Good Morning,

First of all I would like to start off by thanking David Byrden, Yann Jouault and Paul Alderton for their responses to my previous post on the 6th of this month.

I have a couple more questions I would like to put to you for your advice per S04.

Fiefel system:
I have been rummaging through my spares box and found several different sorts of tubing ranging from a very coarse to a very fine pattern in resin through to the light plastic/fabric covered pieces available in the current Tamiya early kit, would any one know which would be the best represented??
Were the pipes actually connected on S04??

Mantlet:
Is it a standard feature of all Befehlstigers to have the coaxial mg removed???
Was the port just covered over or were they actually plugged???

Antenna:
Is it a standard feature of all Befehlstigers to have the ceramic pot fitted to the RHS????
How was this pot fitted - I have seen on one model it appears to be a cup with a lip but on my conversion parts there is no lip????
Was the Antenna tube that fits on the rear hull wall always fitted to one particular side or to either????

Looking through earlier posts on the subject of S04 it was mentioned that the driver had no episcope, I take it then that the klapp(? - drivers vision port) was permanently closed, well at least during combat?

Any thoughts, Ideas or suggestions?

TIA

P

Sorry, I am really pressed for time nowadays, but I'll try to help;



The top photo shows original Feifel tubes. Note the faceted surface and slight twist.
The bottom photo is in Bovington museum, and is so similar that I think it's an original tube; can anyone confirm?
If so, you can see that it's made of faceted metal, not fabric. There are other tubes on the Bovington tank that have a plain round cross section; I don't know if they're original either.

I don't know of any photos where the pipes were removed and the filters not; so, I assume that they were connected.



The coax MG must be removed on a Befehlstiger. In the case of an old "flat" mantlet being used, this would be a Tiger (P) mantlet converted by having a plug welded in. It might be a good fit or it might not; if there were no Zimmerit, you would surely see signs of the plug.

The RHS would have a ceramic pot countersunk into the hull roof. I don't know a good photo of this, but the Dragon kits represent it quite well;



The rear antenna tube was on the left for S04. It was on the right in Tigers with an engine heater, i.e. Lates.

The episcope was connected to the 2 small holes above the driver's visor, this did not affect the visor itself.

David

And below some pictures from the web of Yoshitaka Hiranos's version of S04

...but I would change a few details.

David