Open Source Content Management

King Tiger of the sPzAbt. 503 / “Feldherrnhalle”, Hungary, spring 1945

With the King Tiger the Germans tried to make a tank even more invincible than its predecessor, the Tiger I: They raised the thickness of the now sloped armour plates up to 185mm on the turrets front and added with the 88 mm KwK 43, L 71 a more powerful weapon. But again a high price had to be paid for the attempt to invulnerability as the tanks weight increased up to more than 70 tons which on the other hand decreased its mechanical reliability to a hardly acceptable level.

That is why a diorama featuring the King Tiger might show two main characteristics of this impressive machine: its extremely heavy weight and its lack of reliability. Both I tried to take up with a scene showing this powerful tank broken through a minor bridge with the crew repairing some technical failure caused by trying to escape from this trap.

An article has been published in the German "Kit Militär-Modell Journal" (Kit Military-Model Journal) 5/2005. It is reprinted in the Italian "Steel Art" Magazine, Issue 40, April 2007. Another article has been featured in the "Tamiya Model Magazine International", Issue 136, February 2007. You might order the latter at the TMMI site. An article on this model has also been featured in vol. 96/October 2007 of the Japanese "Armour Modelling" magazine.

This project received a late honour by being featured in the book "AFV Rankup Modeling Manual", Vol. 2, Tokyo 2011.