About this detail of the Tiger
The full story of internal equipment stowage in the Tiger 1 will probably never be known. The surviving vehicles and documents all show different arrangements, and it is likely that other configurations existed of which there is no record. Also, since items are missing from all surviving vehicles, I don't think that a complete representation of the interior can be reconstructed except for the Bovington vehicle, from the time period February-March 1943; and the vehicles with the first of the new turrets, from July/August 1943, which are drawn in the Turret Manual.
At the front inside right of some turrets there was a box for the personal belongings of the crew. Like other stowage in the turret, it was attached to vertical metal strips. These strips were welded to the roof and turret ring, not to the walls of the turret, because experience with the first Tigers had shown that an impact could throw items around the vehicle if they were attached to the walls.
The above is a diagram of the box, which was made of sheet metal and painted in the interior colour. The forward corner of the box is bevelled to avoid interfering with the spring balance equipment for the gun.
This is a model of the box. In the Bovington vehicle #250112 it carried a decal reading 'Gepäckschrank' that is, "kit box". The decal was on the rear side facing the crew. I have not drawn the decal yet. A feature of this box is that it can be unhooked from the metal strips; other stowage boxes were screwed into place. It probably had to be removed to allow access to the MG.
This partially complete model of a turret shows where the box was placed relative to the vision port in the early vehicles. I have not modelled it yet, but immediately above the box there was a wire for one of the external smoke grenade launchers. One of the metal strips is cut short to avoid it.
Drawings and surviving vehicles show that this box was mounted in different places at different times. In the earliest vehicles this box did not exist. The surviving "APG Tiger", number 250012, has no place for it. According to the Turret Manual, "extra supports and sheet metal boxes" were installed from turret #56 onwards, most likely including this box.
When the turret got a major redesign (at turret #392) a drawing was made that shows the mounting hooks for this box higher up and closer together. This is depicted in the model above. There is no drawing of an actual box from this time, but it would have had to be shallower because a larger elevation mechanism, screwed to the wall, was now installed underneath the box. You can see the mechanism in the Saumur Tiger. Note that the attachment points and the heavy bolts of the elevation mechanism are positioned to avoid the lightweight mounting strips of this box. It seems counterintuitive that heavy items would be arranged to suit lightweight items, but this saved the designer the trouble of updating the relevant drawings.
The shallower box may have been a half-baked idea that was never built, because a later drawing in the Turret Manual shows a much more practical solution: as you can see in the model above, the box is moved forward and lowered almost to the turret ring. This situation probably applied in most Tigers from turret #392 onwards.
Eventually, the box disappeared again. All boxes on the turret walls were deleted, and alternative stowage attached to the turret ring was used. You can see this final situation in the Saumur vehicle. Unfortunately we don't know when this happened.
[2] Survey of Tiger 250122, at Bovington museum, by David Byrden