Try looking for their gaijin studio in Budapest. Its literally sanction evasion Mop closet. Most likely they are still situated in russia. Not to mention gaijin celebrated VDV day after hostomel raid.
Thanks Bernhardt. The traditional narrative seems to be that the Tiger was developed as a react to the T-34s and KVs but I thought that the Tiger was the product of a development process that had begun before the war hence the anachronistic rather vertical armor and some other features. Objectively, while not perfect, I think it should be considered a successful product at the end of the day.
If you end up producing 900 more than the 400 first ordered it is probably a sign that it was not a bad first try. You have to ask if Henschel wanted to make the Tiger II due to other reasons (profitability, ease of assembly, etc.) rather than its field performance. As for Hitler wanting the longer barrel, who cares? The top leader of the country picking the gun for a tank is ridiculous, it should be selected by the military's head of tank production. The shorter barrel seems to have done a pretty decent job. It was not perfect, but it was not a bad interim solution.
For sure, the failure of the Tiger series was never the tanks themselves, but the inability of German doctrine to cope with ever more resilient opponents on a strategic level. Be it the Red Army, the US Army or whatever, all of Germany's opponents in 1943 were just better at organizing themselves to absorb and wear down German offensives before they got somewhere strategically vital. For example, Tigers performed exactly as intended at Kursk, breaking gaping holes through most every Soviet line they were sent against, but it didn't matter because the Red Army of 1943 had the organization, communications, and reserves to contain the breakthroughs longer than the Germans could sustain the attacks.
@arden1894 Wehraboos are to the WW2 historical discourse as the Tiger IIs were in the Western front. Phantoms. Both were present in their respective environments but are by no means common. Wehraboos in particular is much rarer post 2010s. In some case the pendulum swung the other way and its popular to bash anything German.
Tank Encyclopedia did a video about the VK.45.02(H) about a year ago. It seems some private collector purchased the VK.45.02(H) blueprints and released a few photos of it recently. According to these original documents, the vehicle's hull remained the same as the Tiger-1 except the driver's plate was sloped about 45' from vertical. The turret, however, was the pre-production King Tiger turret (so called "Porsche" Turret) with the 8.8cm KwK L/71 gun mounted on a larger turret ring.
I recall a brief description in an old book on the Tiger tank in which Soviet foreign minister Molotov, on a visit to Germany late in 1940, demanded and was allowed to visit a German tank factory to see the latest examples produced. Afterwards Molotov accused the Germans of denying him access to the genuine latest tanks they were working on, inadvertently letting the Germans know that the Soviets already had something better, what was later revealed to be the T-34 and KV-1. The response of the Germans was to accelerate the basic development of their own heavy tank project, now intended to mount the proven 88 mm gun.
It’s actually crazy to think Molotov died at 96 years old of natural causes considering how much of a bumbling idiot he was. Imagine if he had just kept his mouth shut at that moment, as any good ambassador should have?
Soviet army was aware of German heavy tank development. And, as a matter of fact much overestimate it, so much so, that main anti-tank gun, went to production before war had been 107mm gun.
@@Pgb622 its more of a word. Mock without any "excesses" (For youtube) and the comment should not disappear I call out on a BS on economics(not a left/right problem. But a regional problem) and have it shadowbanned
13:06 Besides the technical difficulties of mounting the FlaK 41 (the gun specifically requested by Hitler) in Tiger I's turret, there was another element at play there: Krupp (the turret manufacturer) was very reluctant to mounting the long 88 because it was Rheinmetall's gun, a direct competitor (Krupp made the "medium" 88, the one from the FlaK 18/36/37). They refused, on technical grounds. Which, while technically correct, hides part of their real motivations. In the meantime, they developed their own long 88, firing a slightly smaller shell, albeit of the same caliber.
@@tacomas9602 dunno why they couldn't have had a armaments deign board, run by someone like Speer, make all the designs, and have the companies make all stuff using the blueprints.
Thanks for another great video! It's good to have a refresh from the old narrative of the Tiger being a reaction to the T-34 and KV-1. Hell, the idea of the Königstiger was already there in May 1941!
@@aleksazunjic9672 there is not a piece of evidence that indicates that Germany knew about T-34s or KV-1s before June/July 1941, maybe they knew and evidence will still show up, but until then, based on total lack of evidence, we can safely say that they didn't know about them.
@@MilitaryHistoryVisualized That is your opinion, not a certified fact. Germans maybe did not know the name and all the specs of the tank, but it was certain from Finnish reports that Soviets indeed had much heavier tanks than usual T-26 or BT series. KV, SMK and T-100 prototypes were used in later parts of Winter war, KV proving to be the best thus selected for production. There were also reports of up armored T-28s, so there is that.
Ich finde es einfach gut, daß du in deinen Videos diesen hörbaren Akzent hast und immer wieder deutsche Begriffe fallen und du sogar manchmal deutsch und englisch mischst (onetausendfivehundred). Das macht deine Videos erfrischend anders und du kommst gant einfach als echt rüber. Inhaltlich wie immer hervorragend recherchiert und präsentiert.
I love the way this guy talks! I'm English speaking, but understand some German, and it's true bilingual people sometimes mix 2 languages together, it's really funny when a Japanese American college student gets drunk on Jagermeister at a party and nobody can understand what he says after a couple hours...omg...good times!
Translated via Google Translate: _"I just think it's good that you have this audible accent in your videos and that you keep using German terms and that you even sometimes mix German and English (one thousand five hundred). This makes your videos refreshingly different and you come across as real. As always, the content is excellently researched and presented."_ .
Wow when you think you know something about German armor development something new pops up to inform you. So the Tiger I was an intermediary vehicle until what was to be known as the Tiger II could be developed. As tough and effective as the Tiger I was, its hard to think it was a stop gap design. Fascinating. Thanks for this.
@@pex_the_unalivedrunk6785I can't read German but I love the to see it typed out with the English translation. And yeah the German guy talking about German armor really adds to the video. Got to love the accent and proper pronunciation of the German words, really adds a authenticity to the presentation.
As I've understood it, from quite a few sources, including Zaloga, the reason(s) for discontinuing the Tiger I in favor of the Tiger II were: (1) Although the Tiger I had quite a few innovations in terms of steering and suspension, they came at a rather high cost, and these features could not be readily spread to other vehicles. (2) The chassis design for the Tiger I was well along before Barbarossa, so it wasn't practical to slope the armor like the Soviet T-34 and KV tanks. (3) The Krupp-designed turret, although brilliant in its relative simplicity (the "horseshoe" formed from a single rolled plate) was large enough for the KwK 36 88 gun, but could not take the intended Kwk 43, a much longer, higher-velocity weapon. (4) Because of the above factors, and a need to focus what production they could get out of Henschel to simply build tanks and not other vehicles derived from it, there was no Tiger I - based "Family"...i.e., no assault gun, no tank hunter, no self-propelled howitzer, no AA tank, no ARV or CEV. The Panzerwaffe needed every chassis that rolled out of the Henschel factory in Kassel to mount that 88 mm gun; they had all too few as it was. (5) The Tiger II, though significantly heavier (bigger turret, longer gun of same bore size, among other things) was actually simpler that its older "brother". The road wheels simply overlapped, so getting to a defective one on the inner part was easier, a useful feature in a vehicle weighing about 70 tons with a combat load! The main weapon could be removed through the rear turret hatch, unlike the Tiger I where the turret had to be lifted off. Other automotive improvements actually resulted in a slight increase in top ROAD speed (either were much slower off-road) and combat radius, despite the significant weight increase. (6) The Tiger II did already have a "panzerjager" version, with, IAW what became an unofficial Panzerwaffe policy, a larger main weapon, though the Jagtiger skipped the 105 mm bore size (an L68 105 mm tank gun was proposed for the Tiger II mid-way during the initial production run, but delayed until the first order could be finished) in favor of a 128 mm gun, based on the AA gun that could heave a flak shell to nearly 50,000 feet! There were other derivatives of the Tiger II in development, a "Waffentrager" (weapons carrier), designed to transport a 17 cm or 21 cm heavy artillery piece; a curious feature was the the gun could be dismounted! Of course, all this, have Germany managed to prolong the war into 1946 or even 1947, or gain an armistice and have time to re-arm, would probably have been superseded by the "Entwicklung" series of AFVs. The intent was to have several general weight classes, with emphasis on production and sharing of common parts and assemblies where practical. The role of the Tiger II was to be assumed by the E-75 or E-100 series, with an E-50 "Standardpanzer" taking the place of the Panther.
