Hi all,

I'm currently planning to work on Tamiya's King Tiger, a kit I believe released during the 90's.

I'm planning to put it into a Diorama depicting the battle at Budapest Oct 1944 ~ February 1945. This King Tiger will be depicting a Tank of the Schwere Panzer Abteilung 503, which the panzer division scored their 1500th tank kill during the battle which granted an Iron Cross with Gold to the commander Ferrhen Von Rosen (I hope I got the spelling correct, lazy to check the net now).

The scene of the Diorama will be a moving King Tiger on the street, beside the street is a damaged building and a Russian SPG in the building. Some infantry of the SS-Fallschimjager (probably from Skorzeny's division) advancing with the tank and some infantry checking out the damaged SPG. It'll be cool if I can get my hands on some surrendering Russian SPG crew figure.

Coming back to the topic on the Tanks.

The kit comes with only plastic parts, a mesh (nylon i think?) for engine grills and a pair of vinyl tracks. I have purchased Lion Roars PE for the King Tiger and I'm quite impressed by the package. I think it covers most of the visible parts to go in to the Tank.

Problem 1: Tracks
The Vinyl track links look .... fluffy...., thin and soft. I don't know if they are in the correct scale, I think it'll look rubber-ly on the finished model. Fruilmodel track links are way beyond my budget. Tamiya have a set of individual track links, but I don't know if they are good or not. I don't know if AFV or ModelKasten have track links for King Tiger.

What do you suggest? Can I use the Vinyl tracks from the box? Will it look good? If not, which brand of track links should I get. Anyone knows if any shop in malaysia got sell?

Problem 2: Damaged Russian SPG
This is the kit I bought (from Atria) for the Diorama.



More information here: http://miniart-models.com/index.htm?/36007.htm

The kit comes with the SPG and some figures. I wanted to depict a damaged SPG from German fire. A shot from the King Tiger will surely devastate the SPG to bits... will be a tough job. If I want to make it as if it was destroyed by hand-held weapon from the infantry.

Luckily, the SPG tracks from the kit is individual track links, I can make it as if the tank is damaged in the tracks and road wheels from an infrantry ambush. Any suggestion how to do this? I never made any model of damaged tanks, I need help from those who have done before. How to make the damage look realistic?

Lastly, anybody know what is the color of the Vehicle number markings for Schwere Panzer Abteilung 503 at Budapest? I got informations on the formation numbers, but I dunno what color is the real thing. Is it painted by Tank crew on the field or issit sprayed in workshop/factory?

Any help, suggestion or sharing your similar experiences will be very helpful.

Thanks.

Best Regards,
TZB

Hi flylice,

Your photos are too big and extend beyond most screens. I suggest you set your photo width to a maximum of 700px.

Oh, I'm so sorry. actually this wan I borrowed from other website wan... I'll take care of this next time.