Porsche Typ 205 "Maus" in Rhino

[thorst]

Hello,

as a preparation for my 2nd scratch built Maus, I'm first drawing the complete vehicle in the computer this time.
My first Maus was built from the plans in Waldemar Trojca's book "Deutsche geheime Panzerprojekte", but they have a lot of wrong details as I know now. For references, I'm using now:
-a few original drawings
-reconstructed plans made by the Russians (in the book "Panzerkampfwagen Maus" by Igor Sheltow und Juri Pasholok from Tactical Press)
-the Panzer Tracts issue
-the Spielberger book about special vehicles of the German army
-the above mentioned Trojca book
-a lot of pictures and drawings found on the web (thanks to stora22, who pointed me to some good ressources)

This is my first model drawn with Rhino, so I'm still learning the program while working. Until now, I have only 2D-CAD experience.

So here is what I have until now:

The hull's basic shape is finished:









Every armor plate is a separate part:



(note that the edges are not yet beveled)

And the road wheel is drawn, too (still without the holes in Maus V2's second set of wheels):





I'm trying to draw as accurately as the references allow, so work is going slowly.

Any critics are welcome!

Best regards,
Thorsten

[thorst]

I'm working on the suspensions:

[alexwencho]

Very nice renderings and thank you for them.

Your vBench is set so that you can share your model builds there.

Thank you.

[thorst]

Thanks!

Here's a small update on the suspension:



The arms take a lot of time for me, they are very complex shapes to draw (and very little information is available). Had the first problems with Rhino with the fillet edge functions, but could solve them after doing some research.

Thorsten

[thorst]

Here is the finished set of four road wheels:







The lower arm is a bit improvised as there are not sufficient pictures and drawings of the area between the two pairs, but overall I'm quite happy with the result. What's missing on the road wheel assembly are some details on the upper bar as well as the connective parts to the hull.

Hope you like it!

Best regards,
Thorsten

[thorst]

Hello,

here are the (hopefully) final renders of the road wheel assemblies:





With the clamps linking to the hull:





Some areas could be reworked over and over, but I've decided to stop here until new information makes major changes neccessary.

The clamps are a bit improvised and may not be 100% accurate, but I have no better references.

Hope you like it!
Thorsten

[thorst]

Hello,

I've worked on the hull a bit. New photos suggest that the teeth of the side armor plates were thinned by approximately 20 mm, I have now included this feature:



Then I started on the plates with the air openings on top of the vehicle:



The outermost openings in front of the turret are angeled to the outside by about 15°, all others are perpendicular to the plates.



Into these openings very special gratings will be placed, if you ever wanted to build an accurate Maus, you probably know what I mean...

Best regards,
Thorsten

[alexwencho]

This is looking nice.

I'm thinking bout moving it to vBench.

It looks like you are building the model kit here with this.

Thanks and keep posting.

AWD

[thorst]

Thanks!

I started on the gratings:





Only the two panels at the exhaust manifolds need gratings now.

Best regards,
Thorsten

[thorst]

I have been waiting for the release of a new book about the Maus in Germany, and it was a good choice, there is a lot of new information in it. So the work can go on. I worked on some internal plates and the driver's hatch:

205/1:


205/2:


A close up:


Best regards,
Thorsten