I went to the exact museum a few weeks ago-I loved it!! If you’re going to go, it is in Munster, not Münster-they are over three hours drive apart. Has anyone ever heard the term “Nachschutz”? I heard a German WW2 tanker use that expression in a documentary. I can’t find a translation in any of my dictionaries, and they had never heard this term at the DPM. I would translate that as defensive armor-can anyone fill me in on this?
@@MilitaryHistoryVisualized …I was able to go back and find the video in question. Fritz Langanke said “panzer Schutz”-or armor protection. How I got nach Schutz out of that I don’t know, but as an Ami it made sense to me as armor protection for rounds being fired back in our own direction. At any rate I was wrong-my apologies. 😳
The Neubaufahrzeug were originally designated as PzKw V and VI depending on the manufacturer, (if they had gone into production). The DW I and II were forefathers of the VI programme.
Considering so much technology didn't exist (a decent engine, a proper suspension, etc), I've always wondered what would happen if someone built one of these from scratch with nothing but 21st century tech (composite/reactive armor, modern engine and drive train, etc). Would be really interesting to see if it could have lived up to the expectations they set for themselves... Still, one of the single, most beautiful tanks ever designed.
The Centurion was superior in every aspect, vastly so in many, and it looked much prettier too imho. What you suggest about using modern technology to build something similar is exactly how tanks have evolved - what we have today in the west are basically evolutions of the Centurion.
@@iangreenhalgh9280But the centurion technically was not a „real“ ww2 tank since the first really build ones were only produced after the war. also imo the centurion is way uglier. but thats just because i like smoother tanks more.
@@Nope-i6j Nope. Pz IV concentrated armor on the front, especially later versions. Tiger I had pretty much evenly spread armor (slightly ticker front) .
I do agree on Lazerpig's video stating that T-34 (all versions) were crap, and that the Panzer III was one of the most successful tank designs of the war.
9 หลายเดือนก่อน +11
Nice Video. Regarding the "VK" I had a discussion with some viewers after my Halftracks Videos. In those I said that "HK" stood for "Halbkette" and "VK" for "Vollkette", which would make sense. But some peopel said and Jentz and Doyle write in the glosary of several of their books that it stood for "Versuchskonstruktion". Would be nice to get a definitiv answer on this if that is possible from the sources.
There are actually two, Vk (Versüchskonstruktion) and VK (Vollkette). The change in use of these words happens about the start of the war. My own theory is that, with breaking the Versailles Treaty openly, there was no longer a need to hide designations (like how both the Panzer III and IV were commissioned as "Begleitwagen")
VK = Versuchskonstruktion. Any other meaning doesnt reallt fit in German military, design and construction nomenclature. If it supposed to mean "Vollkettenfahrzeug" all halftracked vehicle designs would have had the prefix "HK", meaning "Halbkettenfahrzeug". As far as I know this wasnt the case.
Hi, du hattest im Video erwähnt, dass es auch nach längerer Spielpause einzulösen wäre. Weißt du wie ich es dann einlösen kann? Vielen Dank für die Videos, über einen Deutschen Zweitkanal würde ich mich freuen, bei den Videos in denen du nicht zu sehen bist müsste der Aufwand ja überschaubar sein aber kann natürlich sein, dass sich das überhaupt nicht lohnt.
@@fredib7990 Müsste eigentlich automatisch via den Link gehen, aber ich hab das selbst nicht probiert. Sonst hatte noch niemand diese Frage. Der Aufwand ist leider ziemlich hoch und nochmal dasselbe "machen"/sagen ist auch eher nervig. Ich kann www.youtube.com/@MTGJW empfehlen, da bin ich auch manchmal Gast und viele grafische Elemente sind von mir bereitgestellt. Hier noch ein deutsches Video zur Frage: th-cam.com/video/ti6Vwt04sWw/w-d-xo.html
@@MilitaryHistoryVisualized Ich hatte mich in einem anderen Fenster im Browser auf der WT Seite angemeldet und dann wurde mir nach dem neuladen des Links mein Konto vorgeschlagen. Vielleicht fragt es ja jemand anderes auch mal nach. :D Bei Herrn Wehner hab ich schon alles gesehen, hat mich auch gefreut, dass du da zu Gast bist. :) Falls Ihr mal über Thumbnails sprecht oder du welche erstellst dann bitte kein rot verwenden, da sieht man den "gesehen" Balken schlecht :D Vielen Dank für den Link und deine ausführliche Antwort.
Germans meet heavy armored vehicles way before KV and t-34. It was Matilda and French tanks in 1940. So they want a cannon capable to destroy such targets. Also they didn’t expect to meet such tanks in USSR so they didn’t develop 8.8 tanks early
It should be noted btw that the 100mm mandate would ask for a barrel more in line with the longer panzer 3 barrel not nessisarily a longbarel design like what we got. Remember getting a higher penetration out of a higher mass is easier than increasing it for the same mass.
That's the history I want hear about! Topic of all mighty machines is overdone so much, but very rarely covered from economic/political side which has much more to do with them than seems to be. Excellent job, thank you
Wichtiges Video, empfehle hierzu auch das dreiteilige Video vom Panzermuseum Munster über den Tiger 2 "Der vergessene Blitzkrieger". Andere Frage: ist inzwischen gesichert, wofür "VK" bei den Prototypen steht ? Mein letzter Stand war noch "Versuchskonstruktion".
Mr Military History Visualized: I'm from Sweden but I do know that the English word ACCELERATED is pronounced: ACK-CELI-RATED.(with a hard K sound like the words rack,pack or sack) Maybe some of your English speaking viewers could explain it better. You do a fantastic job so I'm just trying to help you out. Fantastic content for a nerd like me, I salute you!!
I'm not correcting him because his English is *far* better than my German, and I grew up with my Dad occaisionally dropping into German around the house, as well as taking it in high school. 😂
The request to develop a longer version of 88 mm gun was not unreasonable. The original 88mm Flak 36 were already in use and showcased in AT warfare in Spanish Civil War, and in 1939-40 the Western Allies had direct experience with the guns and its AT capabilities. For the Germans it would be difficult for them to not anticipate their opponents were already developing countermeasures or heavier armors against the 88 mm gun they had known for years already.
