The Atom Furnace: Tiger 222

Since my Avalon Hill gaming days in the 70s, the Battle of the Bulge has always held a particular fascination for me. A desperate, high stakes pitched battle in a bitter winter, its stories of surprise, guts, ruthless SS men, and defiant GIs made for a gripping tale, once that has not lost its hold on me in all these decades. Many photos of this conflict have become iconic, losing none of their power despite their repitition. Once such photo had me thinking "If the right models were available, I could recreate this to scale", in this case, 28mm / 1/56 tabletop scale.

A zimmerit-free konigstiger rolling over a rise, with a group of fallschirmjager clinging to it. This single photo (from the (NARA Collection) would require some research to do correctly, as you can't tell much about this Tiger from this photo. Fortunately through the magic of social networking, all my questions were answered, and quickly.

"Tiger 222 of tank commander Kurt Sowa photographed at the Kaiserbaracke crossroads in the late morning of the 18th of December 1944 by SS photographer Max Büschel" (per Timo Worst). Tiger 222 belonged to schwere SS-PzAbt101/501, supporting the infamous Kampfgruppe Peiper in the northern thrust of the 1st SS Panzer Division in the race to the Meuse, and on to Antwerp (as planned...)

Previously unbeknownst to me, this is considered one of the most photographed of the "Bulge Tigers" thanks to its inclusion in a German propaganda film. A few highlights:

Although it shows up many time in the photographic record, only guesses remain as to, for example, the color of the ID numbers on the turret. Additionally, the FJ tank riders are clearly wearing FJ helmets - some with nets, and their smocks appear to be a solid color? All questions to be answered, once the right base models can be found and procured.

Enter Christmas 2020. A present from my brother:

I can, when my hobby coffers recover from the Holiday, obtain a set of FJ tank riders from Offensive Miniatures: (link)

I'll no doubt need to modify them to match the photo, but they are at least seated FJ.

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The Model:

The brand new Rubicon kit has a host of features which have to this point been unavailable in a kit of this scale, including ~full interior detail, complete crew, and photoetch parts. Like the rest of their line, it is cleanly molded in nearly flash-free grey plastic, surdy enough for incautious gamimg use yet finely detailed.

This does result in a LOT of sprues and pieces. Clearly they are planning on a "Porsche turret" version in the future, as one sprue has an alternate turret base and gun barrels...

We begin with the running gear. Few concessions have been made here, prioritizing detail over speed of assembly. Look closely at the instructions when fitting tracks to drive sprockets, or, like me, you'll have to pry them back off to connect to the larger track sections. While tedious, it gies quickly. Both the instructions and I recommend you not glue wheels to axles yet, to faciliate better/easier painting. At least they're pressed steel wheels, no tires to paint!

Next comes lower hull. A large portion of the hull interior goes in as a single piece. Don't forget the ball for the magnetic turret attachment (neatly stealing a trick from modeling community).

(I just set the magnet on top so it wouldn't wander off ;-) )

Upper hull is next:

I decided right off that I needed to open up some of the vents to show off the interior. Patience, persistence, and a sharp exacto removes the raised ridge that closes off the vents. Some fine cleanup is required with the very tip of your knife. Sadly, the 2 round fan openings have no such easily removed plastic and will remain as delivered. Several panels are molded separately should you desire to leave them open.

On the rear deck you can see I've already added the frames for photoetch screens.

I found the engine cover hatch to fit too snugly, and had to do some sanding and scraping to allow it to "close" without popping up out of place. If you simply clamp and glue it, it will probably be fine.

WARNING WARNING WARNING

If you haven't assembled the lower hull yet, check this first.

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Don't glue the interior floor in yet. Build the upper hull, and turret basket. Test fit and check.the gap between the upper deck and the underside of the turret.

If that gap is larger than you want, you'll have to sand down the underside of the inner floor. Sand, fit, check, repeat. If you follow the instruction order without checking, you'll have very firmly glued in the rest of the lower hull bits. Which are hard to remove. Trust me on this.

SITREP: Progress and Painting decisions.

Fit issues resolved, I can go no further until interior painting is completed. Lower hull interior will get red oxide overall, then specific secondary colors will be added by hand; the ammo (primed in brass enamel) will be painted and installed. The engine will be painted and installed. The upper hull interior and turret interior will be sprayed in off-white. Running gear will be primed in dunkelgelb, and the tracks painted before installation. The assembled hull and turret exteriors will be primed in dark yellow, along with the PE screens, which will be added after priming but before camo. I'll go over paint color choices as each are completed.

I started out with an available approximation of red oxide, in this case, some anti fouling red from White Ensign.

In retrospect, i should have just shot white primer on all inner surfaces, and followed with the red. Ah well. I chose to prime/base coat the remaining inner surfaces in flat white enamel. Few paints go on as brush-streaky as flat white, but as I planned on a final home brew approximation of "elfenbein", the off-white used in German armor interiors, perfect coverage was not required. I did end up spraying the upper inner hull, turret, and turret basket in flat white, as I just wasn't happy with the result of brushing it on.

I also sprayed all of the ammo rounds in brass enamel while on the sprue. This then requires brushing on the white ammo racking which is molded with the rounds, and appropriate dark colors on the projectiles before installing. Patience...

