Wednesday 30 January 2019

Bovington Tigers: Elefant, Sd.Kfz. 184


After lots of frustration with my dear little MX5, I got her MOT'd, serviced, and one or two faults repaired. And, finally, today I was able to drive down to Dorset, to the Bovington Tank Museum, and see their superb Tiger collection. 

I was particularly keen for several reasons: I love German WWII armour, and some of these particular Tiger variants are amongst my favourite tanks. I'm also currently building several Elefant/Ferdinand kits, as well. It's a pity they didn't have a SturmTiger. I learned today that they did try and get one from a German collection, but it didn't work out. All that they had of this vehicle was a barrel (I'll be addressing the other vehicles in another post).

I took loads of photos, particularly of the Elefant, and I've very quickly and roughly made a series of montages of some of the latter, to share here. Many of these images are cropped in the versions displayed in this post. I wanted as much ref as poss, as this particular tank goes back to the U.S. tomorrow! 

I'm sooo glad I made it to see these amazing tanks. I spent three hours looking at and photographing them, and chatting with staff. The staff were very friendly and helpful. I had a couple of interesting chats with David Willey, curator of the museum. I even got to see the collections own Tiger I, known as Tiger 131 (the very tank that was used in Fury), being worked on, and moved/driven off. More on this to come in another post.
























I think I once heard such posts as this being referred to as Panzer Porn. Well, yes, these beauties turn me on. The phrase seems fitting!

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for posting these pics! The ol' Ferdinand is a big beast isn't it?

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    1. Certainly is! Truly an heavily armoured monster.

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  2. Good post - were you amazed like me at how thick the armour was?

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    1. Yes, indeed. As well as the thickness of the armour, it struck me that there are areas with visible gaps, such as the front engine and crew compartment... so some of my models don't need all those voids filling in!

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