Well, idea might be not "unreasonable". Back in 1940. Like idea of 107mm anti tank gun in soviet service. Execution of that idea in 1944 though was unreasonable - when it was no real targets, that demanded that additional power.
@@vladimirpecherskiy1910 What? IS-2, ISU-152, Churchill VII, Pershing, Sherman Jumbo, more than enough, plus for foresight incoming very closely Centurion and IS-3, and if Siegfried line wasn't dismantled western allies would deploy T28 and Tortoise. How are there no heavy targets in 1944?
@@vladimirpecherskiy1910 While I have to say that was partially true, where the Germans forces weren't having much troubles with armor penetrations unlikely in early war, and vice versa the Allies forces didn't really feel safe in their tanks against German AT, However, like arms development is something akin to business development, it never plan to just meet the current demands, but to anticipate and prepare the future demands as well. Soviet IS-3, being more resistant than any existing Soviet tanks, debut in 1945 though the war ended bit too soon for it, but it proved Allies and Soviet tank development were always ongoing, so it was only sensible for the German Anti-Tank development to be as well. The original 88 mm L/56 was starting to become obsolete in early 1944, as the newer 75mm Pak 42 outperformed it slightly in penetration, while 88mm did carry around 30% more HE power, given the Germans were on defensive and mainly fighting Allied AFV attacks rather than trenches or bunkers, it was not the most useful advantages. So it made little sense to keep producing both 75mm and 88mm L/56, and German leadership faced two choices, one to completely retool the 88mm L/56 production for 75mm Pak 42, or simply upgrade their existing 88mm to Pak 43 L71, which could to a limited extent still use the old 88mm shells. Naturally, with economic consideration in mind, they chose the latter option.
@@sthrich635 Well, I like BMW, but I am driving Hyundai. Can you guess why? Yes, because Hyundai at least 2 times cheaper and doing all what I really need. May be one or 2 times a year if would be nice to have something like Ford F-150, but I will not buy it because of that - not enough justification. It is nice to have the best possible - for free. Usually it is not for free though. And in particular case German army paid enormous price for that really limited advantage - which had about no practical application at a time. Not only in price of machine itself, but in other vitally important characteristics of that machine. For example - it ability to get to a buttle 😁 BTW ii is a misconception, that 75mm Pak 42 superior in armor piercing than 88 mm L/56. Not true, it is actually other way around. What is true, that 75mm Pak 42 can outperform 88 mm L/56 in case it use discarding sabot with tungsten penetrator. Which practically was not offered for 88. And tungsten was in really short supply in Germany at at time? so much so it was cheaper discarding sabot with still penetrator developed for 75
@@czwarty7878 Out of all mention, only IS-2, Pershing and Churchill VII did provide some protection against 8.8 cm KwK 36 (Sherman Jumbo had partial turret protection) wile only Churchill VII was really protected from the front at all distances. Fantasy about IS-3 and Centurion has no relation to reality. So you would get that a bit better - in whole war it is known for sure only 2 (two) cases direct fight between Tigers and IS-2 and it was like 3800 IS-2 produced. May be in reality it was more cases - like 4 or even 6 - but, I think, you got an idea.
The Tiger did some things well but got one thing horribly wrong... it was waaaay over gunned especially for when it was designed. The 88 was complete overkill which was a major reason for the tank's bloated weight. A high caliber 75 would've been plenty of gun and you could have had a trimmer, lighter heavy tank without the deployment issues and would've been cheaper and faster to manufacture.
Firstly a 88mm gun fires larger high-explosive shells, which were about 90% of the ammunition used by tanks anyways. Most tanks were destroyed in WW2 by anti-tank guns and aircraft, some by artillery and infantry, and the rest by attrition, lack of fuel and spare parts. Or in the case of France, by jumping out and running away without a fight. Secondly, a larger caliber 75 is exactly the 88, which is what the number means. Caliber 75 means the diameter of the gun. Perhaps you meant a longer 75 ?
The Germans thought ahead to not only deal with what was then expected to be encountered but to also be effective against the expected subsequent generation of allied tanks, which the Tiger I did on the whole, still knocking out IS-2, Pershing and Comet in 1945.
The king tiger at the panzermuseum has turret number 321, but on the glacis it has a rhomboid-with-S-inside (for schwere tank company) which has a number 1 next to the rhomboid, meaning 1st company vehicle. What tank numbers doing?
It looks like German spies knew about the heavy and new Soviet Tank designs and kept it a secret until Barbarossa was being planned to begin. I look at all the effort spent producing variants vs numbers and wonder why ? I think it came down to a known shortage of men in Germany. So they were constantly looking to maximize the number of kills a tank crew could inflict before loosing the crew. So while it seems odd to make more and more complex vehicles verses numbers it was actually logical. They knew the industry of the allied forces could out produce them. So they had to out kill them.
I think it was also well known the Germans that they were never going to outproduce the combined industry of the allied powers, so they took an approach that would maximize the effectiveness of each individual unit produced. Quality over quantity. Whether they succeeded in that is debatable.
It's not as if SMK, T-100 or KV weren't everyone's secret. They've been tried during Winter War and there was enough cooperation between Finland and Germany.
why would the germans assume they would never be able to match the allied forces industrially? they were not at war, nor expected to be at war, with the united states for most of their weapons developement. and pre-ww2 heavy industry levels of german and the USSR were almost the same in terms of number of workers, and german industrial output was more than twice that of the USSR due to greater productivity per worker (note that the german workers were in tern less productive per worker than american workers). Soviet military production in ww2 was only greater due to earlier full mobilisation aswell as a more rationalised system earlier. If germany had adopted a similar scheme of industrial war mobilisation they would have achieved an industrial output significantly greater than the USSR. Even After the US joins, the Americans are still bottlenecked by haveing to ship their equipment across the ocean (hence why their forces were small despite a manpower and industrial advntage over germany). [source: The Soviet Defence Industry Complex from Stalin to Khrushchev, pp. 99-117] furthermore German designs could often be better suited to mass production than allied counter parts. a good example is the panzer 3, which took a meer 4000 manhours initally, and just 2000 manhours by the time they ended production, to build. compared to about 25 000 manhours for most shermans or most T-34s, the infamous rushed T-34s from factory no 183 still took over 5000 manhours to build. another example is the 75 manhours for an MG42 vs the 120 manhours for a bren gun. the allied advantage in manpower is also overstated. but even if it wasn't they could have simply had more mechanized units and less leg infantry. the vast majority of the war was fought by infantry and artillery. no manpower was not the limiting factor. the actual reasons for SOME of their designs being overcomplicated to produce is that most of those designs were intended for specialised tasks, not standard armament. The exceptions are more a result of rushed designs and poor opimisation than specific "quality over quantity" thinking, infact the top down decision making was constantly pushing for increased quantity at the cost of quality and this push is why the panther was rushed for example. and their overall industrial output in the war was a result of a failure in mobilising their industry to war, infact when hilter introduced policies in 1939 aimed at mobilising more industry to war production war production, it failed to produce results as productivity decreased compaired to soviet mobilisation that saw an increase in productivity alongside an increase in the % of industry involved in war production. The reason for this was the soviets had greater pre-war plans for war mobilisation and thus were able to do it more quickly and efficiently. german failures to mobilise were so bad that it was orginally thought that they deliberately chose not to mobilise between 1939 and 1941, but we know now from german archieves this is BS. they tried and failed due to poor planning.
