Now I have my photobucket problem sorted I will be putting up these and more builds.
Many modellers say they don't like the paper panzers, mainly because they didn't exist. In actual fact The Germans had completed the hull of one E-100 and were waiting for the turret and gun from Krupp. They also had a second E-100 hull partly finished when the British Army took over the works where they were being made.
The two hulls were shipped back to the UK and examined then cut up and sold for scrap.
About half way through the war the German high command realised that they needed to streamline production as demand for replacement vehicles was outstripping supply and so the idea to have only a few hulls and build a few different vehicles off these hulls using as many common components as possible and so what we know as ther E-series was started to develop with the core being the Panther and Tiger II chassis.
New suspension was designed for the new vehicles which was actually bolt on units, not the torsion bar suspension which made it much easier for field replacement and manufacturing on a production line. Maybach started to design new more powerful engines based around the Tiger II powerplant for the new E-series. In the meantime the Tiger II would have had an upgrade done which included a 105mm main gun and a more powerful engine as an interim measure until the new E-series came into production.
The Tiger II upgrade would have started in July 1945 with the E-series starting to come off the production line around December 1945. The war finished in May so these plans were never implemented.
There is quite a lot of surviving documentation on the vehicles that would have come off the production line with estimates, using the proposed modular build that one vehicle a day could have been produced per factory once tooling etc had been done and supply lines set up for modular builds.
Knowing how effective German armour was and the reputation the Panzer crews had, if the Germans had done this earlier in the war, or if the war had managed to go on long enough then the E-series vehicles could have caused many problems for the allies and maybe even changed how the war ended.
In actual fact, with the allies getting hold of much documentation and existing vehicles to study and compare we can see that the german designs still have an effect on armour production today.
Don't turn your nose up at paper panzers because eventually you will run out of models of existing and real tanks.... there is only so many tiger II tanks that manufacturers can do before there is nothing new to be added and they are just repeating other companies products, the same with other vehicles.
Try a paper panzer. they don't hurt, are quite fun and are not really a "What if" but "sorry.... we ran out of time!"
Many might have existed only in blueprints and designs, but if things had turned out differently the allies could have ended up looking down the 128mm barrel of a 75 ton Tiger III with better armour, a very powerful engine and a highly trained and competent veteran crew. Could the Sherman have stood up to that? I don't think so.
I think we are lucky that things went as they did and much respect must go to the designers and manufacturers of the Tiger and Panther vehicles that have influenced model builders and manufacturers through the years.
James