Tiger. The Tiger (II) was the heaviest tank used during World War Two, weighing 57 tons, and its engine was so powerful that it could keep pace with tanks less than half its weight, at 40 kph. In June 1941, Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, opening up the Eastern Front in World War II a campaign to which more forces were committed than in any other theatre of war in history. The King Tiger Tank was not without its problems. The thing that made this tank so feared and respected was the huge 88mm gun which could destroy a Sherman tank at ranges up to 3600 yards. Attempts were made to adapt this gun to the T-34 but without meaningful success. The only working example is displayed at the Muse des Blinds, Saumur, France. World War II - A Statistical Survey (John Ellis) Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg (10 Bnde, Zentrum fr Militrgeschichte) . The ratio for Italy, which is strongly influenced by 62 tanks lost due to mechanical failures, indicates that the Tiger I was not able to cope with the mountainous terrain. The reason for some of the losses are unknown, as should be expected in a combat environment of a mostly retreating army. Production on the Tiger began in August 1942 in order to rush the new tank to the front. [11] It was armed with the long barrelled 8.8 cm KwK 43 L/71 anti-tank cannon. It is often claimed that more Tiger tanks were lost to various non-combat reasons than were lost in combat. Note: Table does not include assault guns or any other type of SPG. [25], The Tiger II was developed late in the war and built in relatively small numbers. The numbers in Klages' book are mainly based on German unit reports documented in other books. [30] There was also a program using the Simmering-Graz-Pauker Sla.16-cylinder diesel engine,[30] but the war's constraint on supplies and capitulation resulted in the cancellation of this program. A Tiger I deployed to supplement the Afrika Korps operating in Tunisia, January 1943 (Image Credit: Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-554-0872-35 / CC). Another addition to the vehicle was the inclusion of a semi-automatic transmission. According to Steven Zaloga: (1) "As of January each year, except for 1941 which is as of 22 June 1941. On 15 October 1944, Tiger IIs of 503rd Heavy Panzer Battalion played a crucial role during Operation Panzerfaust, supporting Otto Skorzeny's troops in taking the Hungarian capital of Budapest, which ensured that the country remained with the Axis until the end of the war. Then figure out what the total cost of the trip would be.? One major problem with the Tiger: it was very expensive, both in terms of money and resources. Huge fan of war history and rural history and a motorbike rider. The German Tiger I tank. We will send you the latest TV programmes, podcast episodes and articles, as well as exclusive offers from our shop and carefully selected partners. 226,300 Military cars and 97,470 Military motor-cycles destroyed or captured. Lab testing found that the armour plates lacked molybdenum (ascribed to a loss of supply, being replaced by vanadium), resulting in low malleability. [18] This turret had a rounded front and steeply sloped sides, with a difficult-to-manufacture curved bulge on the turret's left side to accommodate the commander's cupola. [61], During August 1944, two Tiger Ausf B tanks were captured by the Soviets near Sandomierz, and were soon moved to the testing grounds at Kubinka. The Tiger was shrouded in secrecy only the German army knew how it worked, and on Hitlers orders, disabled Tiger tanks had to be destroyed on the spot to prevent the Allies from gaining intelligence about them. To meet this request, Henschel brought forward two versions of its VK4501 design featuring an 88 mm gun and a 75 mm gun respectively. Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1972-064-61 / CC-BY-SA 3.0. [8] (Sd.Kfz. Despite Henschels design being chosen, Ferdinand Porsche did give the tank its nickname, Tiger, with the Roman numeral added after the Tiger II entered production. The channel charts the combat effectiveness of the various tank battalions equipped with Tiger, comparing wartime and total losses versus the number of enemy tanks destroyed. The Comparative Performance of German Anti-Tank Weapons During World War II . Only a handful can be seen in museums and even fewer survive outside as monuments. Some of these include tanks surrendered by the end of the war, but with more than 100 Tiger I losses unaccounted for, some war-time losses have gone unrecorded. This is further demonstrated in the yearly numbers: It is clear from these numbers that the non-combat losses increased significantly as Germany's situation deteriorated. [28], The Tiger II served as the basis for one production variant, the Jagdtiger casemated tank destroyer,[12] and a proposed Grille 17/21/30/42 