1:72 Pz.Kpfw.VI Tiger Ausf.E (Early Production Model)

The year 1943 and the first deployment in the east

Early-production Tigers could be told from the later machines at first glance: a cylindrical commander's cupola with vision slits, air filters at the rear of the hull and smoke discharger launchers on the sides of the turret. It was a vehicle like this that fought at Kharkov in the spring of 1943 and, in July of the same year, in the biggest tank battle of the war. The sheet keeps to this period and offers vehicles that still carried tall four-digit and three-digit numbers painted in strong contrast.

Ten vehicles from one year

The sheet holds machines numbered 823, 821, 833 and 812 of the heavy company of the second panzer regiment, further vehicles numbered 405, 411 and 1331 of the heavy company of the first regiment and machine 911 of the third regiment. The series is rounded out by two vehicles marked with a letter and a two-digit number, which also carry the names of their commanders, and the dating reaches as far as January 1944.

• ten complete markings on one sheet
• vehicles from the fighting at Kharkov in the spring of 1943
• machines from the Eastern Front in the summer of 1943
• four-digit as well as three-digit turret numbers
• two vehicles with markings from the turn of 1943 and 1944

What it is suited to

Early vehicles are built differently from late ones. They want a cleaner surface, less chipping on the edges and dust rather than rust, because most of them did not live to see the end of the war and look almost new in photographs. Keep the markings strong, then, and weather sparingly, because exaggerated weathering would look unconvincing on machines that ran for a single season.