The Heaviest Assault

E-100 Trumpeter + Rhino resin turret 1/35

“Historical” background  In April 1945 German army used for the first time newly formed Night Assault Panzer Regiments.. The elite troops defeated and pushed back the Red Army during the Seelow Heights battle. Later, in July 1945 the heavy Tank Battalions were rebuilt to the to the full strength and with the support of the elite ME-262 fighter-bomber squadrons they drove back to the sea the allied forces in the west.  In March 1946, after 4 months of heavy fights the very new Super Heavy Tank Battalions of E-100s got through the last Russian defences around Kiev and led the second Barbarossa offensive to the main objective: Moscow.
Well… don’t be afraid it didn’t really happen J. After building several King Tigers, E-50 and E-75 it was the time for the king of the “heavies”, the E-100.   The Panzerkampfwagen E-100 was a German super-heavy tank design developed towards the end of World War II. The basic design was ordered in June 1943 by the the German Army Weapons Agency (Waffenamt) as a parallel development to the Porsche Maus. It was the heaviest of the Entwicklung (E) series of vehicles. They were meant to standardize as many components as possible to make the production simpler and less expensive. The first prototype was never fully completed and was found by the 751st Field Artillery Battalion of the American forces in April 1945. The partially completed vehicle was taken by the British Army for evaluation and then scrapped in the 1950s.
The base model for this build was the older Trumpeter 00384. I got this kit some time ago, well before the 09543 was even announced. Even if the chassis was correct I knew that the turret supplied with it could be best used on a … Victory Class Star Destroyer J. Happily, a friend of mine told me about the superb Rhino Armour Models full resin conversion available from a UK based hobby shop. Having found the right turret the last replacement set to acquire were the tracks. Trumpeter supplies with the kit vinyl tracks which really need to be changed. After some hesitation I took a pair of plastic workable tracks from … Trumpeter (set n°02049). In the past I have already used Trumpeter workable tracks and they have been very good, quite similar to Modelkasten products but much cheaper.