ARM: Review - cyber-hobby.com (DML) 1/35 scale Tiger I - Gruppe Fehrmann

Gerald,

Many thanks, figured somebody knew who these guys were. It did smack of a desperation rebuild at the end of the war when anything with armor and tracks seemed to get into the action.

Cookie Sewell

Rumor has it that even the Maus may have seen some combat when Soviet troops closed in. Has anyone ever made a kit of one of these?:

would be great for a "Last Stand In Berlin" diorama. I know DML did the Borgward B-IV RC demolition vehicle in 1/35th scale as a combo with their Panzer III Ausf J kit: Pat

DML made a Maus kit years ago when they were getting started. I hear that it is rough but considering no production Maus (Mausen?) were built it's close enough, It was kit No. 6007.

Cookie Sewell

I was under the impression (could be wrong) that there are a couple of

1/72nd Maus kits; I know Dragon did one, not sure about the others (if they exist) ... Trumpeter?

Or is the 1/72nd Dragon the one you're referring to? A 1/35th Maus would be freakin' enormous!

Bruce Melbourne, Australia

i have the 1/35 dragon maus and it is a honker. the 75mm gun looks like a mg next to the main gun.

Bruce Probst wrote: : : I was under the impression (could be wrong) that there are a couple of : 1/72nd Maus kits; I know Dragon did one, not sure about the others (if : they exist) ... Trumpeter? : Planet - resin, from the Czech Republic. Planet also makes the Maus rail transport car. The 1/72 Maus is larger than a 1/35 Pz I when both are assembled.

And, yes, the "Maus" book by Jentz would seem to substantiate that Maus #2 did see some brief action before the crew set self destruct charges prior to abandoning it, leading to speculation that the Maus in Kubinka is a composite - the Maus #1 hull with the war turret salvaged from Maus #2 (Maus #2 has the starboard side armor peeled back like a banana, w/the turret lying in the ruins).

Hmmm, did Dragon do a 1/72, or are you thinking of the 1/144 that Dragon released?

Bruce

It was okay; I had one. The tank itself was basically just a giant mass of armor plate, so it really didn't need to have all that many details on it. One thing that would have been a definite improvement in the kit would have been at least some sorts of inserts to sit under the the radiator and engine grills on the forward upper hull, as you can see straight to the bottom hull plate of the tank through them. One oddity of the design was that the crew had almost no way to see out of it. A few well-placed rifle bullets in its four periscopes and it would be completely blind. The one I was referring to in kit form though was the manned version of the Borgward B-IV with the six-barreled Panzershreck launcher mounted on the port side of the vehicle.

Pat

Yeah, and the main gun looks like something off of a light cruiser. The thing seriously needs some machine guns on it though. You can shoot at people through the small pistol ports in the turret, but the overall machine looks like you could just walk up to it and put around a 100 pound charge of plastic explosives on it without much problem. Here's a article on souping up the DML kit:

's a article from the WW II Intelligence Bulletin on it, with cutaways: interior of the hull had masses of machinery converting rotational engine power into electricity and then back into rotary motion again around five feet away from the dynamo, which if you ask me is completely cracked as far as efficiency and weight go.

Pat

The Wikipedia article says the Kubinka one is a composite of the two the Soviets got:

did a 1/72 scale one also - Cookie reviewed it: Pat

Pat

Pat Flannery wrote: : : The interior of the hull had masses of machinery converting rotational : engine power into electricity and then back into rotary motion again : around five feet away from the dynamo, which if you ask me is completely : cracked as far as efficiency and weight go. : Weight probably was not a problem, given the 188 tons to start with. And, in something that large, where torque is very important, it is hard to better electric motors - that system works very well in railroad locomotives for the past 60 years.

What was questionable was designing something so absurd in the first place. I do not believe europe is renown for their copper mines, and dedicating so much of a critical resource to armored vehicle production has to be of questionable judgement. Not to mention to problems of moving the vehicle around, when railroad bridges are about your only option.

Bruce

Compared to the Ratte, the Maus looked completely rational:

to the electric drive on the Maus, take a look at the size of the generator lurking behind the Bf-109 engine: only would that be gawdawful heavy - think of all the copper that would have ended up in the generator and the tread drive motors. Copper was a strategic material for Germany, an any plans for mass production of the Maus would have demanded a lot of it. It's surprising the Porsche persisted with the electromechanical approach to tank propulsion after the failure of the Wehrmacht to adopt his Tiger prototypes using the same concept. At both changes of the energy form: mechanical - electrical - mechanical energy was being lost in the conversion process, while weight was being added to the system.

Pat