Tiger I Part II

This is another rare old soldier. It is an HO Tiger I by Tomy. They are a Japanese model company that made a line of really nice HO scale vehicles and sold them in variety stores. That was over 30 years ago and they were only out for a very short period of time. I have three in my collection. Again, like the Zylmex they had rubber tracks and rolling road wheels. Their road wheels looked pretty good and I often use them as extra supplies on the sides of tanks or in supply trucks. These have again been replaced by Roco tracks. These models were die cast with plastic bits, like the barrel. Excellent models they hold up well even today.























This one is a Boley. They made a line of HO scale military vehicles, most of which are discontinued now and no loss. This one is nearly a copy of the new Roco Tiger I but not quite as nice. Their big advantage was they were about one third the cost of a Roco.





















This line up shows all of the together. The Tiger I was produced in several versions and fought in North Africa, France, Russia, Italy and Germany. Many of the old ones were remanufactured too and show parts of both the old model and new model. An interesting tank and there are plenty of them on the market in HO scale, 1/87. The new Roco and the Corgi are both still in the shops and easy to find. The old Roco appears frequently on the used market, while the others are a bit rare. An interesting series of models. A battalion was 45 tanks, three companies of 14 each, with platoons of four and two HQ vehicles per company. The remaining three were the battalion HQ tanks. In North Africa the organization varied from day to day due to losses, experimentation and shipments of new tanks arriving. They included the Panzer III in early units as scouting and flank security tanks.