@@SamuraiAkechi There wasn't enough coordination between all of the Axis members; as shown in the recorded meeting between Hitler & Mannerheim, where Hitler was shocked that Finland knew the USSR had 30,000+ tanks produced before his invasion yet his own officers never brought that up during planning.
I Play much Warthunder since a few months. What I don‘t like on the game: many technical datas are incorrect to get more balance. Perfect for players bad for the reality of the game.
Probably just a easier to confirm and manage serial number, since they had contracts they had to make 500 Tigers 1, and couldnt stop until they were all made. Maybe a number in the hundreds was easier to confirm considering production rate and storage facilities + shipment schedule (train carts available) etc.?
501: 5th company, company XO vehicle. 500,: company chef's vehicle. 511, fifth company, 1st platoon, 1st vehicle. Etc, etc... Vehicle identification numbers were quite lengthy and occurred at the manufacturer.. Painted on vehicle numbers were stenciled and decided by BN staff.
I have to say, I like Ralph‘s talk from the Panzerkonferenz about the Tiger-design, but I do have to wonder if the response to it would have been the same if the vehicle had been considered a failure on the battlefield.
Sure I'm missing something that's already out there, but why wasn't there a better plan for how to power this thing? Seems like the transmission was always hopeless for Pz Kpfw VI Ausf. B
When German industry was facing a shortage of high quality steel for tank production; I am surprised that they did not recycle such steel from the Kriegsmarine. At the same time submarine production was competing for the same alloying ores.
The 75 was chosen to maximize anti-armor performance, the 88 was a better all rounder gun. The Panther would need an entirely new turret to mount the 88 and it would inevitably add weight to a tank that was already struggling with an over strained transmission. Putting the 75mm on the tiger would be feasible but would downgrade it's high explosive shell and have only minimal benefits for its anti armor abilities.
To be honest the long 75mm gun of the Panther was way better in anti tank performance, but there wasnt any particular reason as to why it should have been the standard tank gun, both the 88 and 75 could penetrate all T-34 variants frontally from at least 1km and one thing that its always forgotten is that shell size (mass) is far more important than it seems, the 75 shell had an incredible muzzle velocity, but was relatively small and this didnt allow it to just bypass "slim" armour like the 122mm shell of the IS-2, wich was ridicusly slow but could penetrate anything by sheer brute force
@@alexvonrom7942 The 122mm D-25T had a muzzle velocity of 806 m/s. The Tiger I's KwK 36 had a muzzle velocity of 780 m/s for its APCBC round and 930 m/s for its APCR round. It's not an exceptionally high velocity gun, especially not if you're comparing it to something ridiculous like the KwK 43 with it's 1,130 m/s, but its definitely not low velocity.
@@zoro115-s6b oh, I saw somewhere that by the time it had made 1km the velocity dropped to 600ish meters, might be wrong tho, thanks for the correction :)
@@alexvonrom7942 I don't know about the velocity at 1000 meters distance but given the weight of the projectile velocity dropoff wouldn't be that high. I think the reputation for soviet guns having low velocity might come from the 152mm howitzers on vehicles like the KV-2. It could also just be a reputation the 122mm got because of the comparison to the 100mm that was also considered, which is indeed higher velocity, but that's more of a testament to how good the 100mm is than anything to do with the 122. The 122 was considered a bit suboptimal as an anti-tank weapon, but that was more because of fire rate than range, accuracy, or velocity, all of which were fairly good.
Whenever I Theorize a Better Tiger I either get a Rear Turret tank Destroyer like a Ferdinand Or a Tiger 1 but Sleeker and Smoler Still a very dynamic dynamic MBT Style design but still Emphasizing The Heavy and high caliber attributes Either way The Tiger 2 and a bunch of Obese jags Are just a Waste of Time
It seems like the Tiger I was an up scaled, up armoured Panzer IV, with a more powerful gun. The Panther & Konigstiger demonstrate superior design ie sloped armour, etc.
I don't know if superior design and konigstiger should be in the same sentence. While the Tiger and Panther had technical issues, they could and were ironed out of worked around. The Tiger 2 though would have never worked, too heavy.
I mean the short 8,8 was really not a good cannon for example in comparison to the l70 7,5. The 8,8 was bigger, used bigger and more expensive ammunition, and had less penetration values with pzgr. 39 or 40/41. I think the only advantage of the short 8,8 would probably be that there is probably more explosive filler in he und aphe.
The Tiger Is gun caught up with the Panther's in AP at around 2,500 metres and was better and more accurate at very long range. When Panthers and Tigers worked together it was the Tiger that was chosen to do the very long range sniping at 2,500 to 3,000 etc metres. Tiger I's high explosive round was considerably superior to the Panther's.
@@bamspam23 It gets worse. The engines are supposed to have interchange parts. Some of the parts they found out only work with replacements made from certain factories so if a replacement part didn't come from the same factory the tank was built, there was only a 1/3 chances the damn thing would work!
This was the issue with basically any tank, especially heavier tanks (just as much Tiger as Churchill, Pershing and IS-2) and the more tanks are used the more service they need, and as most important assets the heavy panzer battalions were used basically constantly. This was not problem of the tank, this was problem of a country losing the war. Somehow this simple concept is hard to comprehend for some people.
The choice of flat vs sloped armour was about ergonomics (comfort for crew). Flat armour provided more interior room and made the crew more effective. Crew comfort and efficiency worked hand in hand. The Tiger 1 had size limitations to contend with that sloped armour would have been problematic.
@@MilitaryHistoryVisualized I was in Armoured Cav and we were taught the reasons pro/con for how tanks are designed. German and American tanks overall had more room, while British tanks were cramped. Russian tanks were a mish-mash inside depending on position. We were taught sloped armour requires more steel and lessens interior space unless the tank is made larger, which requires even more steel. Look at the Panther compared to the Pz4. Same crew configuration and interior size, but the Panther is much larger in every dimension. The US Army teaches things that seem to work on paper.
@@HeinzGuderian_ but that is post-hoc rationalisation and explanation what worked in hindsight. @MilitaryHistoryVisualized video showed you source where it's clear Germans wanted sloped armor from the start, just couldn't do it fast enough
@@czwarty7878 still doesn't negate the fact that sloped armour requires more steel in order to maintain interior room, which Germany did not have in vast quantities. The turret ring would also have to be smaller if the rest of the tank wasn't made larger, making either a smaller interior or using smaller guns. Designing doesn't happen overnight. They knew the pros/cons of sloped/flat armour long before 1936. The costs weren't worth the effort. Most countries opted for flat armour for the same reasons. The T34 had a 4 man crew. The TC was doing double duty and wearing himself out. Everyone else used a 5 man crew, and when the Germans made the Panther it was huge compared to the Pz4. It was 3 ft longer, 1.5 ft wider, 1 ft taller. Interior room was comparable. It was also 20 tons heavier albeit much of that was from thicker armour, not just the additional dimensions. Sometimes you have to compromise. Angle the tank or angle the plate. Both ways work. We don't bother with either of those choices today.
thanks, the issue is I heard so many "interesting" and also read plenty of them over the years, yet, when I got back into the original sources, a lot of time, it turns out to be that the various statements were just (utter) hogwash. Germany did not lack steel btw. they lacked a lot of other stuff, steel was not really among it. Additionally, the amount of steel used for tank production for quite some time was rather low as well.
how can it be that the Germans didnt know about t34 and KV1 ?? Didn't German advisors analyze and test captured t34 & kv1 during Finland Winter War 1939-1940 ? Finland was full of Soviet armour during Soviet invasion from november 1939 onwards.
