It was standard practice to remove headlamps prior to battle, Tiger 100 pictured with the winter camo paint job could have been taken several month’s before it was finally captured in the meantime it would have undergone regular maintenance and probably had a repaint, white really stands out in a green back drop as has been said the front wheel was often removed to help prevent the build up of snow and mud in spring this would have been replaced.

Having seen Tiger 131 running several times I can assure you the first thing you notice is how quiet the tank is especially as it comes towards you you really don’t hear it until it’s well within 100 yards so I cant see the exhaust extensions being added to quieten the tank down also having seen 131 run when it was misfiring it did have a number of back fires and flashes from the exhausts so my thoughts would be that the extensions are an early for of the Panthers Flamvernecter exhaust flame suppressors to reduce the flashes from un-burnt petrol later Tigers had the extended plates above the exhausts this may have done a similar job as for the exhaust tappets and deep wading equipment well these where there on all the early Tigers so I cant see it having anything to do with that especially as the deep wading kit didn’t involve alterations to the exhausts but we will probably never know the real reason