1/87th Jagdtiger

 Hot off the painting stocks is this delightful old clunker, and old Roco Tiger II converted into a Jagdtiger. I claim no bragging rights on the conversion as I picked it up on a Bring & Buy years ago, and I suspect it used to belong to Graham Evans. I have few 1/87th scale vehicles I use with my 15mm stuff, and I'm not too bothered by the slight size difference.

Re-painting this has been on my to-do list for ages to go in my 'Stupid big late war German Tank Destroyers' box along with the Elefants, Jagdpanthers etc. I think it has a certain quaint charm, and I'd much rather have a vehicle someone has worked on than simply buying one of the many plastic, resin or metal Jagdtigers that are available now.

I'm sure that will give the Amis a fright. Two entire battalions of these things were raised, and bizarrely Hitler decided the Western Front was the ideal place to use them, and they made their combat debut in November 1944 in the fighting for the Westwall.

This model has the hallmarks of multiple paint layers, not helped by me giving it three more coats, but it has left it with a pleasing rough finish with a certain Zimmeritt feel to it, or at least a vehicle which has seen some rough handling. I'm not quite sure why the gun barrel is stuck on at 60 degrees off true, but I didn't fancy prising it off and sticking it back on. It just adds to its charm.

Despite the many coats of paint, the deep engraving on the engine deck has stood the test of time, and there is enough definition left on the rest of the detail for ink to run into the grooves and and a drybrush to pick out the highlights. I even managed to pick out the towing cables, which gave the hull sides a bit more definition.

The running gear has also survived well as like the engine, it has deep mouldings.

So, the final conundrum is what colour to paint it. Reams of pixels have been spilled on the interweb about the 'right' colour to paint Jagdtigers, even though only 70 of them were built. My pal Nick at school used to paint all German vehicles panzer grey, generally with SS lighting flashes on the turret. This one also rocked up in a grey scheme, but no SS flashes.

Sadly for excitable modellers the world over, the grey late war tanks seems to be a  myth, although a dark green base coat is plausible, particularly for Panthers. The dull reality is that Jagdtigers were painted in the factory in either Dunkelgelb or left in red oxide primer and then occasionally camo'd up by their units generally using only one colour (red brown or green for dunkelgelb ones, dunkelgelb or green for the red oxide ones). The Tank Museum has repainted their Jagdtiger in plain dunkelgelb, as that was how it was when it was captured, which is a shame as the older scheme was rather jazzy.

So, I did mine in boring old yellow, with large soft edged green patches (which seems to have been a fairly common arrangement).  Balkan crosses right in the middle of each side to make a handy aiming point (why did they do that?) and as they were organised the same as Tiger battalions, standard three digit number scheme, but avoiding higher numbers. Other than that, it had the usual dirtying up of mud all over the tracks and running gear, and ink wash and then a dusty drybrush.

That was a fun re-introduction to painting for this year. I've no idea when I might use it in a game so into the box it goes.