Thanks again for the kind comments, guys!
![Smile [:)]](/FSM/CS/emoticons/icon_smile.gif)
Horus, like the Maus, the E-100 never made it past the prototype stage, but unlike the Maus, it never got an engine or even a turret. Only a hull and running gear were assembled, and after the war the British stuck a Maybach in it and supposedly puttered around a bit before scrapping it.
The Maus was actually test-driven quite extensively with a dummy turret and finally what would have been a "production" turret. It is speculated that this same turret would have been used on the E-100, with either the 128mm (same as on the Maus) or a 150mm, or even a 174mm gun! Plus the coaxial 75mm cannon. This is the fictional configuration that Dragon chose to represent, and I took it from there. I like the long, skinny 128mm gun, no muzzlebrake (makes no difference on guns over 105mm, I've heard), so I yanked it from my Maus kit for the E.
So Horus, the turrets would have been essentially the same, but the chassis, running gear, engines, and hulls were all completely different.
Dirk, I get my history from a lot of great books, like Michael Green's "Tiger Tanks" and all the Osprey New Vanguard books, particularly those by Jentz, Doyle (and their big Tiger II book!), and Sarson, and the great reference books by Verlinden Publications. Then there're all the great magazines here in Japan, like Ground Power, Panzer, and Armor Modeling (they always have TONS of great reference material in every issue). The Tamiya News reference books are great, too. I'm basing my current project, Bovington's Tiger II, on a pictorial in one of those books right now.
For this E-100, I was thinking early fall of 1946, so I looked mainly at the final and proposed improved versions of the Tiger II, Jagdtiger, Panther F and II, and the like, and tried to think about a year or so past that. I wanted to put night gear on it, but couldn't find any, so I told myself by that time, it might have been completely internal. That is a big turret!
I also thought at some point they might have replaced the coax mg with a 20mm cannon. Again, why not? I'm sure they had the room.
But then again, maybe not...the 128 was a BIG gun, and probably did a good job of filling up that steel barn. Might not have been room for the side-mounted mg's either, but I liked the way they looked, so on they went!
Other details, like the twin antennae, travel lock, extra track link placement, and tow rope placement, were just things that I thought would look cool and be fairly easy to rationalize.
Hopefully it all makes some sense, and has a feel of "plausibility" to it. That was my goal, even with the unorthodox camo.
Caveman, I'm definitely going to make a more interesting base sometime in the near future. I just threw this one together in about an hour at a cost of about 3 bucks, Just to have something to carry it to Shizuoka on! Lots of rubble would be good! Or a flattened New York taxi cab...
Speaking of Shizuoka, I can't tell ya'll how happy I was when Mr. Hasegawa himself (Hasegawa distributes Dragon here in Japan) showered me and my E with praise. We even exchanged business cards! Real nice guy.
What's the E-100 going for over there, guys? I got mine for 3,500 yen ($29 US) about 2 years ago when I was living in Tokyo.
I hear Dragon kits are pretty cheap over there!
Again, thanks for the comments. It really means a lot to me, coming from great modelers like ya'll!