self-propelled mount for heavy guns which never reached production. [39], The Schwere Heeres Panzer Abteilung 501 (s.H.Pz.Abt. : Testing the King Tiger at Kubinka", Der riesige deutsche Knigstiger war ein Irrweg, "Surviving WW2 King Tiger II Ausf. The Porsche hull designs included a rear-mounted turret and a mid-mounted engine. To compete, orders for a German prototype for a new tank thus required a weight increase to 45 tonnes and an increase in gun calibre to 88mm. The outer road wheels have been removed and narrow tracks put in place to decrease vehicle width, allowing it to fit within the loading gauge on the German rail network. Michael Wittman, another Tiger commander, had kills of 119 tanks, including great success in Normandy after D-Day. ThoughtCo. The Tigers 88mm-wide mobile main gun was so formidable that shells often blasted straight through enemy tanks, coming out the other side. Sledgehammers: Strengths and Flaws of Tiger Tank Battalions in World War II. Extremely time-consuming to build, only 25 rolled off the production line in the first month. [58][62], The expanded firing test states that the projectiles from the 100 mm BS-3 and 122 mm A-19 gun penetrated a Tiger Ausf B's turret at ranges of 10001500 metres, which suggests a quality factor of 0.86 for the Tiger Ausf B's turret. 623 Tiger I and 377 Tiger II. During the European Campaign, the Division had some 648 Sherman tanks completely destroyed in combat and we had another 700 knocked out, repaired and put back into operation. A new video at the YouTube channel .css-3wjtm9{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-thickness:0.125rem;text-decoration-color:#1c6a65;text-underline-offset:0.25rem;color:inherit;-webkit-transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;}.css-3wjtm9:hover{color:#595959;text-decoration-color:border-link-body-hover;}Military History Visualized breaks down actual data on the German Tiger tanks. These up-gunned T-34s were supported in the war's final year by SU-100s mounting 100 mm guns and IS-2 tanks with 122 mm guns. [60] Moreover, the main armament of the Tiger II was capable of knocking out any Allied tank frontally at ranges exceeding 2.5 kilometres (1.6mi), well beyond the effective range of Allied tank guns. It had a rear-mounted engine and used nine steel-tired, eighty-centimeter-diameter overlapping road wheels per side with internal springing, mounted on transverse torsion bars, in a similar manner to the original Henschel-designed Tiger I. Pioneering the overlapping and interleaved main road wheel concept for tanks, Henschel received permission from WaA on September 9, 1938, to continue development. The Tiger II was under-powered, like many other heavy tanks of World War II[citation needed], and consumed a lot of fuel, which was in short supply for the Germans. The 8.8 cm KwK 43 gave positive results in penetration and accuracy, which were on par with the 122mm D-25T. [34][35] The final drive unit and the double radius steering gear were initially particularly prone to failures. The Tiger is one of the most revered tanks of the war, if not in the entirety of tank history. The Tiger 131 was loaned to the makers of the film, Fury (2014, starring Brad Pitt), to add authenticity. These reports were classified and there is therefore no reason to believe that the reports were modified for propaganda reasons. This was set against the loss of 25 Tiger IIs; ten were knocked out by Soviet troops and burned out, two were sent back to Vienna for a factory overhaul, while thirteen were blown up by their crews for various reasons, usually to prevent them from falling into enemy hands. These carried only 63 rounds of 8.8cm ammunition to provide room to accommodate the extra radios and equipment,[8] and had additional armour on the engine compartment. It was salvaged by the French Army in September 1944 and then stored in a factory in Satory before being transferred to the museum in 1975. (German: schwere Panzerabteilungen), were elite battalion-sized World War II tank units, equipped with Tiger . Building on the experience garnered on the Eastern Front, the Tiger I mounted the formidable 88 mm Kwk 36 L/56 gun. complex to repair in the field. Featuring torsion bar suspension, the tank used a system of interleaved, overlapping road wheels running on a wide 725 mm (28.5 in) wide track. Hickman, Kennedy. This page was first created on 2021-05-09 and most recently updated on 2022-08-13. Losses of 5th Army (Sicily, Italy): 3,377 armored vehicles, including 1,171 M4s. Historical Trips - Book your next historical adventure, 6 Secret Historic Gardens in the United Kingdom, Join Dan Snow for the Anniversary of the D-Day Landings, War of The Worlds: The Most Infamous Radio Broadcast in History, The King Revealed: 10 Fascinating Facts About Elvis Presley, 10 Facts About American Poet Robert Frost, Germanys invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, 6 of the Most Distinguished Victoria Cross Winners in History, Bombing Campaigns of the Second World War, Anne Franks Legacy: How Her Story Changed the World. Each Tiger cost over 250,000 marks to manufacture. In March 1943 s.Pz.