Dragon's 1/35 scale Sd.Kfz.186
Henschel Jagdtiger

by Richard R. Fisher

Dragon's 1/35 scale Jagdtiger is available online from Squadron

Having been somewhat out of the military modeling loop for the past several years. I was overwhelmed by the selection and depth of all of the aftermarket products. I had recently completed a Tiger II and I was looking for something else to build. (A closet full of unbuilt kits at home not withstanding.) I found myself at the IPMS Oklahoma City Nationals. Therein was located a plethora of temptation. Yea verily, I was sorely tempted.

I soon found myself with a lighter wallet, a Dragon Jagdtiger H, complete with all sorts of stuff to make my bargain $10.00 kit with a small crack in the hull an $80.00 investment.

A little gap filling super glue and baking soda on the inside of the hull repaired the crack. From there on it was research and build.

I chose to model a vehicle from Schwere Panzerjager Abteilung 512, chassis number 305058. This was a mid production vehicle with a handle fitted above the rear doors and following along with Tiger II production simplification. The jack and jacking block were eliminated from the rear plate. But the four crane mounting brackets were not included.

The vehicle was abandoned after being hit by friendly fire in town of Obernephen. This was in fact the first intact Jagdtiger examined by U.S. Forces.

Starting with the lower hull, assembly is pretty much straight forward. Be very careful to make sure the spindles (part A1) are properly aligned. I noticed after the fact that I missed a problem on the left side and the tracks tend to lean away from the hull. I left the return idler and drive sprockets off until after painting was complete.

The upper hull was glued into place, seams checked and filled. I then added welds to the lower and upper hulls with a small piece of stretched sprue and tenax, textured with an old X-Acto blade. I also did the same to the interlocking armor plate, on the sides, front and rear.

The kit photo etch parts were then added to the radiator fans and intakes, along with parts from the Aber PE set.

Small wire was used to make the headlight cable. A small bit of brass wire was used to make the handle on the rear of the fighting compartment. Two extra sets of track brackets were added to each side of the hull. These were made from evergreen strip styrene. I then added the small PE brackets for holding rope/wire for camouflage. These were the most frustrating items to place. I finally developed a technique where I place a small amount of super glue to the hull and using a toothpick with a small amount of Elmer’s glue, picked up the part and placed in the correct location. (I was fortunate enough to visit Aberdeen this summer where I examined in detail the Jagdtiger located there. These little brackets are all over everywhere.) Sad thing is you hardly even notice them after you paint.

The hull MG barrel was drilled out and brass wire was used for the lift handles on the driver/radio operators hatches.

Most of the kit parts were used or modified by thinning them down. I replaced the cleaning rods with rod styrene and wire, the ABER brackets were used to complete this assembly. The ABER fender set was also used, although this vehicle only had two intact on the left side of the hull. The remaining attachment points were drilled out and bolt heads were added to the two fenders.

I used the kit mono-pod along with PE parts to detail the MG 42. For the main gun I used the MKD barrel with a resin Saukopf. Tracks were replaced with Fruimodel set #22.

After a final check and a little clean up, I started the painting process. The vehicle was produced in February of 1945. Based on this date I chose to use a base coat of green followed by yellow and red brown.

I used Floquil lacquer based Hunter Green for the base coat followed by Depot Buff for the yellow and Box Car red for the red brown. Although it is very difficult to tell from the photos, it appears the colors were hard edged. My guess is that the vehicle camouflage was added during the training period at Paderborn. The markings were made with a home made mask made from Frisket paper. The kit decals were used for national insignia.

The tracks were painted with roof brown and weathered with Rub N Buff.

Weathering was done with lacquer clear coats of Testor’s clear flat tinted with grimy black, earth and grime. Dry pastels were then added and a final coat of clear sealed the finish.

Overall I found this to be a very enjoyable build.
 

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Text and Images Copyright © 2004 by Richard R. Fisher
Page Created 04 December, 2004
Last Updated 03 December, 2004

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