece of engineering when it worked an engineering disaster when it didn't... Overall as a combat vehicle it's history shows it was a poor one....

 

But it still impresses even today....

[Darius359au]

7 hours ago, chadwijm6 said:

 

Seems appropriate content to me. No problem at all. 👍🏻

Was going to apologize for the slight history hijack of your build thread😎😄

Ironically I'm doing a Battle of Berlin theme for my 1/16 armour models ,the T34/85 1944 I shared pictures of is  55th guards brigade Berlin 1945 ,I'm in the middle of building a Panzer IV J late based around some photo's i've found  ,after that the plans for a tiger 1 ,tiger 2 and a Panther G late with IR - all in 1/16 ,next thing is to find somewhere to display them ,i'm already out of room with 2🤣

Richard

[CDW]

49 minutes ago, Darius359au said:

Was going to apologize for the slight history hijack of your build thread😎😄

Ironically I'm doing a Battle of Berlin theme for my 1/16 armour models ,the T34/85 1944 I shared pictures of is  55th guards brigade Berlin 1945 ,I'm in the middle of building a Panzer IV J late based around some photo's i've found  ,after that the plans for a tiger 1 ,tiger 2 and a Panther G late with IR - all in 1/16 ,next thing is to find somewhere to display them ,i'm already out of room with 2🤣

Richard

Don’t know if you are interest ex d, but there are some nice 1/16 scale figures on sale at Andy’s Hobby Headquarters on line. I was just looking at them on his sale page today. These are new ones that have recently been released.

[chadwijm6]

3 hours ago, Darius359au said:

Was going to apologize for the slight history hijack of your build thread😎😄

Ironically I'm doing a Battle of Berlin theme for my 1/16 armour models ,the T34/85 1944 I shared pictures of is  55th guards brigade Berlin 1945 ,I'm in the middle of building a Panzer IV J late based around some photo's i've found  ,after that the plans for a tiger 1 ,tiger 2 and a Panther G late with IR - all in 1/16 ,next thing is to find somewhere to display them ,i'm already out of room with 2🤣

Richard

 

Great project Richard. Do you have a log to follow? I've been having a look online at 1/16 tanks would be really interested to follow along....

 

Maybe a house extension is the first part of the build 😉

[Darius359au]

@CDW I haven't checked Andy's for ages ,I do have the Tamiya 1/16 Panzer Officer for scale though.

 

@chadwijm6 I had build logs for the T34/85 and the PzIV-J but I cannot remember where.. I might do a build highlights thread for them sometime!

 

Richard

 

Edited April 11 by Darius359au

[GrandpaPhil]

On 4/10/2024 at 3:33 AM, chadwijm6 said:

If I may ask a question gents, I'm just doing the tracks and I'm wondering what colour to paint them before weathering. I was thinking gun metal grey. Or would a non metallic grey be more appropriate?

 

I like to use nonmetallic metal paint technique for bare metal.  I start with a base coat of black and successively dry brush lighter shades of grey.  Each time I go lighter, I dry brush with less paint.  The last pass is a highlight coat with white.

Edited April 11 by GrandpaPhil

[chadwijm6]

The German tank crew have arrived. There's even a couple of birds included. 

 

They look quite detailed to me, certainly good enough for my first attempt. 

 

 

 

[Old Collingwood]

Those are  nice looking figures  there.

 

OC.

[chadwijm6]

In the end I've painted the tracks in gun metal grey, Vallejo Air, and now I've added AK liquid pigment rust to them.

 

I've gone quite heavy but that was the intention at the beginning. 

 

 

 

I've also been working on the diorama. A photo frame base with some thick foam and then Sculptamold to give some texture.

 

 

Primed in black. 

 

I've then sprayed in a road in a mid grey, then a coat of crackle, then a coat of concrete. I've used dark earth for the areas that will have grass and then some other earth tones and beige for the rocky bit. 

 

 

There will be grass to come and rubble I think. 

 

I've also ordered a motorbike and rider from Tamiya, I might add this to create a scene that the troops are resting on their way through Belgium. Let's see. 

 

 

Edited April 13 by chadwijm6

[Old Collingwood]

Looking  good.

 

OC.

[chadwijm6]

More progress on the diorama and weathering the Tiger, which is assembled now. Muddying up next...

[Baker]

Seen too late, sorry.
But this ring goes on top of the periscopes, and not in front of them.
Your Commander doesn't see anything this way.

 

[chadwijm6]

32 minutes ago, Baker said:

Seen too late, sorry.
But this ring goes on top of the periscopes, and not in front of them.
Your Commander doesn't see anything this way.

 

 

Lots of mistakes on this one .... I realised too late and it was already glued so I decided to leave it. I will call this my experimental phase!!

 

Thanks for the heads up 👍

[Egilman]

3 hours ago, chadwijm6 said:

I realised too late

We've all been there done that!!! {chuckle}

 

Not bad at all for a firstie..... Well done...

[chadwijm6]

I think I'm finished with this one. He can join his friends on the shelf

 

 

[CDW]

Your King Tiger came out great, James! Bravo

[Baker]

Nice dio.

well done.

[Old Collingwood]

Excellent bit of work.

 

OC.

[mtaylor]

Very well done and the dio just adds a lot.

[Darius359au]

Nice diorama ,and not bad for your 1st try at armour models👍

 

Richard

[GrandpaPhil]

Nicely done!