A day trip for some reference photos

Parola Armour museum

During the summer half of 2023 the Parola tank museum had a special showpiece, a King Tiger that was on loan from the Bovington's museum. I tried to ask a couple of friends in separate cases if any of them were interested in a silly trip but no one had a matching schedule with mine. So I took this day trip all by myself, especially the Project Assistants I nor II, not to mention my partner, were interested in admiring blocks of steel in engine oil -smelling halls.

On an evilly early Saturday morning in August I drove north to Parola and the parking lot was jam-packed already thirty minutes after the opening of the museum. Following that the first hall that was the King Tiger's temporary home was also pretty damn busy. I had dragged our DSLR camera with me, so I took only a few photos with either of my cell phones, because the big one was much better for references?

What happened with my numerous photos was that I moved them on my desktop, but delayed with my actual backups a bit too long and an OS update wiped my data drive along with the OS-dedicated drive. My recovery attempts were futile and I was a bit annoyed with myself and the OS provider. These tank photos were the only ones I hadn't paranoidly copied to many different disks in many places.

Panzerkampfwagen Tiger Ausf. B

The rare display piece was the Henschel's second prototype hull, Versuchs-Fahrgestell No. V2, with the older turret. The tank itself had few extra pieces on it, such as side skirts, mud flaps, tools, or most of the exhaust pipe pieces either. Seeing a Königstiger with my own foul eyes was awe-inspiring and it was extra amusing as the tank was positioned just about next to a tiny Vickers-Armstrong -made tankette that was pretty much the size of a wheel barrow.

The only photo of mine that remained of the biggest of kitties:

ô_õ

More important than photos was that I did get to ogle at the tank myself, at weird angles and just be generally baffled by the immense size of the tank. Just the drive sprockets were about the size of my torso and most likely somewhat heavier as well. It was impressive, if I had to choose one word. Now I just needed to find myself next to a live Tiger, and a Panther would be a cool bonus.

T-34/76 "Sotka", Ps 231-1

I was taking these T-34 photos for reference at a pretty fortunate time, as I hadn't started with the mine roller tank yet, but I knew I was going to take it up soon after. I was most excited to check the wear and tear on the tracks and what looked worn-out in which place.

StuG III Ausf. G, Ps 531-45

More than the many Soviet tanks in the museum I knew I was going to need (and want) more random, weird details on the German tanks. Looking at the effects of the road wheels and such was always useful, to begin with. Had I gotten very deep in this stuff, I might have tried to recognize the type of the tracks on this one, but I didn't know enough to say a thing.

In case I ever was going to make another tank with a modeled interior, and especially a StuG, it was a good idea to link to Andreas Lärka's collection here: http://www.andreaslarka.net/ps531045/ps531045.html

One of the most useful details here was the jack's wooden block and go me for taking a photo of it with the phone as well. I recognized being completely wrong with these pieces on models and had painted them so very wrong for years. These days I knew better.

57 ITPSV SU 57-2, Ps 461-nn

This turreted Sergei (the Finnish name for ZU-23-2, the twin-barreled 23mm AA cannon) on a tank chassis mostly offered me some more fun details of the life-lived tracks, the tow cable loops for upcoming chipping sessions, and the general forest-provided debris on different parts of the tank.

Panzer IV Ausf. J, Ps 221-nn

Of the J-model Panzer IV I didn't take many quick photos of, as it was such a rusty individual that I didn't see myself copying all that myself. For the upcoming projects I was most interested in its muzzle brake.

Some Soviet tracks

These photos I took only because these tracks showed so nicely how the contact surfaces of the tracks reflected light and how the bare metal showed at different angles. I think I spent a good fifteen, twenty minutes with the proper camera and my phone, most likely looking a bit silly, trying to capture the effect I saw so plainly with my own two eyes.

All in all the photos from my trip could've been much worse, these quick "easier to check from the phone than from the computer" shots saved a bit at least. The drive overwrite happened months ago now and I was still heavily annoyed by it.

Finished: Project IV/21

Henschel und Sohn & Krupp: SdKfz 182

My first Panzer project in many a year in general, my first tank project ever with a modeled interior. To compensate, this wasn't my first King Tiger, not with the proto- or production turret, not in this or a smaller scale. But this definitely was my longest tank project ever and you could tell by the amount of photos taken and the number of posts typoed up. All this took almost a full year in the calendar, but I did do other things every once in a while, as always, so this wasn't quite as slow as it may have sounded like.

