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In early October 1942, plans for production
of the VK 45.03 were reviewed,Initially
two designs were provided, one by Henschel and one by Porsche. Both used a
turret design from Krupp; the main differences were in the hull design,
transmission and suspension.
The Henschel version used a conventional hull
design with sloped armor resembling the layout of the Panther tank. It had a
rear mounted engine and used nine overlapping road wheels per side, mounted on
transverse torsion bars, in a similar manner to the original Tiger. To simplify
maintenance, however, the wheels were overlapping rather than interleaved as in
the Tiger
Henschel won the contract, and all Tiger IIs
were produced by the firm. Two turret designs were used in production vehicles.
The initial design is sometimes misleadingly called the "Porsche
turret" due to the belief that it was designed by Porsche for their
prototype. In fact this turret was simply the initial Krupp design for both
prototypes. This turret had a rounded front and steeply sloped sides, with a
difficult-to-manufacture curved bulge on the turret's left side, to accommodate
the commander's cupola. Fifty early turrets were mounted to Henschel's hull and
used in action. The more common "production" turret, sometimes called
the "Henschel" turret, was simplified with a flat face, no shot trap
(created by the curved face of the initial-type turret), less-steeply sloped
sides, and no bulge for the commander's cupola.
The track system used on the Tiger II chassis
was a unique one, which used alternating "contact shoe" and
"connector" links—the contact shoe link had a pair of transverse
metal bars that contacted the ground, while the connector links had no contact
with the ground.
The Tiger II was developed late in the war and made in relatively small numbers. Like all German tanks, it had a gasoline engine. However, this same engine powered the much lighter Panther and Tiger I tanks. The Tiger II was under-powered, like many other heavy tanks of World War II, and consumed a lot of fuel which was already in short supply.
Item No
84530
Item Name
German Sd.Kfz.182 King Tiger “Porsche
Turret” w/ Zimmerit
Bar Code
6939319245304
Scale
1:35
Item Type
Plastic Model Armor Kit
Model
Dimension
Length: 292.3mm Width: 107.3mm
Total Plastic
Parts
550+
Total Sprues
19 sprues , lower hull and upper hull
Chromeplate
Parts
n/a
Resin Parts
n/a
Metal Parts
n/a
Photo Etched
Parts
1 piece
Film
Accessory
n/a
Released Date
2018-02
More
Features
The kit consists of over 550 parts
>the kit w/refined detail
>multi-slide moulded lower hull , turret
>individual tracks
>zimmerit included
>photo etched parts included