Rapid Fire! 20mm Tunisia 1943 - Tiger tanks

The biggest problem about modelling Tunisian German Tigers are their colours and camouflage.

Both Concord, Steel Masters and Squadron Signal books have their own theories and colour plates. From olive green to yellow desert everything is possible but nothing certain.

Some colour photos from old Life magazines showed that at least some Tigers were painted in a dull green/brown. I will avoid the Ral reference but the references to Ral 7008/8020 and 8000 are only more confusing.

Then some light was placed on the subject when one of the few remaining Tiger tanks in the world - the Bovington  Tiger - suffered extensive works that made it operational. 

After lots of money and time being spent by their dedicated personnel we can see a very careful study of colours and camouflage in the Bovington Tiger and, probably, the best up to the moment.  

These tanks are Altaya (back row and crew less) and Hasegawa ( front row). These last two were given to me by Jorge Faria.

The command tank number 100 is hypothetical as there is no reference to it.

The unit just needed a command tank.

Crew is PSC and Hasegawa.

Another figure from PSC, surplus from their PZ III.

Tigers in Tunisia had the Feifel air cleaner assembly which was discarded in later version of the Tiger I.

The markings of the Tigers in Tunisia included the turret numbers, larger and red (some say green/brown tank colour) and white for the 501st Battalion and smaller and red for the ones of 504th Battalion. When the 501st was included in the inner organisation of the 10th PD their turret markings started by 7 and 8, references of their new companies.

I used GW paints, Steel Legion Drab for the base and Catachan Green for the camouflage. Not totally pleased with it but at least they don't get mixed easily with other desert material.