Tiger I Ausf. H

Manufacturer: Revell AG.

By Michael Hatch and Stephen Hodge (photographer).

I built this Ausf. H firstafter being inspired by reading Doug's review. Being a fairlylazy modeler, I find it most helpful reading about other people'sprojects, allowing me to side-step problems that they may haveencountered. It also gives me a little more time to plan how Iwill build the kit and I find that that can be the key in makingthe project both fun and relaxing.

I built the 'H' as anearly production machine deployed on the Russian Front during thewinter of 1942/43. It is marked as belonging to the Heavy PanzerCompany of SS PanzerGrenadier Division 'Leibstandarte SS AdolfHitler'.

Upon first inspection (inthe box) I was very impressed with the kit. My research revealedonly two small errors that I felt needed correcting and both wereeasily done. The first one is that the loader's hatch on theturret roof is missing its two hinge straps. These were addedwith sheet styrene strips. The plan view of the model includedwith the assembly instructions correctly shows these straps. Thesecond one is that early production Tigers didn't have aperiscope for the loader in the turret roof. Therefore the coverfor it (part #40) shouldn't be used. The plan view mistakenlyshows this part in place. As Doug mentions in his review, the kitout of the box is accurate for only a very small number of Tigersdeployed to North Africa by one unit. With a little work though,the mud flaps and muffler shields can be changed to represent anearly production vehicle in Russia. (Eduard also makes anphotoetch set for this kit that contains all the goodies that youmight want to build just about any early or mid production Tigerthat you would care for.)

I changed the assemblyorder by not installing the running gear and tracks to the hull,the engine air filters and exhausts to the hull back plate or theturret details to the turret. When I had the basic hull andturret shapes together, I then checked to see if there were goingto be any snags with the rest of the assembly. At this time Ifilled in the mounting holes for the tow and track cables on thehull and the spare track links on the turret sides with crazyglue gel.

I then added most of thesmall details. Handles for the various hatches were made fromsoft steel wire. Full width mud flap extensions and their hingeswere made from sheet styrene and added to the front mud flaps.While cutting out the headlights I snapped one headlight from itsmount. I glued the headless mount on top of the hull on the rightside anyway to show one that had been knocked off by the gunbarrel traversing through it. I left off the muffler shields(parts #51 & 52) to allow for weathering and to give me a bitmore time to decide if I wanted to scratch build a pair ofrounded shields. (Being lazy, I ended up using the kit suppliedones.) If you are going to use these muffler shields, sand outthe insides of them for an easier fit during final assembly.

At this point I paintedthe model using Humbrol Panzer Grey lightened with about 20%white. The rubber portions of the road wheels were painted withHumbrol black that was just barely lightened with white. This wasdone to provide contrast between the components of the roadwheels. Once the base coat was dry, the decals were applied ontowet Future floor wax and allowed to dry for 24 hours before decalsetting solution was applied to them. I used the crosses and unitinsignia from Hasegawa's Panzer IV decal sheet and the turretnumbers are AeroMaster's white lettering with the insides filledin by hand with red paint. The tracks were painted HumbrolGunmetal and when dry, given an orange watercolour wash. Whenthat was dry, they were rubbed down with a silver pencil crayon.The molded on tools were then painted and I started to weatherthe mufflers.

As such, the kit was astraightforward and easy build. It was one of those models thatyour excitement for it grows as you assemble it. That cansometimes be a bad thing as rushing assembly led to the twomistakes I made during installation of the running gear. As is myhabit, I glued on the drive sprocket and rear idlers on to thehull but left the road wheels off for painting. Once the paintwas dry and I started to mount the remaining road wheels, I foundthat the thick, inner ones next to the drive sprockets caught onthe drive sprocket and wouldn't slide onto the mounting pegs. Thesame was true with the thin, inner road wheels next to the rearidlers. Upon closer inspection, diagram number four in theinstructions clearly shows that one should be careful with theassembly order of the running gear. Oh well, live and learn. Iwas able to get around this by angling the road wheels into thespace between the drive sprocket's rims and gently bending andwiggling the mounting peg away to gain enough space to slip theroad wheel into place. Surprisingly, it worked, all four times. Ialso had a bugger of a time placing the individual track links onthe drive sprockets once mounted. You must carefully clean up theguide teeth holes in the links and check the fit before sloppingglue all over the place like I did. Now with the benefit of 20/20hindsight, I assemble and paint the drive sprockets off the modeland test fit and glue on the links before I mount the sprocket onthe model. I only glue the sprocket down after the rest of thetracks have been installed.

Once I had finishedswearing at the running gear and tracks, I moved onto the funpart: applying the winter camouflage. I applied white enamelpaint that had been allowed to dry somewhat using a MicroBrush tosimulate a field application of paint. When that was dry, I movedonto the tow cables. For these, I cut the ends off of the kitsupplied ones, drilled out their ends and crazy glued thickthread that had been dipped in Humbrol Gunmetal paint into theholes. The barrel cleaning rods were cut away, painted and glueddown on the hull top. The tow cables were then glued intoposition on the hull. Helmets cut from vinyl figures were gluedabout the exterior of the vehicle, painted and camouflaged. Theantenna is soft steel wire and the commander is the seated tankerfrom ESCI.

I used dark grey, pastelchalk dust to weather around the engine deck and the muzzle ofthe 88. Light grey, pastel chalk dust was then used to weatherthe hull and turret tops where the crew would have been movingabout on. I weathered the insides of the sanded down mufflershields with baking power and brown watercolour paint and gluedthem on with white glue. The molded in vision ports were filledin with black paint and the faces of the periscopes were alsopainted black. This gives the elusion of depth and makes themmore noticeable.

In spite of my mistakes, Ireally enjoyed this kit and would recommend it to anyone. Justslow down a bit and dry fit all that running gear. I still planto add wire screens across the engine compartment intakes andmaybe one day I will get around to adding a track cable to theleft side of the hull and replacing the angled muffler shieldswith rounded ones. (I just never seem to fully finish my models.)I would also be interested in finding something that I can usefor the carrying case thingy that you see stored underneath theleft hand air filters in a lot of the photos of early Tigers. Itlooks like its mounted on some sort of shelf.

If I were to build thiskit again, I would replace the barrels of the kit supplied smokedischargers with slightly bigger ones and leave off the outermost road wheels (part #12) until final weathering was done.