TIGER 1 LATE PRODUCTION ZIMMERIT

Yep, the late had zimm. There aren't any sets out there yet. Cavalier waspretty quick to get zimm out for the AFV Tiger, so I don't think the wait will be long. IT may be possible to modify the Cav zimm, but I don't have any first hand knowledge on that

All late model Tiger Is had Zimmerit.

Good luck!

Be good & have FUN,

Bill

Well, most modelers of Tigers will always tell you that the "late" versions ALL had zimmerit. Technically, that would be incorrect. ( no offense to my esteemed brothers above).Now, this is understandable because all series production did have zimmerit applied. However........

There were several mid production tanks remanufactured with the "late steel roadwheel suspension after September of 1944 with NO zimmerit. They featured many "late" design improvements, but retained some mid features such as the drum cupola and non cut out front tow hook mounts. Here are two of them...

It seems these tanks had serviceable "mid" turrets that were fitted to new "late" hulls--




Now, myself, I'm thinking about doing a "Frankenstein" Tiger, using the DML late and extra parts from the DML initial (i.e., drum cupola) for a "late" Tiger that will be a little different from all the rest.

Maybe you could model one of these tanks?

Regards,
Steve

Steve's right.. another thing to add to this is that many crews chipped the Zimm off of the tank because of it being super flammable. The Panzer vet that I talk to said that he and his crew did this because of the Molotov Cocktail enjoying the burning potential of zimm.. soo maybe if you apply some putty and use a screwdriver in a few areas that would resemble the chipping done to the zimm you could get away with it. Remember the Cammo was applied in the field many times, soo you could get away with NOT having to show the primer underneath the chipped zimm.

While doing some research online about Zimmerit I found this little article at Panzerworld.

http://www.panzerworld.net/zimmerit.html

Although it is short it does give some good info on zimmerit.

Also check out this link.It doesn't have much to do with zimmerit but it does have some interesting things about misconceptions about German armor

http://www.panzerworld.net/facts.html

The key words here are "production model". All "late production model" Tigers had Zimmerit. Remanufactured mid-models are just that, remanufactured. I have photos of Stug III Ausf Cs, remade with L/48 guns, does that make it an ausf G? No, it's a remanufactured Ausf C. They are not the same thing. While every effort was made to bring these remanufactured vehicles up to current production standards, this was not always possible.
Zimmerit went through two seperate surface hardening treatments, both using a blowtorch, that hardly qualifies it as "super flammable". Please direct me to a written article which addresses this flammability issue. Google the words: zimmerit flammability, the only return is yours.

Interesting, Steve...thanks!

Thanks to all who have replied. I know that the chances of a late model Tiger 1 without zimmerit are slim to none. I guess I'll wait for the aftermarket guys to sav the day.

Also, in Steve's defense, I did read that zimmerit was discountinued in late 1944 because it was thought to be flammable. This turned out to be false. I guess at that stage, the German war machine felt it wasn't necessary or they just didn't have the resources. I believe I read this in Tanks in Detail on panzerjagers.

QUOTE: Originally posted by Gimp The key words here are "production model". All "late production model" Tigers had Zimmerit. Remanufactured mid-models are just that, remanufactured. I have photos of Stug III Ausf Cs, remade with L/48 guns, does that make it an ausf G? No, it's a remanufactured Ausf C. They are not the same thing. While every effort was made to bring these remanufactured vehicles up to current production standards, this was not always possible. Zimmerit went through two seperate surface hardening treatments, both using a blowtorch, that hardly qualifies it as "super flammable". Please direct me to a written article which addresses this flammability issue. Google the words: zimmerit flammability, the only return is yours.

If you will READ my post, I noted that there is a difference between series production (that is production hull #'s) and new late steel roadwheel hulls being fitted with serviceable earlier turrets.
I simply was pointing out that these would be an alternative to applying zimmerit to the model. . If they came out of the factory in late '44, well, they are late production, no matter if they are re-manufactured or not. ( See, the keywords for you are "late" and "produced")The hulls have steel wheels and all the characteristics of the last versions, so one can make a deduction that they are last roll offs needing turrets. I certainly do not consider a re-manufactured tank the same as a new one, but thank you anyway.

Your statement was all late Tigers had zimmerit, you are wrong.

I am well aware of the vehicles of company Fehrmann and company Hummel. These are "hybrid" vehicles. Yes, these look like late model hulls without zimmerit, you are correct, but nowhere did erikfoulk say he was interested in piecing together a "Frankenstein" rarity of a hybrid vehicle. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I interpreted his question as building a standard late production vehicle, not a hybrid.

Please read this former post, pay particular attention to what TMN1 has to say about Fehrmann and Hummel vehicles;
http://www.finescale.com/fsm/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=33899

Rebuilds. Last ones off the production line wouldn't still have fiefel brackets, now would they?

