Dragon Tiger 1 Ausf E Late Production W Zimmerit Unboxing

That old little thing that makes the money for our hobby once again gets in the way of our hobby, still here's the second installment of my Easter build, the Dragon 6383 Tiger I.

I found this unboxing on YouTube and it says it all, so why bother and doing it yourself (badly) when you can steal it with pride. Still all the credits go to Leon Fray, thanks Leon for a great job, another couple of days I can spend glueing and painting.

 

Some close ups of the beautifully sculpted zimmerit on the model, can't find any fault in it, but I'm sure some will. ;)

 



 

The gun mantlet

 

 

left side of the turret

 

 

WIP

 

 

The last picture is proof that some actual work is being done, I just have a slight problem with my lighting, something I'm hoping to solve this weekend, stay tuned for more in the near future.

 

Ohh and yes I have been good and haven't started on the new Hobby Boss boxes, thought the manuals have been studied in depth.

 

Dragon 6540 Flakpanzer IV "Wirbelwind"

Ok, time to restart this little effort after a long long break, I have been modeling and taking pictures, but the blogging part just didn't happen.

For the restart I selected the Dragon kit #6540 from my stack, one of the many versions of the German WWII workhorse the Panzer IV.

A little bit of history on this one from wiki.

The Flakpanzer IV "Wirbelwind" (Whirlwind in English) was a self-propelled anti-aircraft gun based on the Panzer IV tank. It was developed in 1944 as a successor to the earlier self-propelled anti-aircraft gun Möbelwagen. In the first years of the war, the Wehrmacht had less interest in developing self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, but as the Allies began to gain air superiority, the need for more mobile and better-armed self-propelled anti-aircraft guns increased. During the early summer of 1944, SS-Hauptsturmführer Karl Wilhelm Krause with the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend came up with the concept of the Flakpanzer IV Wirbelwind.[1] He presented the concept to SS-Obersturmbannführer Max Wünsche, commanding officer of the 12th SS Panzer Regiment and it was approved by Hitler. The Panzer IV's turret was removed and replaced with an open-top, nine-sided turret which housed a quadruple 2 cm Flakvierling 38 L/112.5. A closed-top design would have been preferable, but this was not possible due to the heavy smoke generated by the four anti-aircraft guns. Production of the tank was carried out by Ostbau Werke in Sagan, Silesia. Thereafter, the 2 cm shells proved less effective against aircraft so a more powerful successor was produced which eventually replaced it. Known as the Flakpanzer IV Ostwind (East Wind), the successor was equipped with a single 3.7 cm FlaK 43. The combination of armor and rapid fire from the four guns of the Wirbelwind did make it effective against ground targets. Between 87 and 105 Wirbelwinds were produced during the war, but due to discrepancies between the recorded production numbers at the Ostbau Works and Wehrmacht service records, the exact number will probably never be known.