PzKpfw VI Ausf. B Konigstiger

PzKpfw VI B, the Konigstiger, was the most powerful tank ever deployed by the III Reich. It began service in 1944 and quickly gained the opinion of fearsome and lethal oponent to Allied tanks.

Knowing that Allies may soon create a response to their two new tanks - medium Panther and heavy Tiger - German tank designers started to work with a vehicle which would replace them in a future. They combined the best feature of Panther tank - sloped armour - with Tiger's armour thickness and 88 mm gun. The result was a vehicle protected by 150 mm of 40* sloped frontal armour and 180 mm of gun mantlet. No Allied nor Soviet tank could hope to penetrate such wall of steel even from point blank. As a main armament, the choice was 8,8 cm KwK 43 - a developement version of famous Acht-Koma-Acht anti-aircraft/anti-tank guns. It is often regarded as the best (or at least most powerful) tank gun of WWII

The new tank was given a name "Konigstiger". In German this name means "Bengal tiger", but many Allied troops translated it as "King Tiger". Eventually even Germans started to understand this name in such a way.

However, Konigstiger had all the downsides of Tiger I, which grew proportionally to its weight. It used the same 700 HP Maybach engine as Tiger and Panther tanks. With Konigstiger's immense weight - reaching 70 t when fully loaded with ammo, crew and fuel - it had a power to weight ratio of just slightly above 10 HP/t. T-34/85 had about 15 HP/t, depending on version, but it was way lighter and more manouverable. It could achieve up to 55 km/h. King Tiger, on the other hand, crawled forward with just over 38 km/h, and only in perfect conditions.

Konigstigers were assigned to the heavy tank battalions (schwere Panzerabteuilung, sch. PzAbt.), elite units which were sent wherever the possibility of enemy's breaktrough threatened German units.

The only vehicle based on the King Tiger was the Jagdtiger tank destroyer. It was effectively a King Tiger with turret taken off and replaced by large casemate, holding a massive 128 mm gun, far too big to fit in any tank turret at that time. Jagdtiger could destroy any other tank on the world, not excluding German heavy tanks. However they were even more prone to break down than the King Tiger, due to the increased mass (73 tonns) and following limited mobility. It was effectively a bunker with minor ability to transfer from place to place.

To counter the Tigers I and II, the Red Army used their heavy self-propelled guns (SPGs) SU-122/ISU-122 and SU-152/ISU-152. The numbers indicate their guns calibre. Especially the ISU-152 were deadly effective against the German tanks. A hit of their 49 kg HE shell was more than enough to crack the armour and/or kill the crew with spalls or concussion. As of the Allies, they prefered to call in the airforce than face the Tigers head on.

In the end, the King Tiger didn't have much impact on the outcome of the WWII, nor on the further developement of post-war tanks. However it has to be said that, as a highly specialised weapon, were no match on the battlefield. Had they appeared in 1939-1941, when the Germany had excellent logistic forces and total air superiority, the King Tiger would have time to evolve and become invincible opponent.

King Tiger's succesor was to be E-75 Standardpanzer - one of the so-called "Entwicklungsserie" (Developement Series), weighing 75 tonns and armed with either 88 mm (barrel length 71 or 100 calibres) or 105 mm gun. However none of these vehicles left the drawing boards.
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I know, the description only tells what we all know about the King Tiger I really couldn't find anything more interesting, even though this machine surely deserves attention.

This is Revell's 1/72 kit, one of two Konigstigers produced by this company. The other has the so-called "Porsche turret", an experimental design which was ment to preserve materials while retaining King Tiger's combat abilities. However it wasn't widely used, because it had characteristic "shot trap" at the front - shells fired at this place would ricochette towards the thin upper armour.

The only thing I find annoying in the hull and turret is the gun's mantlet. The gun is so heavy that the joint inside the turret, which allows to change the gun's position, cannot support its weight. It will point downwards unless pointed straight upwards. Those who don't care for movable pieces in their models will easily fix it by cementing the gun to the joint.

The tracks were a horror :/ The instruction isn't very clear in terms of assembly and I ended up with gluing the right-hand track completely wrong. I had to tear the whole thing off, clean it and assemble again In case you are interested in this set, my advice: the tracks are not symmetrically divided by their teeth, and one of the sides is wider. Always place the wider side to the outside of the vehicle (not next to its hull).

Some details are missing, but only one - hull MG - because I've lost it. I decided not to place the tracks on the turret, because they blocked the camo and it didn't look very good.

The camo is based on one of the possible variants in the instruction, but isn't an exact copy. Since the King Tiger's deadliest enemy was the ground-attack aviation, the camo is ment to disrupt the pilot's aim on the tank, instead of countering the ground forces' observators.

Model: Revell
Scale: 1/72
Paints: Humbroll, no exceptions