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We have already said then there were five crew positions.
Ian has already taken us through the driver's position.
What we have done now is pop across to the right of the driver and we are now in the
radio operator or the bow gunner positions.
So the bow gunner was exactly the same person that operated the radios.
Quite clearly on the left there you can see the original radios that came with Tiger 131.
Various combinations of radios obviously depended on whether it was a command
vehicle or not.
Short wave usually, however the command vehicles have the ability to actually do a
longer signal and more high powered.
Very simple in this position here and actually it's quite comfy and quite roomy.
You can see directly in front of me is one of our, the first of our two MG34's.
Obviously the other one is mounted coaxally with the main armament.
The set up for it is quite simple.
The interesting thing to note of course for the MG34 was, slightly different to the ones
that were ground mounted or mounted on armoured vehicles, was the fact that the
barrels on the armoured vehicle ones were three quarters armoured.
So that was just to protect it against shrapnel etc.
A very simple brow pad, that the bow gunner used to use there and also very simple
singular sighting system that was used to aim it.
You will also notice, as Ian mentioned before there, also to the front of me you can see
the transmission assembly right down at the front there.
So obviously, as Ian said, when you are driving it incredibly noisy
not only for the driver but also for the bow gunner.
Across to the right hand side, storage.
You can see where the rounds where kept there and also there are various storage
positions all over.
We will look at some of those later on for the main armourment rounds.
The majority been held actually inside the turret, under the turret floor.
And as Ian pointed out on the driver's cab, one of the filler points for the final drive.
So obviously one in the driver's cab and this is the one across the right hand side
For the other side.
We've now, I've moved down from the commander's station into the gunner's station,
so directly beneath where the commander would sit.
As you can see not a great deal of room.
Just the right of me of is the breach and the breach assembly.
Straight in front, ahead of the gunner is the gunner's sight and in this case
it's the 9 Bravo binocular type sight.
Quite a very simple and very effective sight.
Gave you 2.5 times magnification and a field of view of 25 degrees.
The gratical pattern was also quite simple and hopefully we will be able
to give you a close up of that later on.
In essence, it consisted of a number inverted "v"s on the gratical pattern.
Moving across from that and directly located underneath where the breech is,
you can see we have got the elevation hand wheel.
The means that the gunner can elevate and depress the main armourment.
And another important part of the elevation hand wheel of course
is on the other side we've also got the trigger which is used by the gunner
when firing the main armourment.
A couple of very important things on the floor directly beneath the gunner,
we've got a number of foot pedals.
One of them is a rocker type pedal and this was the means for
power traverse for the Tiger 1.
So pushing forward and putting down with your heel on there would turn
the turret left and right on the power traverse as well.
And it was possible at full speed to do a complete 360 in 60 seconds on Tiger 1.
And the final pedal for the gunner down on the gunner's position
is a very simple pedal there that fires the MG34.
So that's the means that he does it.
Although apparently not particularly reliable
as obviously it is relying on a number of linkages, linking up to the MG34.
Moving across to the left hand side of the gunner's station,
one of the most important things was the Azimuth Indicator.
Exactly the same as we mentioned already on the commander's station.
The Azimuth Indicator again numbered from 1 to 12 so again it's the way that
the commander and the gunner can link up,
commander could lay the gunner on quite quickly using that.
Vision block on the left hand side there.
We saw from the outside of the turret the vision block
and obviously the periscope that we've got there.
Directly above that where two breathing tubes.
The breathing tubes, the only reason for them was it was just a means that the air,
the crew could get fresh air using the breathing tubes as opposed to putting on
and wearing the full respirators or gas masks which obviously was quite problematic.
And finally we have the emergency gun firing circuits.
So if there were problems there is still a means for them to get the primer charged
that would set of the primer for the main armourment.
And the final thing to mention in the gunner's station then
is obviously the traverse hand wheel.
If there was a problem and we couldn't use power traverse
there is the ability there to use the traverse hand wheel.
Before it could be used there is, although you won't get to see it,
underneath the turret seal there is a locking lever
that needs to be disengaged on there.
Ok, now I'm looking at the commander's station.
You can see there the angle that I am actually sat at the moment
it's quite limited for space in here.
Working our way around, obviously you've got the seat
which is just underneath the camera at the moment there.
