AFV Club has now entered the "Tiger club" with its so-called "Tiger I 'Latest Version'" kit. It was released only a few days after Dragon released its Tiger I. It is only natural to compare these two kits, and since everyone is familiar with the Tamiya Tigers, those ones too. This AFV Club kit represents one of the final Tiger I produced featuring the small rear idler, 40mm turret roof and Tiger II loader's hatch, making it the first 1/35 model of the 'final' Tiger I. While the Tamiya kit was close, it lacked the smaller idler.

The kit is moulded in AFV Club's olive styrene. The moulding quality is good, although there is a slight bit of flash on a few edges. The flat armour plates are smooth with no surface texture. Since zimmerit is supposed to cover most of these it doesn't really matter, however the horizontal plates are also as smooth as glass. The turret sides have a pitted texture similar to the effect from bouncing a small round burr over them. This is a bit odd considering that the turret top is smooth and that zimmerit should be applied to the sides. Perhaps AFV Club is planning a zimmerit-less Tiger I early or initial where the pitting would be evident?

I checked the major dimensions of the kit, hull, turret shape, barrel length, etc. against Doyle's plans and measurements on David Bryden's Tiger site. All the measurements, with one exception, are within the error of my measuring methods.

The Running Gear

Workable suspensions seem to be all the rage these days, and the AFV Club kit contains torsion bars similar to the recent DML Tiger. The kit also has a workable rear idler. The idler swing arm is attached internally to a wire spring which pulls the arm towards the front, so externally the idler will be forced back, keeping the track tight. Unfortunately I haven't had a chance to assemble this kit to test this out... but this is what it's supposed to do. The rear idler is the final smaller type and looks accurate compared to photographs. The idler is fitted to its arm with one of those Tamiya-style polycaps.

The tracks are made from glue-able soft synthetic rubber and are typical quality for this material. These tracks lack the hollow guide horn and hollows beneath the link cross bars. Perhaps AFV Club will release a set of individual links, but for now, if one wishes, they can replace them with an after-market set such as Model Kasten's. There are some spare links for the turret included in styrene, which have the hollows beneath the link cross bars but the guide horns are solid.

The drive sprocket is the final type with the star-shaped plate added to stop the bolts from falling out. It appeared a little flat compared to photographs. Mine seems a little pushed-in too, perhaps a shipping accident... but both of them? The support arms for the sprocket ring are slightly too thin and squared. These could easily be "beefed-up" and rounded by painting a few coats of Mr. Surfacer or a similar thick gooey paint.

Later Tigers had the steel-rimmed road wheels (as we all know), there where some slight differences in these wheels too. road wheels on Tigers produced after April 1944 had a different arrangement of bolts that held the centre hubs in place. The strips, three of them, have five bolts, one on the centre and a pair at each end. The kit however has the slightly earlier arrangement of five evenly spaced bolts. In general the kit wheels are very nice, even the rubber is shown a little textured between the rim and wheel. The wheels are fixed to the swing arms with polycaps so they'll rotate. Along with the working torsion bars and flexible tracks one will be able to effectively fix their Tiger to an uneven diorama base, or if so inclined, run it along the carpet.

Lower Hull

The lower hull is a one-piece tub which includes the bottoms of the side sponsons and the lower front plate. The rear plate is separate. It is accurate against plans having the correct number of drain ports, and correctly located access ports. The flanges between the lower hull sides and sponson bottoms are well represented, although they lack the rivets along the top flange. These can be easily added by cutting them off an old kit (Tamiya's M3 Grant/Lee kits are great sources for rivets) or making them from slices of stretch sprue. Incidentally, DML also missed this detail, while the Tamiya Tiger has only one flange. The rectangular block above the idler mounts knocked loose track pins back in as they passed over it. This is supposed to be a very shallow U-shaped strip with a couple of braces. There is a good photograph of this in (2). A set of replacements for Tamiya's Tiger, which also suffers from being solid, was included in the old (but excellent) set of Anvil Tiger Tracks; it's a bit hard to see after the wheels and track are added.

Looking at the front, all of the welds are in place. The final drive housing is well detailed but a slight gap is left around it when placed into the hull. I don't know if this is intended but considering that the driver hides this when installed it's probably not worth trying to fill.

The hull extensions are moulded poorly and will benefit from a little squaring up with a file. The U-hooks are the later rounded type but the pins are from the earlier type of U-hook. These earlier pins were often seen with the later U-hook however. An easy solution to get late U-hooks and pins is to borrow the extra set from the DML initial Tiger.

