These two photos are scaled such that the antenna should be the same size in both cases. The height of the hull at the 11th bolt of the fender, is used for scaling.
You can see that the real antenna is larger than the mysterious object on the Totenkopf Tiger.
The "base" of the mystery object is in fact a cleaning-rod holder.
I believe that the "rod" part is something back on the engine deck.
Original von Hartmut von Holdt
I have a problem to follow this thread.
We have the pics of Tiger transport number "1". You know, you think what could be a cut out on the turret bin, could also be simply a shadow. He is under trees and and a lot of shadow lines are on the tank. The "cut out" could be the part of the diagonal shadow wich starts on the left leg of the tank man.
Track hanger on different position? I think those positions were on standard places. What we see on S23 is from left to right two deleted hangers, two intact and one half out of sight because of the left leg of crewman.
From what i have compared I would say we have the original turret untill that Tiger was wrecked.
I think this could be S23 as a wreck on the field
The only point is a frontal comparison of the turret mantlet cammo. But that seems not very clear differenz. I am not sure, but it is possible another Tiger wich was number "1". This one is another possibility
A couple more photos of the KO Tiger from Waralbum.ru.
In the quoted post I think that Hartmut is suggesting that the KO Tiger ("possibly S23") camo matches the gallery unknown (possibly S12 per Ron Hetherington). The barrel camo seems to match (see below), but the turret side camos produce no match, so maybe the barrel has been mated with a different turret at some stage?
About the Tiger with the good-luck symbol; we have several photos in which it is numbered "S22".
And we have photos of it at an earlier time, presumably Kursk, numbered "S33".
So this Tiger was not "S22" at the time of Kursk.
Consider this Tiger numbered "S23". It has an April turret fitted with an older turret bin taken from one of the original DR Tigers.
We can find many other photos of this same hull at Kursk, but it seems to have a different turret there. The turret bin is standard. The turret paint is very different.
It's almost impossible to read a number on it, but there is one photo where we can see "S2".
We can rule out "S21" and "S24". So we should remember that this Tiger may be either "S22" or "S23" at Kursk.
Re. the above suggestion, I wonder what you all think of this proposed chart of the renumbering?
It does not include the numbers of April 1943 (digits with stencil breaks, with a leading "8") nor the numbers of August 1943 (when additional Tigers had been donated by LSSAH). This is simply the original numbers mapped onto the June 1943 numbers.
The renumbering proposal from original 8.Kp numbers to s.Kp numbers looks to be consistent with the photographic evidence. One item of note is that there is a photo showing the left hand drive wheel hub on 'S34' to be machined flat rather than cast, but this could be the result of repair/maintenance rather than an original feature.
We have this down as "S22" but I'm sure it is the earlier incarnation of the same tank, "S33". We made the decision based on how much damage it has.
I'm seeing a "3" here:
And, aligning myself to the dark camouflage marks etc. I am sure it's in exactly the same place as the "3" of "831" - which was reused as the middle digit of "S33".
Another thing I'm sure of, is that all our gallery photos do show the same tank. It's the same hull and turret together, all the way through 811 -> 831 -> S33 -> S22.
We don't seem to have any photos of an S22 from Operation Citadel.
I'm wondering how they could possibly fill the ranks up to S15, S25 and S33 when they had only 12 non-staff Tigers.
I believe that the April tank "813" is actually the tank "821" / "S11". Witness the slight curve of the front mudguard. If we assume that its Balkankreuz is not applied yet, we have a dark patch matching "S11".
So that gives us all of the April numbers except for two.
I notice a pattern beginning to appear; the tanks always stay within their own platoon when the "S" numbers are applied. Also, Tiger numbers from April always end in "1" or "3".
Therefore we can speculate about the complete April numbering:
Here's "811" compared to "S13" from the Kursk time frame.
They are poor quality, but those dark patches seem very similarly placed.
There is also a light-coloured area by the pistol port, on both tanks.
I think you have correctly identified this photo:
The rear S-mine launcher is bent down at a lower angle than usual, which we see on S13. And, when I enhance the photo, once again I find two dark patches at the rear, in approximately the same positions as on "S13".
By enhancing the photo, I can see the 2nd digit appears to be "1".
This is a Bundesarchiv photo of the demonstration for the SS-Reichsfuhrer.
We have other photos showing that Tigers "811" and "823" were present; they can both be identified by camouflage markings in this photo (compare to "S13" and "S24").
This is gallery size. I'll post details if you need.
We can only vaguely see a "1" in its number, so the options are "S11", "S13", "S21" if it's from the Kursk time frame. I am referring to my chart of the original DR Tigers with no turret spare tracks:
Original von David Byrden
Here's a matching light patch over the driver's visor on both "811" and "S13".
Confirming the sequence 822 -> 811 -> S13
David
I was about to post a photo suggesting that the front right flap's curve and dip in skirt one of '813' and 'S13' appear to match. But I can see the light patch you have identified here and another light patch slightly to the right (starts just in frame here) that confirm '811' becomes 'S13'.
When the "S" numbers were first applied, the company had 6 new unmarked Tigers on hand.
I've already listed the "S" numbers of the eight old Tigers in the company. It seems likely that the complete pattern of "S" numbers during Kursk was like so (the new Tigers are in bold) ;
01 02
11 12 13 14
21 2223 24 3132 33 34
We don't have photos of all these Tigers, but the photos from the Kursk era are compatible with this scheme. Other photos that we have, showing numbers such as S25, can date from after the third renumbering and so they don't invalidate this scheme.
Can somebody remember how we decided that these two photos show the same tiger?
They're both listed in the gallery as S14. Only one of them has a legible number.
The mantlet is different. However S14 had its mantlet removed at one point, so this could be the result. There's also the problem of the tanks being renumbered during the S period.
I can't find where the first photo was identified as S14 ?
