King Tiger Moving to the Front

Normandy, Summer of '44. The first Tiger II tanks are starting to be deployed in the field. Here we have one of the very first ones moving towards the front to help with the fighting around Caen. The Tiger II was a formidable tank in terms of armor and armament. With its powerful 88mm gun, it could knock out enemy tanks at ranges up to 3km and there are anecdotes of it taking over 24 hits in one action without being destroyed. However its reliability left much to be desired. In some units, more Tiger IIs were lost due to mechanical problems, and subsequently blown up to avoid capture, than were lost in combat. Bombing raids on the factories also prevented it from being deployed in large enough numbers, with less than 500 manufactured, compared to about 1500 Tiger I's and close to 9000 Panzer IV's. Later on, fuel problems caused many of them to be abandoned.

The Tank commander getting directions towards his objective.

The grenadiers marching along will provide some useful infantry cover when they go into action.

Good thing this is a stone bridge.

Weighing in at about 75 tons, not every bridge is able to support this behemoth.

Click here to see some pictures of German Infantry in action.
Click here to see some German Armor in action.

The models in these pictures are:

Forces of Valor King Tiger Tank and 21st Century Toys German Infantry.

German Jagdpanzern in a Traffic Jam

A German supply convoy has run into a tank destroyer column and must wait its turn to use the road. On the positive side, at least they are not driving on mud! The tank destroyer column has a variety of self-propelled guns, an 8-ton truck towing an 88mm gun, and couple of anti-aircraft guns to give it some protection. The supply convoy in addition to the 3-ton Opel blitz trucks, and Maultier (a half-tracked truck), has some panzer grenadiers on half-tracks and a couple of pak 40s in tow in case it needs to defend itself. Lastly, they also have a motorcycle scout who is eager to go!

These are a combination of Forces of Valor and 21st Century vehicles. When 21st Century Toys first started manufacturing realistic, factory-painted plastic vehicles around 10 years ago, I thought those vehicles were the best thing there was, except of course for high-end manufacturers like Minichamps. Compared to anything that came before in the plastic segment, they were head and shoulders above the competition. And then came along Forces of Valor with even more realistic vehicles in die cast metal for only a slightly higher price. 21st Century tried to stay in the game, coming out with their on line of [partly] die cast vehicles, but unfortunately for all of us in the hobby they did not survive and now Forces of Valor can set their prices unchallenged. And even they have substantially slowed down in their production of new models. Hopefully at some point we'll see once again some healthy competition and new models in this segment of the market that not long ago seemed to be thriving.

The big picture




88 Being towed by 8-Ton Truck



View of tank destroyer column from the front



Supply column waiting its turn



Lead elements, supply column




Where the rubber (or the track?) meets the road

 

Lead elements, tank destroyer column

Click here to see pictures of a German column being ambushed.