Rear Plate

The rear plate fits well onto the lower hull, both are quite thick and solid. There are weld beads missing between the side hull extensions for the towing holes. These are also missing from the DML kit, and Tamiya's, but they are quite evident in photographs. Now the ultimate nit-pick... the little angled piece of armour that connects the hull bottom to the rear plate should be 1mm wider on each side. Basically, the weld beads to the sides should be filled and re-scribed 1mm more towards the edges. There are good drawings of this in the MMiR Tiger book. The weld between top of this plate the bottom of the rear plate can be added too.

Separate late-styled rear mudguards are included. They are thick and have no underside details. They can easily be sanded down and detail added underneath. The butterfly nut is also missing, but other than that the topside detail is great. The convoy light is moulded in place and so is a funny shape. It can easily be cut off and a new one made from plastic rod and scrap strip for the mount, the lead can be also added from thin wire. When the mudguard is fitted in place most of this work won't be visible though.

In October 1943 the flaps covering the exhaust outlets were dropped as is depicted in the kit. The rods and elevated cover are mould in one piece, they're a little thick and would be tricky to thin down as moulded. The rods cut be cut off and the caps thinned out while the rods could be replaced with thinner rod stock. Or a suitable replacement PE set could be used. The muffler armoured covers are well moulded with good texture, they lack the lifting lugs however. I have a "trick" for making these lugs so that they line up on each side of the cover. I'll post a reply to this review with a step-by-step guide. Missing also are the little cut outs on the sides of these. A set of sheet metal guards are included, they're moulding in plastic and are too thick. Thinning these out is easy, on my Tamiya Tiger, which has similar guards, I thinned them out with sandpaper wrapped around a dowel, sanding from the inside. Finally, the last nit-pick for the mufflers... the guards are supposed to be mounted on little blocks (tabs), these are not shown in the kit but can be added from slices of square stock.

Upper Hull

I like the way the upper hull and side plates are combined into one part. When attached to the lower hull the model is quite solid and there's no chance of misalignment. Compared to the DML Tiger which is a little tricky to assemble without messing up the alignment of the plates. Two more parts, the glacis and front hull plate complete the basic hull assembly.

Starting with the front plate, it includes an integrally moulded driver's visor and MG ball mount. The construction is exactly like that of Tamiya's Tiger. The visor is shown open and is hollow behind it. The hull MG fits through the ball from behind with is them fixed in place with a ring fitted from behind the plate. The little hole for the MG sight is depicted on the ball too.

The mudguards are integrally moulded to the glacis... like Tamiya's Tiger. They are solid 0.90mm in thickness (yes, I have a digital micrometer) with no underside details. Aber do make several good Tiger I photo-etched sets for the Tamiya kits. They will fit this kit so the mudguards can be cut off and replaced. Or a lot of mud could be crammed underneath to hide the lack of detail. The top detail is very good, perfect in fact, with only the butterfly nut missing. There are spring clamps for these fenders, strangely though the little brackets at the front of the fender is shown in the instructions but the mounting tab which is on the kit isn't shown in the instructions. The missing brackets could be made from scrap brass strip.

Side mudguards are supplied in plastic and are fine, but when viewed from below they give themselves away. Naturally photo-etched, or scratch-built thin styrene replacements will look a lot better. Many Tigers lost these mudguards too so leaving them off is a good option. The mounting tabs are moulded on the hull sides.

Engine Deck

Detailing on the engine deck is excellent. The rear vents, two weeks ago, I would have said were great, but now having seen the two part "curved" vents from DML's Tiger, they have become mediocre. See the photograph for a comparison. A set of photo-etched screens are included, they're basic 'flat' etched, nothing to get too exited about. The turret ring guard that was bolted to the hull top on later tigers is moulded in place on the kit. It is supposed to be incorrect, having the wrong number or ill-positioned bolt holes along the top. I haven't found any photographs of this so I can't say. Perhaps someone else can look at the photograph of the kit part and comment?

