Scale: 1 / 48
The kit
This is a medium-scale Tiger kit with a full interior. It assembles into a rare variant of Tiger, the "Command" version; specifically an "Early" one built in April 1943.
There were several real Tigers of this type but the kit has decals for only one of them, Tiger "S04" as seen in Michael Wittman's famous photo shoot. "S04" is already the subject of 1/35 kits from Tamiya, Dragon and Rye Field. Ustar break new ground by attempting the "Command" interior.
The kit has two paint schemes, depicting this same Tiger on two different dates. The kit apparently labels one scheme as "September 1944" but in reality it was September 1943.
Accuracy
This kit boasts a "full interior" and indeed its crew compartment, engine room and side compartments are all filled with equipment. But the kit does not accurately represent the insides of the "Command" version that it supposedly gives us. It repeats most of the "standard" interior that Ustar created for their previous Tiger kit, and it fails to make most of the necessary changes for a "Command" Tiger.
For example, the front compartment of a "Command" Tiger had about fifteen differences from a standard Tiger. But Ustar's kit makes only five changes here, and every one of them is faulty.
Another problem with this kit's interior is that we don't know the full layout of a "Command" Tiger. Much documentation has been lost or destroyed. When a kit is claimed to have a "full Command interior", we may ask: based on what? And this model kit does not even use the information that we do have [1] .
History of Tiger S04
On 14 January 1944, in a tiny village in central Ukraine, Untersturmführer Wittman was awarded the Knight's Cross in a brief ceremony [1, see page 121] . A photographer captured Wittman, his crew, and - most important for us - his then Tiger, numbered "S04".
But this was not Wittman's only Tiger. He had fought the battle of Kursk in another one, but his unit left their armour behind when they transferred to Italy in August 1943 [1, see page 118] . There, they were issued new Tigers. Wittman got Tiger "S21" and his company commander, Hauptsturmführer Kling, must have got "S04". The unit returned to the Ukraine in October 1943 and resumed battle.
On 30 December 1944, Wittman took over command of the company and therefore, in theory, "S04" became his vehicle. He reportedly disliked the "Command Tiger" variant, because it carried less ammunition than normal. But even if he continued to use standard Tigers, it was "S04" that he was photographed with.
Photos from the ceremony show 88 "kill rings" on the tank's gun barrel. They were probably painted for the photographer and removed soon afterward, because Wittman's unit was very wary of drawing attention to their commanders' tanks. That is why they named this Tiger "S04" intead of "S01", and it is why - months later - they had an "007" instead of an "001".
As a Command Tiger, "S04" carried two radios and was intended to be a mobile command post. But it had an 88mm tank gun and could fight like any other Tiger [1, see 3.2.5] . At the time of the photographs, "S04" was configured as a Sd.Kfz.268.
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