You'll need to do your own research and make your own decisions on how accurate you want the ammo supply to be, as the kwk43 fired several different types of rounds, and the instructions offer little information. There are plenty of internet photos of 1/35 tiger interiors for you to get a sense of colors. I hand mixed a combination of two old Citadel colors, skull white and bleached bone to create my final interior color, a light cream color, which was brushed on. I did not attempt to brush it into areas not readily visible, as I am building primarily for gaming.

Once that was completed, I could take it downstairs and use Army Painter desrt yellow primer on the exterior.

I made a mistake in the photo. There should have been a PE screen under each of those frames over the air vents. I primed the PE separately so it wouldn't prevent the paint from getting under them; and I neglected to notice that adding those frames is in addition to, not in place of, the primary screens. Ah well.

I did preshade the fan openings before gluing down the round screens, as it will be impossible later. A test fit photo to make me feel like I'm making progress.

Based on what I had seen on some other builds, I did add the wiring to the headlight from stretched sprue, and added some torch cut detail to the weld joints by wetting the plastic with Tamiya ultra thin cement and scoring it repeatedly with an exacto tip.

Easy and gives a nice missing detail.

Before I could complete hull or turret, I needed to complete the crew. This offered some challenges, as I was going for a very specific set of poses. The commander could be used as is; the driver needed to be raised into the open hatch driving position; the funker should be standing, not seated, meaning I would use the standing loader body; the gunner (not seen) would be stock, but the loader with a seated body doesn't now fit without interfering with gun elevation. More on that later. Here's what I'm shooting for:

Here's my version:

Close. You may also note that I've cut off the outer right front mud guard to match the photo. Available pictures of the advance of 222 before combat show intact guards on the left, but no complete photos of the right until it was knocked out and abandoned, by which time much of the skirting on both sides had been lost. In order to raise the driver position, I fabbed a new seat out of sheet styrene and glued it on top of the kit seat back. He must be higher and farther back to achieve the desired position. (Shown unpainted)

The crew was assembled to fit in their positions (except the loader) and primed in white. I chose to keep their uniforms in basic Panzer near-black with some feldgrau hats and trousers mixed in. I love the SS camo that could have been seen mixed in, but I just didn't want to add that challenge to this build. Slacker.

Now for camouflage and markings...

I'd like to try for Faded/weathered look for this build. That "factory finish" dark yellow will be oversprayed with some Mr Hobby H79 to lighten and fade it, in a thin coat from above, to allow some variation in shade, particularly in more sheltered areas. I'm using modified base colors for a more weathered appearance; Ammo by Mig RLM 82 Green, and Mr. Color red-brown. Personally, I find hand brushing on these patterns less nerve-wracking, so to practice, I first referred to available period photos, then found another modeler's build that most closely replicates that pattern (check this out: ), then printed out a three view drawing of a tiger, drew the color boundaries on the drawing, and colored them in.

This, and the above mentioned build photos, should allow me to lay down green, then red-brown, in a way wich replicates the pattern, with feathered edges...

First lets tone down the yellow

Then add the green camo.

Then the Red-Brown.

Then the national insignia.

Although the Rubicon kit comes with a "222" decal that is already superimposed on the balkenkreuz, the font does not match those seen in photos. My next mini-project is find a similar font and create a stencil to paint it on...

My wife is a crafter, and she has cutting machine called a Cricut. It can, among other things, cut vinyl patterns to be applied to your crafts. I'll use it to cut a stencil for "222". Part of my issue with the kit is the font. Kit 222 has numbers like any other. A close look at the real 222 shows it uses a blocky, bold, sans serif font. Internet search found me a free downloadable trutype font called Aurach Heavy. 20 point font, bold, character spacing expanded 2 points gets you pretty close in 1/56.

Cut into two stencils, I positioned them on each side and sprayed a yellow/white mix to give me the faded look I wanted.

And yes, sprayed right over the insignia. This is documented, but the reason for it is not stated. Perhaps because it was a transfer-in from another abteilung in the run-up to the Ardennes offensive?

A note of caution: if I were doing this over, I would flat spray the turret after the insignia was applied but before the numbers were painted on. I had part of the decal lift off when I removed the vinyl, a mess I must correct on the other side of the turret :-O .

The spare track pieces were pre-painted black before removing from the sprue and gluing to the turret. They will get "rusted" along with the tracks later. I also prepainted the cables and tools before installation. They will get touched up and shaded in place.

Now for some Tracks. Modelmaster enamel flat black, thinned, to get in evey nook and cranny. Once dry, completely covered with an old Citadel Chestnut Wash. Then, back to Modelmaster enamel silver, mixed with black to taste, drybrushed on the highlight areas. Road wheels given shading with Coat d'arms Ink Armour Wash. Voila.

They'll be weathered in place. Now to finally install them.

So here she sits, more or less freshly renumbered for her move to SS PzAbt 501.

Now to add some light wear and tear, and road march dirt.

We'll do a bit of chipping with paint. To create some contrast to the camo colors, I'll chip first with Vallejo Iraqi Sand, folowed by a mix of Flat Brown and Black for the deep oxidized parts.

I wanted to go lightly, for a tank freshly refurbished and not yet seen battle. Just some wear on the skirts and hard edges, and turret top and hatches where crew access is expected.

Then some outdoor exposure to lousy December weather, using Wilder oils for streaking.

And since they were dependent on a lot of unpaved road travel, a mix of wet and dry splatters on the running gear, skirts, and other exposed areas. We'll use some dry pigments, thinner, and a brush to apply.