For some reason the tank didn't have a ridiculously large and bright Henschel sign on it, this one above was from a side of a locomotive. Its scale I had completely forgotten.

Panzerkampfwagen Tiger Ausführung B

Before anything else, I took some photos of what I had just finished. I didn't want to break anything before it was documented. The previous times I attempted to connect the upper and lower halves, something made very ugly and scary noises, a few pieces fell off and some paint got seriously scratched. That wasn't anything a modeler enjoys hearing or seeing, you might find yourself agreeing with me here.

A summarizing attempt

All in all this project took about nine months of time, 41 posts if this one was included, and 502 photos (of which 13 were reference photos), and at best or worst a couple of dozen of tabs open for who knows what sort of weird details for this build. I didn't start counting the paints and paintlike products, as I had just packed them away yesterday evening, but the volume of bottles was noticeable.

Ignoring a couple of fitting problems the Takom kit was neat, I liked building it quite a bit. My current queue is long enough for a year, easily, but at some point I'll be looking for a new tracked vehicle to be built. This kit's completely modeled interior was an intimidating aspect to begin with, but as it was also immensely interesting stuff to work on, I'd be more than happy to jump into something similar again. Sadly, I don't think not too many people besides me were going to be running for a Hummel with full interior, for example, but I'd love one.

A cool kit, with a stupidly badly fitting deck. My own suckiness at this craft prevented me from noticing and working around it in time.

The upper hull with the turret

These photos didn't betray the silly little detail of the deck plate that contained the driver's and radio operator's hatches was removable. Technically I could've pulled it off and take a couple of photos of the cramped insides, if I managed to get the lights set properly.

So far the beast looked pretty decent.

The lower hull

I had taken a ridiculous number of photos of the lower hull throughout the project. Now I took a handful more, to be shared at a slightly higher resolution.

 

The production turret

Just to cover everything, I took some photos of the turret alone. This was the first time this made any sense, as this was the most complex turret so far (the T-35 ones were a tiny bit simpler). I hadn't really taken photos of the turret since I got it supposedly finished.

In hindsight I could've painted the outer shell and the base of the turret together. Now the base plate was a separate Dunkelgelb block that happened to be located under dark green stripes on both sides of the turret.

The turret on the tank

To waste a bit more time before the risky attempt I dropped the turret into its place on the hull and took even more photos from various angles. Having the tank set up this way the effect was a bit strange. This gave me (again) the idea that I could still take me sidecutters and hack the setup into a "Incredible cross-sections"-book kind of a thing. But if that was my plan, I'd made it clear from the beginning instead of pretending to come up with at the last moment.

Assembled

Now that I had taken all the photos I thought I wanted, I crunched the parts together. In the rear hull the fitting issues were the worst, and I didn't dare to start using any more force than what I had already applied on the poor model. I was expecting the ammo racks and the fuel tanks to crack off, if nothing else. And I really didn't want to ruin those.

So, the photos ended up showing a slightly grimacing front glacis plate join, and a completely open rear plate. No amount of manipulation would've gotten them settle nicely in place and any gluing of such effort would've ended up looking monstrous.

 

If you managed to ignore the open butt-plate, this was a pretty cool-looking tank. Looking at this at this point didn't make me really wish I had actually used the mudguards and side panels, even though they'd hidden an amount of these fitting issues. A good bunch of years ago I built a King Tiger with a part of them in place only, and those installed were somehow mistreated, providing a nice effect. Perhaps I could do that to a follow-up model, I guess I couldn't be expected to use all the silly tricks in a single model / project.

Comparison kitties

Just for the fun of it I took the Panther Ausf. G (the one that ran on a single AA battery (said battery had finally released its charge, two years ago it still had enough juice to move tha model over the domestic obstacles)). Being close relatives I thought they'd be a fun couple for side-by-side shots. My fresh royal tiger just happened to be clean, while the Panther had managed to gather some dust over it.

The felines had a clear size difference. Some genious had decided, decaudes ago, that these vehicles had to be propelled with the very same engine, expecting somehow similar results. The wisdom of this wasn't too clear to me.