T-34 was not used in the Winter War. KV was rarely used and basically in the Winter War the Germans sided with the Soviets. I made a video about that: th-cam.com/video/j0YTz5hiYfs/w-d-xo.html
What is the main purpose of a tank? I would say that once a tank is fighting other tanks it is at a place where attrition can start unless it is a very asymmetrical encounter viz gulf war. I believe the true purpose is to rampage behind FEBA hitting L of C where its machine guns become its primary weapon. Fighting other tanks is dangerous, even if you are in a Tiger. I tend to see a tank therefore as having a main armament of machine guns with a secondary armament of an anti tank gun for use in dire emergency. Tanks fighting tanks is wasteful of expensive vehicles.
I remember reading somewhere that a group of Soviet engineers were given a tour of one of the current German tank factories. They made a point of accusing the Germans of not being honest and showing them the latest tank designs. Apparently this gave the Germans some food for thought as to what kind of tanks the Soviets were making.
@MilitaryHistoryVisualized it's from Panzer Leader by Guderian. I only have the kindle edition, so I'm not sure what the page number is, but it's in the background section of chapter 6.
Well, I think that is a bit misconception in a base in title "rejected Success". And a bit of general historical misconception about how things works historically. Yes, request of heavy tank had been created before war with USSR started. That does not mean appearance if T-34 and KV did not affect final result. Historically it is usual thing that different requests and ideas coming to a pipeline before events and later events sorted those out - some became rendered out, some getting priority. And that exactly what did happen. Equally would be incorrect to state, that initial target was a King Tiger. Naturally it was desired that tank would have a biggest gun possible (and available at the time in this case) and best armor. Naturally Henschel would be happy to sell the most expensive machine they can. But definitely army was not in vision to get 68 ton tank - no matter what Hitler imagine for himself.
But that's exactly how it was. The Tiger I was just a stop gap solution. They originally weren't called Tiger I and Tiger II, they were called Tiger A and Tiger B. Ralf Raths (director of the german tank museum) has a very long video about the development process of the Tigers.
@@HaVoC117X "Stop gap solution" in whose mind and when? I had seen recently a very good video that Boeing 737, which producing for 56 years now, had been "stop gap solution" for Boeing back then in 60-th. Other part of which newer materialized. Clearly "King Tiger" was not a useful option and newer been with it mass in 68 ton and mechanical disabilities yet at middle 1944.
@@vladimirpecherskiy1910 "Stop-gap solution" only implies that it is something designed to fill a specific direct need or niche by an organisation until they can get their vision off the ground. If such a solution proves sufficiently reliable, you just keep using it. So if Boeing thinks they need to put a medium-sized airliner in the market to compete while working on their next "miracle project" and Lufthansa buys 24 outright and is happy, leading to more sales, then the market has dictated that the stopgap solution is perfectly sufficient to meet the market requirements and whatever vision of the "future miracle" is a step further than is necessary. There's also little point in spending extra money to retool a production line to sell that market something else you first have to convince them they should want more than the thing they're already satisfied with. In the Tiger's case, the Wehrmacht had already recognized that they needed a 'breakthrough vehicle' of some kind in the late '30s. When war erupted probably a little bit earlier than everyone was expecting and suddenly they learnt that a 3.7cm which they had already selected for its supposed armor piercing capability really isn't all that capable as an anti-tank tool, they came up with new specs for the project and as the video shows those specs were, very mildly put, wildly optimistic. The Tiger II was definitely the intended target; there was just not enough pushback to convince everyone that the initial target was a flight of fancy. The only real addition that the invasion of the USSR brought was the realization that the gap needed to be filled quickly and that since the KwK36 L/56 fit in the Krupp turret, they should probably just go ahead and get that out there while working on their L/70 gun. As it turns out, the Wehrmacht was sufficiently satisfied with the L/56 for the interim and finally having a gun out there that was effective against heavy armour was 'good enough' that making sure there were as many of those out there as Henschel could muster took priority. The continuation of the project with everyone wanting to have editorial power AND have their cake and eat it too meant that the Tiger II suffered badly from feature creep and mostly lack of logistical oversight on things like "can we still get all the required steel, rubber and tungsten in two years time", "just how much weight can the average bridge in Europe actually handle" or "perhaps an unskilled slave laborer isn't the best at making precision-machined parts and might hold a grudge and commit sabotage". If that seems odd, then all you need to do is look at the US adopting the 40ish-ton M10 Booker "light" tank mostly because they have had 40 years of experience with the M1 Abrams growing in weight from a 'mere' 54 tons to a stately 66.8 tons and that occasionally leading to "logistical problems". Or the Dutch who had finalized contracts for new Gryphus transport trucks with signatures and all, only to then realize that those trucks were too tall to be road-legal and now have to account for not being able to fit under some viaducts if they run their tires at max pressure and then had to have the factory update the software accordingly.
@@vladimirpecherskiy1910 you offer no substantial arguments for what you claim, you just got that idea that Tiger II was a bad tank as a dogma and can't shake it no matter what, and treating it like base axiom you go forward with your opinion. With zero thinking whether maybe what you believe is not entirely correct.
@@czwarty7878Well, if you think Tiger II was a good tank - you probably would have no problem to bring a couple examples, where it has any notifiable success in use, right? At the end it was noticeable number of those made. You would not have a problem to do so with Tiger 1. Now I do know from a documents, that 2 soviets had a very big problem to even ring 2 captured summer 1944 Tiger 2 to a train station on distance like 12 km - those brakes up multiple times on a way. In testing they also been unable to speed up Tiger 2 on a good road faster then 31 km/h. It is also pretty clear known from history that nobody till this day made a tank of such a mass - 75 year later. May be there are some reasons to that 😁
Why did the Germans go for qualty over quantity? Second why did the Germans had s0 many different types? Where as the allies seam to have fewer types and more of them.
A question. With all the circumstances in mind What Tiger was a better design for the actual war? I mean, Tiger II it's more powerful but with reliability, cost, tactical use and so on accounted Which was better? Can the 88 mm L/71 canon be installed in a Panther or Tiger I without increasing the weight by 15 or 20 tons?
none, both tigers were super expensive and taxing on the german economy and were designed for what hitler wanted and not for what the army needed, hence why most german tanks werent tigers and very few were build.
@@mitchellcouchman6589 huh? What was their purpose then? it wasnt something the army needed it was just another Hitlers wonder weapon which he had to have. What does it have to do with the tank being too expensive for the economy to handle and using resources germany didn't have like fuel, tungsten. You could make more panzer 3 and 4 for the cost of one tiger. Just the price not even the manhours, resources and others. If germany made 2 000 tigers it could be like 10 000 panzer 3 or more. That's basicly the point, they were making expesive stuff they couldnt afford instead of producing one tank the whole war like america.
The Germans already had Nashorn and Ferdinand which were two very succesful vehicles carrying that gun. Jagdpanther should have been the most succesful tankhunter of the war but the allies bombed that factory that made them because they did not want to let that to happen. Personally do I think that this gun was a bit overkill and thus a bit unecessary. If you really have to kill the biggest allied monster tanks from 3000 meters away then would a crappy panzer IV chassi be enough for that job. Nashorn was liked and had an excellent combat record, but the Germans never seemed to wanna mass produce this vehicle on a large scale.
