Tiger fans

Hmm there isn't much difference, but maybe Tamiya is just a little bit better but it isn't much. It realy comes down to if you want to spend the money on the Tamiya Tiger or not.

I would agree that the exteriors are pretty close to the same. The clincher for me is Academy's interior. Tamiya's kit has none at all.

Robert

academy's turret is totally the wrong shape i believe, on that it is symmetrical; the real thing wasn't on account of the 88mm gun housing and the like.
that said, you can only really spot it if looking directly from above.
the interior is pretty cool i muct admit!
regds,
n

If you are not interested in doing the interior, the Tamiya Tiger is the way to go.

All of their Tigers (Early, Mid and Late Production) are excellent kits! You can also add some details by going with Eduard, Aber or Lion Roar Photo-Etched sets.

QUOTE: Originally posted by nmayhew academy's turret is totally the wrong shape i believe, on that it is symmetrical; the real thing wasn't on account of the 88mm gun housing and the like. that said, you can only really spot it if looking directly from above. the interior is pretty cool i muct admit! regds, n

Unless I am mistaken, all the current Tiger I kits, no matter the manufacturer, have symmetrical turrets. If you want to have a correct, non-symmetrical turret, you have to go after market. This is a rivet counter type problem, IMO.

I built (actually, it's still on the back of the bench pending the finish of a couple of other kits) the Tamiya Mid Tiger, and found it to be a great build.

The Academy Tigers (comparing the exterior only version to the Tamiya) have a lot more parts to them than the Tamiya kits do. They also come with both rubber band tracks as well as indipendent links, so you can make your mind up which way to go. For the life of me, I can't remember which the Tamiya Mid kit comes with. I'll try and remember to look at lunch.

The author of the new Tiger book by Ampersand used nothing but Tamiya (with the exception of the Tiger (P)) kits for the models he made for the book. This may have been more for continuity than anything else, or because of personal preference. There have been several of the forum members that have built the Academy kit and they've all been pretty happy with it.

You might want to look back through the old thread about the Tiger Mid Production group build. There is a LOT of information there. (Most of us, if not all, built the Tamiya kit.) Here's the link for that topic, and I "popped" it so it would come back up to the list of recent posts.

http://www.finescale.com/fsm/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=6369

Good luck.

I think the Tamiya mid comes with indy link track. I took them from my Tamiya kit and stuck them on an Italeri Tiger. Bought Fruil tracks for my Tamiya. I haven't seen the Academy kit, but haven't heard anything bad about it.

Okay, I checked all my Tiger I's while I was home. Here's a run down:

Academy Early w/ interior...Indy's only
Tamiya Initial Production...Vinyl one piece only
Tamiya Mid Production...Indy's only
Tamiya Late Production...Indy's only

The Tamiya Indy's have MAJOR ejector pin marks on the back side of the links. I'm not sure about the Academy, but I seem to remember they had ejector pin marks, too. I bought a set of Model Kasten's (stupid me...this was before I had all the trouble with the ones for the Panther) for the Tamiya mid or late.

Good luck.