This was my fourth kit and one of my all time favourite armored vehicles simply because of its extreme design!!! I purchased this one from a regular online retailer and I ordered the Eduard exterior etching set ( unfortunately I did not know that this lovely kit comes with a detailed fighting compartment or I would have ordered the interior detail set as well). Having a well detailed fighting compartment,I had to spend time assembling and painting it before the rest of the kit could be assembled, so some revision of the building instructions had to be carried out. The Eduard etched kit is truly excellent and good value for money, you get engine grilles, skirts and a mortar round casing with it as well as tool upgrades and clasps. The Skirts are especially good, enabling you to get a real battered look to the whole model. My only complaint about this lovely kit is that the mortar barrel has no rifling, unlike the real thing. So i used the etched packing provided for detailing the mortar rounds and put this in the barrel instead. It worked quite well and gives the illusion of rifling. The zimmerit was my now standard two part superfine milliput and airwaves jigs and the whole model was spray painted and weathered with games workshop inks and some chalk pastels. In attempting this kit, I searched the web for reference and found an excellent German modeling site , WWW.STURMTIGER.COM. I contacted the sites owner, Mr Thomas Hartwig for advice on painting and colour schemes and I would like to offer my thanks for his kind advice. Thomas is also a co contributer to another excellent hobbyist site, WWW.PANZER-MODELL.DE .This site is currently in only available in German, but Thomas informs me that an English version will soon be available. Check it out, its well worth a visit and great for info, inspiration and for viewing fellow hobbyists kits. I thoroughly enjoyed making this kit, as per Tamiyas usual high standard, all the parts were perfectly machined with no flash and fited perfectly. all together, I rate the kit as A+++ a must for anyone interested in modelling this machine.
Historically, the Sturm Tiger was an extreme machine, built towards the end of the war in very small numbers from refitted Tiger 1 chassis. The conversion work was carried out by the Alkett company, the turret being removed and replaced with a huge, thickly armored superstructure and a massive 38 cm rocket mortar. This enormous weapon was originally intended to be used by the navy as an anti submarine weapon, but instead it came to be installed on this vehicle. The tank was built to engage in urban warfare, Its immensely thick armor enabling it to approach enemy strong points and quite literally flaten them with the enormous shells of its main armament. As no weapon that size could hope to cope with the recoil of such a shell, the barrel was vented, hence the row of holes around the muzzle. The blast of the rocket motor was deflected through the tubes and out to the front of the tank, so when it fired, a sea of flame engulfed the ground directly in front of the vehicle. The Sturmtiger saw active service during the suppression of the Polish home army in Warsaw, and on the western front, engaging American forces during the battle of the Ruhr. |