The Tiger II. People complain about its per unit cost but ignore Germany's massive fuel and manpower issues. Large numbers of low cost tanks were the absolute last thing they needed. Just because it made sense for the US and USSR doesn't mean the same strategy would work for everyone.
@@zoro115-s6b you asume that they did it for efficency... No they didn't they build tanks like that because Hitler wanted them. Just look on their navy, their air, the wonder weapons... All junk and useless waste of resources. They were completely clueless of what they were doing.
All They had to Do was Keep It Mobile and Slope The Armor This Is Not Hard to Understand It’s just a waste Tiger 1 genuinely Showed success and then They built a bunch of Obese Decorative Panzers Oh and Discover basic Good Mantlets
The one that I never could understand is why the Germans did not do a stop gap add on wedge of armor to give the Tiger I a sloped extra thickness where there was a vertical surface. That single modification would have made the Tiger I much stronger from the front
Maybe it would restrict traverse of the MG and driver visibility? Or maybe it would strain the vehicle too much with more weight. The armor was still pretty viable from long range for the majority of its service and maybe it was seen as good enough. It would be cool to see the performance difference in simulations though if additional armor kits were made similar to maybe like a Panzer III’s kit.
Sloped plate is also heavier. You can simple do thicker vertical plate instead - and that likely will be much simpler. Unless you can use additional space, but that require quite a bit of addition work. As you can see as a result Tiger 2 became just ludicrously heavy.
Panther, Tiger I and Tiger II used pretty much same engine. So would T-34, KV-1 and IS-2 . But IS-2 was actually slightly lighter than KV series, while German fat cats become even fatter .
There was a project for this, but it would require introducing big changes to Tiger production lines, stopping current production, and delaying Tiger II production even further. As said in the video, they wanted sloped armor from very early on, and this is basically just what Tiger II is.
Tiger 1 is probably better then tiger 2 cause welp tiger 2 more expensive and low trained tank crews drove this break through in engineering by 1945 tiger 1s mostly had veteran crews who seen the whole war
Anyone who still thinks a tank can be developed and deployed upon sighting a KV1 or T34 knows nothing about design or manufacturering (much less military approval processes)
Not really. It was supposed to be a breakthrough vehicle whose tactical role was done once a defensive line was broken, after which the medium tanks would pour through the breach and do the mobile exploitation bit that is the traditional strength of armoured warfare. It only really ever got a chance to do something like that during Operation Zitadelle, which was so balls-out that Tigers had to stay in the line and keep punching at Soviet armoured counterthrusts anyway. When it comes to predecessors for the MBT, the Panther is a much better fit: The punch and frontal armor of a heavy tank with the mobility and side armor of a medium - provided all the parts worked as intended. However it was still very much mired in earlier thinking on tanks and the first true MBT'esques were things like the T-44 and the Centurion Mk.I, as they were slowly refined into that role.
@@DiggingForFacts "It only really ever got a chance to do something like that during Operation Zitadelle" this is not true, sure in late war they were primarily "fire brigade" but in earlier years there were many cases of Tigers being used in that role. "Swinging the Sledgehammer" is a publication on heavy panzer battalions which has a nice summary of early Tiger units breakthrough operations
It certainly did and was the first battlefield dominating super tank. Very much like the MBTs of today yes. Low in production, highly expensive, state of the art huge, heavy and and complex.
The Pzkw VI A is the natural evolution of the the Panzer III and Panzer IV tanks. The Panther and Tiger II are the final evolution of those tanks....after the shock of the T34....
The Germans should have stuck with the Jagdpanther, it had the best of both the King Tiger in firepower and armor protection and the Panther in mobility and speed.
Nah, the Jagdpanzer IV - the Panther was automotively very poor, it had the same under-engineered, fragile final drive as the Tger, it weighed too much for it's engine, the suspension was too complex, it was very time consuming and difficult to maintain the Panther, it just wasn't a good tank in many ways and the Germans would have been far better off never bothering with it and instead improving and evolving the Panzer IV.
@@iangreenhalgh9280 the Jagdpanther weighs 45 tons, and with the resources not being used to building another Tank like the King Tiger, can be used to workout the bugs that plagued the Panther.
@@evilfingers4302 nope, germayn couldnt afford to build tanks like that, they had even issues supplying fuel to them. Autside of panzer 3 and 4 most tanks very kinda bad for them as their economy couldnt handle them. Also there is the issue of allies having absolute air superiority so even if germans could make 10k tigers, they would get bombed to pieces and would be just a junk.
I was always under the impression that the Tiger grew out of a 1940 concept for a heavy breakthrough tank and ended up being th opposite - a heavy counter-breakthrough tank that was best used to plug holes in the line and stop enemy armoured thrusts. I also tend to think that they should never have built it and instead, put the 88 or a long barrelled 75 on a Stug-like Panzer IV based vehicle , you could build a lot more of those for the same effort and resources and they would be just as effective in the long range anti-tank role.
the tiger was not a good counter breakthrough tank. yes that is how it was used, but its a poor design for such a task due to limited range and high maintenance. as well as slow strategic speed.
@@matthiuskoenig3378 Well, I would think that a heavily armoured not that mobile tank that had a big long range gun would be the ideal anti-breakthrough tank because it would be used in defensive roles shooting from prepared positions, unless you're talking about using highly mobile tanks to counter attack the flanks of a breakthrough?
@@jamesoneill8901 Turbine technology at the time wasn't advanced enough to make a good tank engine, and especially wasn't suitable for Germany at the time, with their fuel shortages and the Tiger II already being unreliable. Even if they could build a completely modern turbine engine that didn't burn out in a matter of hours (which they couldn't), it would need an entirely new and much more complex transmission, which is the last thing the Tiger II needed. They already had a plan for a more powerful engine in the form of the Sla. 16, which they installed experimentally on a jagtiger but never got into production.
maybe they are responding to British heavy tank(Matilda 78mm front plate) and assume those tank with improved armor(like how German mounted 30mm additional plate on Pz III) will be lend leased to the Russian
The german industry produced too many different tank models. It was bad in terms of industrial efficiency. The panzer 4 was a good machine. The tiger 1 was famous for good reasons. The penther was a good machine but it did not worth the industrial capability it was taking from the german war industry. The King Tiger was always too heavy for it's motorisation. It's gear box was too weak. It's heavy weight was a problem during it's deployment and it consume too much gasoline.
Heinz Guderian wrote in his memoirs "Panzer Leader" that he had reviewed ranks on trips to the Soviet Union while the countries were allies and informed Hitler that the Soviets had over 10,000 tanks, however, Hitler refused to believe him and Hitler did not expect Barbarossa to require more than a matter weeks, so it was unlikely Hitler believed he would need a super tank to finish the job. It was far more likely that after experiencing the Matilda at Arras where Panzer III was ineffective and the Italian experience in Operation Compass, Hitler reasoned he would need a superior tank to finish off the constantly improving British tanks.
@@looinrims Germany was planning for a longer war against France. They had many designs in the 1930s including a Henkel Jet Engine in 1936, the Condor "airliner" and the "Ural Bomber" project started in 1933. Some came to fruition, most didn't. Germany planned Barbarossa around the short barreled PzKWIV for infantry support and the PzKWIII E,F (37mm) and some G (50mm) as their primary tank. The Panther was a response to the T-34. It's need was not foreseen before encounters with T-34 and KV tanks.
