Tiger Tank Progress Report, The Mantlet Work In Progress

Hi all and welcome back to my tiger tank weekly post.

This week I have made a start on my mantlet for the Tiger Tank. I originally thought that there was only two variations of the turret mantlet, one from early production and one from its later production. This was mostly down to that there is one very visual difference between the two which is the reinforced bar that runs across the telescopic vision port holes. I didn't really have too much knowledge on that and took that visual difference as the main distinction between the two.

Late Production Mantlet

Tiger 131 Early Production Mantlet, Recognisable by the Visual Bar on the Right Being Absent

Looking around for more reference imagery I came across this image that illustrates the variations of mantlet during the tanks development throughout the war. It's pretty interesting to see how the shape changed and decisions made to aid the tanks combat performance. 

A Good Illustration of Mantlet Development Thoughout the War

Adding sun shields and magnetic bomb protection were an obvious additions to aid the crew with vision and survivability. However the added armour to the telescopic openings and side cheek is not so obvious a decision. These must have been added to counter where the tiger was taking hits on the mantlet but this is me just speculation from the images I have seen from battle damage. it could also be a addition to accomodate additions to the internals but I will have a more in depth look at this for next week. 

Battle Damage Mantlets

A Shell is Still Visible, Stuck in the Mantlet of this Battle Damaged Turret. 

Here is how I have been getting on with my modelling for this week. I already had the gun sleeve modelled so I just had to use this as a base to build the mantlet around its shape. I know I had modelled the Sleeve with the correct radii and thickness's so this gave me the recess depth and shape for the mantlet as a starting point.

As you can see this is still a work in progress. I have a fair bit of work to do on this, cleaning up with some of the model pinching and also completing the back part of the mantlet where it connects to the trunnions. I'm pretty happy with the progression so far although its no where near done to the amount of detail I want to be. Part of my meticulous nature is that im never happy with what I've done when I've finished it. I guess this keeps me on edge to progress further with my work and continue to improve. Stay tuned for more updates on this one, the mantlet is one of the defining characteristics of the tiger and I definitely want to do this one right. 

Thanks for your continued support and visiting of my blog, I very much appreciated. I  hope you all have a good weekend (and if your in the UK a good bank holiday weekend) and I will catch you here next week for another Tiger tank progression report.