-Abt. Fighting in the Fog: Who Won the Battle of Barnet? As a result, even when shells did not penetrate the armour, there was often a large amount of spalling from the inside of the plates, which damaged the transmission and rendered the tank inoperable. It had two versions, Sd.Kfz. Will China Give Lethal Support to Russia? During the same period, the Luftwaffe claimed to have destroyed 1847 tanks and SPGs. So was the Tiger tank great? With the arrival of the Tiger II design in January 1944, Tiger I production began to wind down with the last units rolling out that August. The initial design is often misleadingly called the "Porsche" turret due to the misbelief that it was designed by Porsche for their Tiger II prototype; in fact it was the initial Krupp design for both prototypes. This proved a particular problem in the cold weather on the Eastern Front. Unlike other tanks, Tigers were primarily assigned to independent heavy tank battalions of 45 tanks each that the high command parceled to help out in particularly tough battles. 159,144 Anti-tank guns and Artillery destroyed or captured. From January 1944 to September 30th 1944, the German Army reported to have destroyed 23,070 AFVs (actual, irrecoverable losses for the RKKA amounted to 23,700 AFVs, 29,009 "evacuated", during the entirety of 1944, around 18,000 up to September). [citation needed] Krupp proposed mounting a new main weapon, the 10.5 cm KwK L/68. [8] The Sd.Kfz. The 503rd then took part in the Battle of Debrecen. The M-4 Sherman tank, in particular, helped the U.S. Army win the wareven though, in battle, German tanks destroyed them en masse. The Allies took the Tiger very seriously, devoting considerable time to tracking their movements. This equipment was located on the rear decking in a position originally used for deep-wading equipment. When looking at the ratio of combat to non-combat losses, it is interesting to see that Tiger losses on the Eastern Front and Western Front ratios are almost identical, while the numbers for Africa and Italy are considerably worse. Though designed as a breakthrough weapon, by the time they saw combat in large numbers Tigers largely were used to anchor defensive strong points. But it wasnt until the middle of 1944 that the British and Americans were able to field a tank with a gun capable of penetrating the Tigers armour and these were only available in small numbers until the last few months of the war. The Armys Next 'Tank' Could Look Like Anything, Russia Dredges Up Ancient BTR-50 Vehicles, Your Privacy Choices: Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads. This does not take into account that the Tiger II was introduced when Germany's situation was considerably worse than when the Tiger I was introduced. About and contact. It was also known informally as the Knigstiger[8] (German for Bengal tiger and also, literally, "King Tiger"). The categories and groups are listed to allow those who disagree with the classifications to create their own analysis. 133 (130 from other sources) were built from mid-1939 to November 1940. While many of the combat losses are not specified, it is clear from the numbers above that the common myth about Allied aircrafts being the scourge of the Tiger tank has no basis in fact. This gun was aimed using Zeiss Turmzielfernrohr TZF 9b/9c sights and was renowned for its accuracy at long range. In January 1945 the Entwicklungskommission Panzer unanimously decided that HL234 be immediately included in the engine design and procurement program. As a result, only 1,347 Tiger Is were built as opposed to over 40,000 American M4 Shermans. The verdict? From June 6, 1944 through May 15, 1945 for US tank and tank destroyer losses in the European Theater of Operations, United States Army (Western Front): around 7,000 (including 4,2954,399 M4 tanks, 178 M4 (105mm howitzer), 1,507 M3 Stuart tanks and 909919 tank destroyers, of which 540 M10 tank destroyers, 217 M18 Hellcat and 152 M36 tank destroyers). Tiger Tanks destroyed but if you look at the German's records, they A German heavy tank battalion (German: "schwere Panzerabteilung", short: "s PzAbt") was a battalion-sized World War II tank unit of the German Army (1935-1945), equipped with Tiger I, and later Tiger II, heavy tanks.Originally intended to fight on the offensive during breakthrough operations, the German late-war realities required it to be used in a defensive posture by providing heavy fire . What Was the Sudeten Crisis and Why Was it So Important? Tanks were a different matter altogether. 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