Lets face it, who hasn't wanted a panzer grey Tiger 1? Back in the distant days of the school wargames club in the early 1970s, it was pretty common to paint late war German tanks grey, just because it looked so cool. Now, I do have a few grey 6mm Tigers, aimed at the Russian Front in late 1942 and early 43, but this is my first 15mm one.
Woo, and doesn't it look great. This is the early production Battlefield 3D one I previewed earlier with the straight turret bin. It isn't one of the very first Tigers catastrophically committed near Leningrad in 1942 with the pair of turret bins on each side of the turret though, as that is such a niche vehicle.
These types saw a fair bit of action on the Eastern Front over the winter of 1942/43, before being repainted dunkelgelb in early 1943.
I've already described the model in an earlier post, but the paint job brings out the moulded on detail nicely. It was undercoated Humbrol Sea Grey and then given a wash of VJ Panzer Grey to darken it and give it some lowlights. It has also come out with a pleasing bluish tone.
The turret number is 103, which I'm going to claim was Hauptmann Hans Bolter from the 502nd Tiger Bn (as featured in the 'Paw of the Tiger' scenario in AHGCs Squad Leader/Cross of Iron). He was in the same battalion as Otto Carius, but Carius' number was 217 which is so non-standard it doesn't exist in my decal sheets. I assume the 502nd numbered vehicles by company but then just counted the individual vehicles, not the platoons. Or something.
The stunning moulded detail on the engine deck is even more obvious now it is painted. I did a pinwash around all the tools, tow cable etc to highlight them more. I also picked out the engine deck fire extinguisher in red for some contrast (Tiger 1 fire extinguisher colours are another delightful AFV modellers rabbit hole, they were done in a range of colours).
I applied a certain amount of mud on and around the tracks and running gear. I even had a go at picking out the rubber tyres on the road wheels. The biggest problem was the left hand hull balkan cross, as there is a tow rope moulded onto the hull. I vaguely thought about trying to cut the decals in half, but in the end I stuck the cross over the tow rope, then painted the cable on top of it and it gives the illusion the cross is behind the cable.
The turret numbers came out a bit shuny (Doms Decals) so I covered them with matt varnish and discovered that VJ varnish lifts Doms Decals off... a certain amount of cursing ensued but I got it all to stick down eventually.
The whole thing was finished off with a light drybrush of VJ Iraqi Pale Sand. Now really it should be in snow camo but I couldn't bring myself to do that and I don't have any other snow camo vehicles either so it would just look out of place. The grey will look pretty good against a snow background anyway.
No comments:
Post a Comment