Continue by reading the following;
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=69001&sid=f69190a52e657e9019b73dd6572f309b

Still think I'm wrong?

QUOTE: Originally posted by erikfoulk Thanks to all who have replied. I know that the chances of a late model Tiger 1 without zimmerit are slim to none. I guess I'll wait for the aftermarket guys to sav the day.

I heard somewhere that Atak was due out in a couple of weeks. I will see if I can find something

Gimp... You have Google, I have a man who was there.. sorry it doesn't come up as a hit on Google, but the net doesn't always have the answer, it may be your god, but the man who lives two houses down from me, who is 86, is GOD to me especially since he was a Panzer IV H loader... hmmm.. makes you think doesn't it?! Field experience, or second, thrid, fourth, etc. knowledge? I choose the first! Don't come here flouting around like you are a master of this or that.. Steve was offering what he knows, and BELIEVE ME he knows alot! I can't give you a wrtten thing about it, but then again, who are the people who wrote it down? second and third gen people..

I've always been a strong advocate of the horses mouth. There's just to much in print that can be questioned particularly when stated by a long removed authority. Also a picture is worth a million words. You know who gets my vote.
Semper Fi, Mike

some of the Hummel and Fehrmann tigers had zimmerit
if you do what Crocket sugests you will need to buy 2 kits plus

QUOTE: Originally posted by CDNTanker25 Gimp... You have Google, I have a man who was there.. sorry it doesn't come up as a hit on Google, but the net doesn't always have the answer, it may be your god, but the man who lives two houses down from me, who is 86, is GOD to me especially since he was a Panzer IV H loader... hmmm.. makes you think doesn't it?! Field experience, or second, thrid, fourth, etc. knowledge? I choose the first! Don't come here flouting around like you are a master of this or that.. Steve was offering what he knows, and BELIEVE ME he knows alot! I can't give you a wrtten thing about it, but then again, who are the people who wrote it down? second and third gen people..

Was he in Hummel or Fehrmann?
My Dads freinds Dad was a Tiger commander with Das Reich, getting any info from him is hard at best, a tiger late, mid, early or initial was just a Tiger to him and all the other vets that were there, they had more things to worry about

111th Panzer Brigade. You are right Cap'n however, not everyone had that mentality. He is old, but he is fit as a fiddle.. it's a amazing, the more interesting fact is that this man particularly loved his machine, he was a true tanker! He still eat sleeps and breathes his machine! He was in Lorraine in France in 1944

CNDTanker 25; I'm not flouting anything. I do not live by Google as my god. I have a very large library of German armor books, nowhere can I find anything on zimmerit being flammable and crews removing it. So your neighbor and/or his crew thinks Zimmerit was flammable and scraped it off their tank. Show me any article where anyone else believed that and doing the same. If it was so flammable, why was it hardened with a blowtorch?
I can show you 86 year olds that can't remember what they ate for breakfast, let alone what they did 60 years ago. I don't know your neighbor, what he did or what he thinks he did. I just find it odd that nobody else seems to know what he knows, that's all. One man's word is fine, where are any others?

In regards to the company Hummel and Fehrmann vehicles, please set me straight, since you know so much more than I do.
The last 54 Tiger Is from the production lines were made using recycled hulls and turrets. Sure they had late model wheels, and looked much like late model vehicles, but they were not. Some had leftover Zimmerit, some never had it at all, but they were all made from recycled hulls and turrets. They might have rolled out of the factory, but this is not production, it is cannibalization.

To quote crockett;

QUOTE: and new late steel roadwheel hulls being fitted with serviceable earlier turrets.

Sorry, but this is not true. They were not NEW HULLS.

Neither is this.

QUOTE: The hulls have steel wheels and all the characteristics of the last versions, so one can make a deduction that they are last roll offs needing turrets.

They had MANY characteristics of late model vehicles, but they also had leftover bits from their former lives, like the mounting stubs for the fiefel aircleaners, still welded to the hulls, among other things as well.

Pull out your all your Thomas L. Jenzt and look it up if you don't believe me.

Why does the Tiger at Vimoutiers, a final version has no zimmerit??This tiger is on the net everwhere and in tiger I on the western front page 126,127.for those who have this book. So they might have been one are two with out zimm on it.

QUOTE: Why does the Tiger at Vimoutiers, a final version has no zimmerit??This tiger is on the net everwhere and in tiger I on the western front page 126,127.for those who have this book. So they might have been one are two with out zimm on it.

Look on page 206 of Panzers in Normandy, Then and Now, for a vintage photo of the Vimoutiers Tiger before it's repaint. You can still see bits and pieces of zimmerit clinging to the hull and turret.

