About this detail of the Tiger
The Tiger 1 carried a flare pistol for the commander. For much of the tank's production run, two boxes of flares were fixed inside the turret.
This is a flare ammunition box in the Bovington tank, with its original paint and decal. [1] .
The inside is padded. It holds 12 flare cartridges, in three staggered rows.
The box was a standard item, used in other Panzers also.
The two boxes were originally fixed to the wall behind the commander, to his right. This is Tiger "712", repainted and not well preserved [2] . The boxes are stolen but we can see their welded mounting brackets.
From such photos we can calculate the locations of the boxes. The commander's seat is drawn here too.
By reconstructing the equipment layout on that wall, we can see that the boxes were surrounded by other items, but space was reserved for their lids to be left open.
Tiger "712" has the second layout of turret equipment, but what about the first? Evidence is scarce, but one can discern these same brackets, in the same places, in a photo of the wrecked Tiger 121 of s.Pz.Abt.502. That is a much earlier Tiger with the original turret layout. So the boxes were in this location for the first 55 turrets.
The turret stowage was redesigned at the 56th turret [3] with items being taken off the walls and mounted on metal frames. Bovington's Tiger "131" has this third layout, with the boxes here [1] . It's the same area, but the boxes have been moved apart, the vehicle's hatch keys are now stored between them, and the "Entlader" tool has gone elsewhere.
[1] Survey of Tiger 250122, at Bovington museum, by David Byrden
[2] Survey of Tiger 250031, by Stephan Vogt
[3] DW to Tiger 1