It's kind of "funny" to see that a tank that basically was a stopgap design, from its introduction until mid 1944, had a margin of superiority over all comers that has arguably never been equalled.
KV-1 was battle tested in Winter War 1939/40 against Finland. Considering that number of Finnish generals and other officers fought in WWI as part of Juncker Battalions, it is almost certain Germans knew about existance of Soviet heavy tanks prior to WWII. Only such things are not recorded in official archives.
Rest of the world historians: "Tiger I was excellent but everything that came after where ridiculous under engineered messes" German historians: "ZE KONIGS TIGER IS ZE BEST HEAVY PANZER OF ZA WORLD! EVEN BETTER THAN ZA TIGER EINS WHICH WAS ZE HALFMEASURE (despite being in development the longest -thus well thought through) German military in the 60s: "We want something like Sherman. Decent gun, reliable engine, comfortable crew compartment.
@@czwarty7878 No? That's what you hear from people who had a chance to sit in one and from historians which really cefully studied how german tanks where defeloped (including boring material science that moust skip). Both panther and tiger 2 used complete parts engineered around 1938-40 when material scarecity was diffrent than when thoose bois rolled out- and as a result of that it was impossible to assmeble them correctly using quickly swapped material substitutions ( usually 2 or 3 substitutions drastically altering targeted properties of the part manufactued from them) - when correct anwser was to change shapes to fit availiable materials - which etremely is time consuming process in pre-cad pre-digital-spreadsheet engineering. You can add to that volountary economic isolation of germany from the world started by big H himself on presumption of "shrinking markets theory" which accelerated process of makling alloying additives scareser. Add to that mission creep caused by needs to resis stronger enemy AT units with degrading quality of armor (once again due to lack of alloying additives) and you have a tanks that are underenginnered, over weight and built to unachivable in curret economic conditions standards. Compare it to T1 which was built to fit actuall human beings through extensive testing of components, and with semi-realistic economic conditions of 1940-1941 (which doesn't mean it didn't face same problems, but it's far harder to add neeedless bloat once things are rolling out of "production lines"). Like it had usable gunners optics ( unlike panther's constant 5x magnificaltion which forced commander to target quite precisely where he want's to shoot before gunner could have vaguest idea what he supposed to target), it's tactical reuirements where strict but it had chance to work properly if you didn't overextend it too much. Yes it wasn't what army wanted - but it was from period in time when what they had wasn't wildely outside of what spec said- but that also skips german (or perhaps even prussian) metality of "my thouguths trump reality" which later caused multiple engineering/political disasters of modern times like diesel gate, pump-injectors fiasco or german politics towards russia in period of 1995-2022- and propably much more examples I as a material engieer have no clue about.
@@radosaworman7628 you wrote a wall of text with zero on-topic arguments I still don't know what "historians" you refer to, after ridiculing the video which is based literally on primary sources
@@czwarty7878 ryszard kawalec, norbert bączyk when it comes to desighn aspect (they have excellent podcast called "wojenne historie"), and Chap which name's aludes my mind but has great chanell called "TIKhistory" when it comes to ideolo-economical aspect of shrinking markets and honestly any topic when to comes to nazi ideology. Ibelive thoose two sources should be sufficient both in accesability and ease of consumption for you. Analysys of primary sources must be taken with extreme care as depending on culture we can get lies, wild exaguration when it comes to narritive, but if noumbers they collect are not openly made up or touched up- you might be capable with getting to the bottom of the topic. And nazi germany is a place where you lie to survive so everyone lies a lot. Sorry but when it comes to topics of historicall machines, created with from hundres of components, which are created with hundreds of parts by means of roughly hundred of operations each then you get explanations that are "walls of text". I'm very sad about your inability to comprehend that- but with bare minimum effort you might change that.
You are wrong. There are existing photos from poland 1939 operation, germans soldiers meets t-34 personally and are speaking with t-34 crew. Look it up. Edit: to be specific. Your opinion, germans didnt met t-34 before barbarosa is wrong. I like your work and videos. Anyway there are couple of photos from poland 1939 from end of septemeber 1939, group of german soldiers literally 1 meter next to t-34 chatting friendly with its crew. T-34 looks like micky mouse because both hatches are open up. That nickname actually coming from this time.
I would like to see such photographs. The T-34 tank was accepted into service on December 19th, 1939. At the moment not even a prototype of the tank had been built, only its precursors (A-20 and A-32). The A-34 were built early in 1940 and tested in March-April. The T-34 only entered production in June of 1940 and began to be issued to troops in the fall, a full year after the end of the campaign in Poland. Editing to add that the "Mickey Mouse" turret was not even put into production until December of 1941. Until then, all T-34 tanks had one single hatch that spanned the entire width of the turret.
![[Barbarossa] The Major Errors and Blunders - Or why Barbarossa Failed](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/A_3R-Rkn_98/mqdefault.jpg)
![[Barbarossa] The Major Errors and Blunders - Or why Barbarossa Failed](/img/tr.png)
Play War Thunder for free and get a nice bonus pack with vehicles, premium time and more: playwt.link/militaryhistoryvisualized
Try looking for their gaijin studio in Budapest. Its literally sanction evasion Mop closet. Most likely they are still situated in russia. Not to mention gaijin celebrated VDV day after hostomel raid.
Warthunder looks like a cool game, any tips?? Im looking to try it soon with this link!
@@dukenukem8381
I don't care.
@@Lykyk You are free to have no morals.
@@dukenukem8381
I'll contemplate that in heaven.
Thanks Bernhardt. The traditional narrative seems to be that the Tiger was developed as a react to the T-34s and KVs but I thought that the Tiger was the product of a development process that had begun before the war hence the anachronistic rather vertical armor and some other features. Objectively, while not perfect, I think it should be considered a successful product at the end of the day.
If you end up producing 900 more than the 400 first ordered it is probably a sign that it was not a bad first try. You have to ask if Henschel wanted to make the Tiger II due to other reasons (profitability, ease of assembly, etc.) rather than its field performance. As for Hitler wanting the longer barrel, who cares? The top leader of the country picking the gun for a tank is ridiculous, it should be selected by the military's head of tank production. The shorter barrel seems to have done a pretty decent job. It was not perfect, but it was not a bad interim solution.
Perhaps the Char B would be more relevant as an opponent originally, but I'm only guessing.
Panther is the reaction of course. We all know this.
For sure, the failure of the Tiger series was never the tanks themselves, but the inability of German doctrine to cope with ever more resilient opponents on a strategic level. Be it the Red Army, the US Army or whatever, all of Germany's opponents in 1943 were just better at organizing themselves to absorb and wear down German offensives before they got somewhere strategically vital.
For example, Tigers performed exactly as intended at Kursk, breaking gaping holes through most every Soviet line they were sent against, but it didn't matter because the Red Army of 1943 had the organization, communications, and reserves to contain the breakthroughs longer than the Germans could sustain the attacks.
@arden1894 Wehraboos are to the WW2 historical discourse as the Tiger IIs were in the Western front. Phantoms. Both were present in their respective environments but are by no means common. Wehraboos in particular is much rarer post 2010s. In some case the pendulum swung the other way and its popular to bash anything German.