I have also heard that near the time that Zimmerit was discontinued, in September 1944, The German army was primarily fighting a defensive war, drawing back into Germany, and the antimagnetic coating was no longer felt necessary. Also, I have heard that it was incorrectly felt to be flammable, but I don't think this is why it was discontinued. Many tank crews actually preferred zimmerit--it tended to break up the outline of the tank and make it less reflective of light, they reasoned, and therefore added to the camoflage effect, especially in forest terrain. Or so I've read...

QUOTE: Originally posted by Gimp QUOTE: Why does the Tiger at Vimoutiers, a final version has no zimmerit??This tiger is on the net everwhere and in tiger I on the western front page 126,127.for those who have this book. So they might have been one are two with out zimm on it. Look on page 206 of Panzers in Normandy, Then and Now, for a vintage photo of the Vimoutiers Tiger before it's repaint. You can still see bits and pieces of zimmerit clinging to the hull and turret.

I dont have that book. But this tiger is to clean looking. Like it never had it at all. even other late tiger that been destroyed are scuttled still have a piece here and there.Unless the man who pulled it out of the ditch in Belgian and painted it scrapped the stuff off.

QUOTE: Originally posted by kernop QUOTE: Originally posted by Gimp QUOTE: Why does the Tiger at Vimoutiers, a final version has no zimmerit??This tiger is on the net everwhere and in tiger I on the western front page 126,127.for those who have this book. So they might have been one are two with out zimm on it. Look on page 206 of Panzers in Normandy, Then and Now, for a vintage photo of the Vimoutiers Tiger before it's repaint. You can still see bits and pieces of zimmerit clinging to the hull and turret. I dont have that book. But this tiger is to clean looking. Like it never had it at all. even other late tiger that been destroyed are scuttled still have a piece here and there.Unless the man who pulled it out of the ditch in Belgian and painted it scrapped the stuff off.

I have the book and id did have zimmerit on

the Tiger at vomoutiers is here with a photo of it in 1974 with zimmerit still on it
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/gaz/vt.html
when they added zimmerit it didnt scar or melt the steel underneath, so why would a 63 year old tank look like it never had zimmerit


the main questrion was Did all late Tiger 1s have zimmerit, the answer is yes they did

Hey all !!
2 cents worth,albeit not proven... 507th S Pzr Bn.,on the eastern front,
according to Schneider,"Tigers in Combat," vol 1,received 6 new,& 4
reman.,TI's on 25 -27 Nov.'44.
Seems to me,& again NOT documented,just logical,that these new
TI's,delivered almost three months after the order to cease application,
may not have had Zimmerit applied... If I wished to model a late Tiger I,
without Zimmerit, this would be my choice of subject.
Regards,
Mike

Here's perhaps a more compelling question to ponder: did ANY "Early Production" Tiger I's (let's just say as a criteria for "early" that they would still have the early style commander's cupola) ever have zimmerit? There was a very slight overlap between the introduction of zimmerit and the switch to the newer cupola, so it is theoretically possible. Do any photographs exist?

gl with your endeavour. I have the same kit waiting for pickup, but I thought i'd hold off from buying it until I have a viable zimm solution myself. I don't feel too comfortable adding the zimm myself (since it's my first time) to THIS particular kit, and I've looked at the Cavalier. No firsthand experience with whether it could be applied to the Dragon kit, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time before someone manufactures a zimm set for the DML kit.

sonic's right... take it or leave it, that's all you can do!

QUOTE: Originally posted by Captain Caveman QUOTE: Originally posted by kernop QUOTE: Originally posted by Gimp QUOTE: Why does the Tiger at Vimoutiers, a final version has no zimmerit??This tiger is on the net everwhere and in tiger I on the western front page 126,127.for those who have this book. So they might have been one are two with out zimm on it. Look on page 206 of Panzers in Normandy, Then and Now, for a vintage photo of the Vimoutiers Tiger before it's repaint. You can still see bits and pieces of zimmerit clinging to the hull and turret. I dont have that book. But this tiger is to clean looking. Like it never had it at all. even other late tiger that been destroyed are scuttled still have a piece here and there.Unless the man who pulled it out of the ditch in Belgian and painted it scrapped the stuff off. I have the book and id did have zimmerit on the Tiger at vomoutiers is here with a photo of it in 1974 with zimmerit still on it http://web.ukonline.co.uk/gaz/vt.html when they added zimmerit it didnt scar or melt the steel underneath, so why would a 63 year old tank look like it never had zimmerit the main questrion was Did all late Tiger 1s have zimmerit, the answer is yes they did

Thats what i need to know, it was taken off by the man who pulled it out of the ditch.May be you can do a tiger of how it looks today with no zimm..........lol. Zimm really isnt that hard to do guy theres more then one way and you can buy after market zimm for those who dont want to try it there selfs. good luck.