Darlington Productions Panzerkampfwagen VI P (Sdkfz 181)

John Prigent

Panzerkampfwagen VI P (SdKfz 181), The History Of The Porsche Typ 100 And 101 Also Known As Leopard And Tiger (P), by Thomas L Jentz and Hilary L Doyle. Published by Darlington Productins, no ISBN.

Well, the title's a bit of a mouthful but leaves you in no doubt about what's in the book! With 60 pages it covers the Porsche contender for the Tiger I contract in as much detail as possible from the original German archives - no guess-work, no assumptions, no retailing of mistakes from other sources. It starts with the first concept drawings and goes right through the story of all the vehicles built, from the Porsche Typ 100 (usually called VK 30.01) to the "Porsche Tiger I" used by PzJag Abt 653 as a command vehicle. Lots of photos, excellent plans by Hilary Doyle showing the changes on vehicles built as the design progressed and supported by Tom's clear text - for instance those photos we all know and wonder about showing different width trackguards actually show vehicles from different parts of the production run as the design was refined. This is defintely a book you need if you intend building either the Italeri kit of "Porsche Tiger I" or any of the conversions available to produce the PzJag Abt 653 command vehicle. It only covers the gun tanks, the various SP anti-tank conversions being scheduled for inclusion in a forthcoming volume of Panzer Tracts from the same authors and publisher.