You've also got the traverse gear box.
Located on the traverse gear box was a hand wheel for the commander.
This was the auxiliary hand wheel for the turret traverse.
You can also see there, we mentioned about the smoke grenade discharges
on the outside of the vehicle this is one of the control panels to fire one of the banks.
And located underneath there is just three buttons that actually fire
the smoke grenades dischargers.
Various storage located around where the commander would sit.
Storage for the gas masks.
Storage for a flare pistol and also any storage for small arms as well.
And then also, we're going to rotate round at the moment,
you can see where we pointed on the outside of the turret you've got the port
there where the commander could fire a small arms actually outside.
Located around a number of vision blocks.
Six vision blocks as we pointed from the outside.
And also if you went up you might be able to make out the Azimuth Indicator.
Located or numbered 1 to 12 on the interior of the commander's cupola turret room
there just at the top.
Last thing to point out in the commander's station.
You've got this thin metal shield here.
The only reason that the shield was put there was to prevent,
or in the eventuality of flash- back in the turret
that would give the commander some protection.
We are now in the loader's station and a few of the key things to point out.
Now obviously one of the big things about the Tiger 1 as we mentioned earlier on,
was the fact that the gun was absolutely so potent the 88 millimeter.
A few keys things to point out on the breech then.
One of the most obvious things there you can see the transit bar.
And all the transit bar did was hook the breech up when the gun
was not in combat use to prevent damage to it as well.
As we said before the recoil was a real problem for the 88mm,
fitting it on to the chassis.
So what they did was actually put a recuperator and a buffer on there
to absorb some of that recoil.
One of the things I will point out to you at the moment is also the recoil indicator.
Another couple of key things on there
just to the floor there you can see there is a catcher tray.
All that did was actually catch the empty cases when they came out of the breech.
And also just to the right of the breach there was a safe/ fire lever.
Again very very simple design, it just meant that
the loader had to make sure it was in the fire position
otherwise the electric circuit wouldn't be completed prior to firing.
Moving our way across to the right you can see, although not fitted at the moment,
was the mounting for the MG34.
Again reports of lots of lots of problems with the MG34 on Tiger 1
as far as stoppages were concerned.
Also you notice just to the right of the mount there, there is the number 2.
You may have noticed as we have been going round
there are various numbers located in Tiger 131.
It is numbered 1 to 14, and all that meant was it was the 14 checks
that before Tiger 1 did deep wading that would have to be done beforehand.
So there's 14 things that had to be dealt with
before it could submerse or do deep wading.
Moving our way across to the right there, you'll also see again it's marked number 8,
one of the vision blocks we saw from the outside there,
so the loader had a pretty poor field of view from the inside there.
The loader did have his own seat, it's in the stowed position at the moment,
it just swings out and folds down there.
And also there's storage.
Now the storage on Tiger 1, it was capable of carrying 92 rounds.
The rounds themselves were usually an equal split between the high explosive
and armoured piercing.
Various storage positions.
There are some storage positions underneath the floor.
There is also some next to the driver
and there are also some storage positions on the seals
located round the outside there.
You can just see at the moment one of the rounds located in there.
Clipped into position.
And very easy to get to.
As we mentioned before was the hardest thing by far with the Tiger
was actually re-stowing it after they had run out of ammunition.
Moving our way across to the right.
We have also got another gas mask on there and you can see now
the inside of the emergency or escape hatch
with a very very good thing to have in use,
it was very very heavy as we said before.
And also you can see just to the top right of that,
we looked at it from the outside of the turret,
we have also got the ventilation fan.
And also on the right hand side we have the gun balance spring casing.
Which in essence is just an over -sized damper.
And finally in the loader's station,
I'm just moving across here you can see there is a leather pad there.
That was just too actually buffer some of the rounds
as they were ejected from the breach.
And also as we've already pointed out there, the catching the emptied projectiles.
And what I mentioned before there really in essence a recoil indicator
which interestingly enough has sort of not changed in design much to too many tanks.
All the recoil indicator was, we've already said, it hydraulically assisted the breach.
It was just an indication there of how far and well the fluid was reacting for the recoil.
It could recoil up to 620mm, but the marker on there would go up to 580,
after that it would have a cease fire mark on there
just to tell you there were problems.