About this detail of the Tiger
The first serving Tigers, sent to s.Pz.Abt.502 near Leningrad, had no shields for their exhausts. Flames emitted from the exhausts made the Tigers easily visible at night. Knowing this, the Tiger's designers set about designing a standard shield, which was eventually factory-installed from January 1943.
However, the 501 Heavy Tank Battalion already had their 20 Tigers, and they installed exhaust shields of their own before their first Tigers were shipped to Africa on 20 November 1942. Since these shields are crude and appear slightly different from one Tiger to the next, it is likely they were made by the battalion itself rather than the factory.
These African shields were made from a square of sheet metal exactly 1 meter on a side. They had 6 slots cut into them, with the upper side of the slot bent out and the lower bent inward, to make a crude directional vent. This example is on Tiger 112.
The shields had cutouts to accomodate the armoured guards on the exhaust openings, including a slot for the lifting lug on the guard, as shown here. This photo also shows that some tanks had sharply folded shields while others were gently rounded; compare to the previous photo.
Methods of attaching the shields varied, but apparently there were 4 bolts fixing them to the exhaust armour guards. In these photos we can see that Tiger 221 had nuts welded to its armour guard, while Tiger 141 had rectangular metal pieces with threaded holes. The positions of these fixing points varied from one tank to the next, another sign that the shields were not factory-made.
At least some of these Tigers had L-shaped metal strips welded near the top edge of the hull, providing another point where the exhaust shield could be bolted into place. This example is Tiger 221.