Tools and Stowage

Starting with the jack which is an excellent five-part item. Thin wire handles could be added, cutting off the solid originals may be tricky without damaging the surrounding rivet detail. The jack mounting brackets are also included, a butterfly nut could be added to finish them off. The pioneer tools are adequate, the shovel however was poorly moulded on my sample, I think the mould shifted slightly as the sprue (sprue C) has a slight shift to it, the shovel seems to have suffered the most. It is really thick. The tools all have integrally moulded mounting brackets. Tamiya's tools from their ever-useful Panzer IV tool set could be substituted or the extra set supplied with the new DML Tiger could be used. The tow cables and track-changing cable are moulded in plastic with their mounting apparatus too. Most modellers would probably replace these. TMD now make a set of nice German heavy tank cables and the brackets can be obtained from Aber for example. The gun cleaning rods look pretty thin to me, but can simply be replaced with rod stock.

Turret

Two halves, a bottom and roof make up the turret. The roof seems to represent a late but not the final version. The roof is the single plate 40mm thick, bent just before the loader's periscope. The eight countersunk bolts for the internal travel lock are missing. These can be added by drilling out the locations and inserting round stock flush with the plate. Sockets for the 2-ton crane are moulded in place. The loader's hatch is the earlier type from the Tiger II. Detail on the close-in defence weapon and ventilator are good. The commander's cupola is nice, it looks like the periscope covers have that slight forward lean to them too but there are no periscopes to fill them up.

Upon test fitting the roof and turret sides I was shocked by the grossly thick appearance of the turret side walls... and then I noticed the assembled turret just didn't look right. It appears to be slightly too narrow at the front and slightly too wide in the middle (this is the "exception" I mentioned at the beginning). I can't figure it out exactly but it just looks strange. It could be the illusion created with the missing weld bead joining the top and sides that makes the side armour appear too thick. Whatever the case maybe, adding the missing weld the turret will make it look a lot better. Storage clamps for the spare track-links are included, both top and bottom. Adding the little wire handles to the top ones will spruce them up a bit.

The mantlet is the final type with the single opening for the monocular gun site. I realize that there are many different designs of Tiger mantlet, I'm not sure which one the kit represents but that prominent weld between the barrel sleeve and mantlet is missing. The barrel sleeve lacks those tiny countersunk screws near the end. There's a fairly good representation of the 88's breech for inside the turret, and a seat for the commander, but that's it for the interior.

Strangely there are three muzzle brakes included. The early big one which is in two halves was the one seen on the built-up sample kit on AFV Club's site a couple of weeks ago. This caused some "concern", however there is a superb 4-part smaller, later muzzle break. And there is another of the larger ones. I get the impression that AFV Club included these multi-part muzzle brakes at the last minute since they are all alone on their own sprue. The barrel is turned aluminum, after comparing it to David Bryden's measurements (3) I found it to be 3mm too short from the back of the muzzle brake to the first ridge. Maybe I got a bad one, hopefully AFV Club will include correct ones in future copies of this kit.

Decals

A set of water slide decals is included for five vehicles. A.) "211" SS.sPz.Abt. 102, Normandy, 1944. B.) "007" SS.sPz.Abt. 101, Caen, 1944. C.) "233" sPz.Abt. 501, Eastern Front, Dec. 1944. D.) "311" SSsPz.Abt. 102, Normandy, 1944. E.) "A12" Grossdeutschland Div., Eastern Front, Sep. 1944.

Conclusion

This is a good kit and will be a fun model to detail. It is kilometres ahead of the Tamiya kit. But with the marketing coup recently pulled off by DML by getting their Tiger I out first this new AFV Club kit won't recieve the recognition it deserves. Personally, I'll pass on this kit and I'm sure I won't be alone waiting for DML to release their late production Tiger. I've given it 3 stars (out of five). For comparison, I'd now give the Tamiya Tiger 2 stars and the DML Tiger 4.5 (they lose half a star for their solid guide horn tracks, and a couple other misses... more on that kit soon.)

I hope this brief description of the kit is helpful. I have missed a lot for sure so I'll answer questions on the forum. Just press the "Discuss this review" link at the bottom. Thanks to Robert Lu for lending me this kit for review. He had it sent direct from Taiwan. Robert will be building it now... or adding it to his pile of unbuilt Tiger kits and accessories :-)

References

1. The Modeler's Guide to the Tiger Tank by Patrick Stansell
   This is a great book for modellers. With many detailed drawings showing the production changes of the Tiger I. Many, many modelling tips and examples specific to Tiger models are illustrated in the book too. GET THIS BOOK!

2. Tiger I and Sturmtiger in Detail by Uwe Feist & Bruce Culver
   A great collection of Tiger I photographs in museums.

3. tiger1.info by David Bryden
   David's site is a great resource. He has made many CAD drawings of the Tiger I based on his own measurements. There are also several informative articles.

User Contributed Notes