Tank Encyclopedia did a video about the VK.45.02(H) about a year ago. It seems some private collector purchased the VK.45.02(H) blueprints and released a few photos of it recently. According to these original documents, the vehicle's hull remained the same as the Tiger-1 except the driver's plate was sloped about 45' from vertical. The turret, however, was the pre-production King Tiger turret (so called "Porsche" Turret) with the 8.8cm KwK L/71 gun mounted on a larger turret ring.
Yeah, I referenced that information in my script, but during the recording at the museum I was not aware of it yet.
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I recall a brief description in an old book on the Tiger tank in which Soviet foreign minister Molotov, on a visit to Germany late in 1940, demanded and was allowed to visit a German tank factory to see the latest examples produced. Afterwards Molotov accused the Germans of denying him access to the genuine latest tanks they were working on, inadvertently letting the Germans know that the Soviets already had something better, what was later revealed to be the T-34 and KV-1. The response of the Germans was to accelerate the basic development of their own heavy tank project, now intended to mount the proven 88 mm gun.
It’s actually crazy to think Molotov died at 96 years old of natural causes considering how much of a bumbling idiot he was. Imagine if he had just kept his mouth shut at that moment, as any good ambassador should have?
Soviet army was aware of German heavy tank development. And, as a matter of fact much overestimate it, so much so, that main anti-tank gun, went to production before war had been 107mm gun.
Why did TH-cam delete my comment calling Molotov a moron?
@@elkpants1280 Because they know and they don't like you commenting about it ( i think so , but you ARE right ).
@@Pgb622 its more of a word. Mock without any "excesses" (For youtube) and the comment should not disappear
I call out on a BS on economics(not a left/right problem. But a regional problem) and have it shadowbanned
Huh. I've just realized the often quoted Jensen Doyle, is actually Jentz and Doyle. I feel silly.
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13:06
Besides the technical difficulties of mounting the FlaK 41 (the gun specifically requested by Hitler) in Tiger I's turret, there was another element at play there: Krupp (the turret manufacturer) was very reluctant to mounting the long 88 because it was Rheinmetall's gun, a direct competitor (Krupp made the "medium" 88, the one from the FlaK 18/36/37). They refused, on technical grounds. Which, while technically correct, hides part of their real motivations. In the meantime, they developed their own long 88, firing a slightly smaller shell, albeit of the same caliber.
Sounds like an ammunition supply nightmare if I think about it too much lol
@@tacomas9602 dunno why they couldn't have had a armaments deign board, run by someone like Speer, make all the designs, and have the companies make all stuff using the blueprints.
Thanks for another great video! It's good to have a refresh from the old narrative of the Tiger being a reaction to the T-34 and KV-1. Hell, the idea of the Königstiger was already there in May 1941!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Well, KV-1 was already there in Winter War, so what was the reaction is a bit murky 😁
@@aleksazunjic9672 there is not a piece of evidence that indicates that Germany knew about T-34s or KV-1s before June/July 1941, maybe they knew and evidence will still show up, but until then, based on total lack of evidence, we can safely say that they didn't know about them.
@@aleksazunjic9672The Germans did not know about it, pay attention.
@@MilitaryHistoryVisualized That is your opinion, not a certified fact. Germans maybe did not know the name and all the specs of the tank, but it was certain from Finnish reports that Soviets indeed had much heavier tanks than usual T-26 or BT series. KV, SMK and T-100 prototypes were used in later parts of Winter war, KV proving to be the best thus selected for production. There were also reports of up armored T-28s, so there is that.
Ich finde es einfach gut, daß du in deinen Videos diesen hörbaren Akzent hast und immer wieder deutsche Begriffe fallen und du sogar manchmal deutsch und englisch mischst (onetausendfivehundred). Das macht deine Videos erfrischend anders und du kommst gant einfach als echt rüber. Inhaltlich wie immer hervorragend recherchiert und präsentiert.
So real that both German and English speakers can't understand him 😜
I love the way this guy talks! I'm English speaking, but understand some German, and it's true bilingual people sometimes mix 2 languages together, it's really funny when a Japanese American college student gets drunk on Jagermeister at a party and nobody can understand what he says after a couple hours...omg...good times!
Translated via Google Translate:
_"I just think it's good that you have this audible accent in your videos and that you keep using German terms and that you even sometimes mix German and English (one thousand five hundred). This makes your videos refreshingly different and you come across as real. As always, the content is excellently researched and presented."_
.
Wow when you think you know something about German armor development something new pops up to inform you. So the Tiger I was an intermediary vehicle until what was to be known as the Tiger II could be developed. As tough and effective as the Tiger I was, its hard to think it was a stop gap design. Fascinating. Thanks for this.
@@pex_the_unalivedrunk6785I can't read German but I love the to see it typed out with the English translation. And yeah the German guy talking about German armor really adds to the video. Got to love the accent and proper pronunciation of the German words, really adds a authenticity to the presentation.
As I've understood it, from quite a few sources, including Zaloga, the reason(s) for discontinuing the Tiger I in favor of the Tiger II were:
(1) Although the Tiger I had quite a few innovations in terms of steering and suspension, they came at a rather high cost, and these features could not be readily spread to other vehicles.
(2) The chassis design for the Tiger I was well along before Barbarossa, so it wasn't practical to slope the armor like the Soviet T-34 and KV tanks.
(3) The Krupp-designed turret, although brilliant in its relative simplicity (the "horseshoe" formed from a single rolled plate) was large enough for the KwK 36 88 gun, but could not take the intended Kwk 43, a much longer, higher-velocity weapon.
(4) Because of the above factors, and a need to focus what production they could get out of Henschel to simply build tanks and not other vehicles derived from it, there was no Tiger I - based "Family"...i.e., no assault gun, no tank hunter, no self-propelled howitzer, no AA tank, no ARV or CEV. The Panzerwaffe needed every chassis that rolled out of the Henschel factory in Kassel to mount that 88 mm gun; they had all too few as it was.
(5) The Tiger II, though significantly heavier (bigger turret, longer gun of same bore size, among other things) was actually simpler that its older "brother". The road wheels simply overlapped, so getting to a defective one on the inner part was easier, a useful feature in a vehicle weighing about 70 tons with a combat load! The main weapon could be removed through the rear turret hatch, unlike the Tiger I where the turret had to be lifted off. Other automotive improvements actually resulted in a slight increase in top ROAD speed (either were much slower off-road) and combat radius, despite the significant weight increase.
(6) The Tiger II did already have a "panzerjager" version, with, IAW what became an unofficial Panzerwaffe policy, a larger main weapon, though the Jagtiger skipped the 105 mm bore size (an L68 105 mm tank gun was proposed for the Tiger II mid-way during the initial production run, but delayed until the first order could be finished) in favor of a 128 mm gun, based on the AA gun that could heave a flak shell to nearly 50,000 feet! There were other derivatives of the Tiger II in development, a "Waffentrager" (weapons carrier), designed to transport a 17 cm or 21 cm heavy artillery piece; a curious feature was the the gun could be dismounted!
Of course, all this, have Germany managed to prolong the war into 1946 or even 1947, or gain an armistice and have time to re-arm, would probably have been superseded by the "Entwicklung" series of AFVs. The intent was to have several general weight classes, with emphasis on production and sharing of common parts and assemblies where practical. The role of the Tiger II was to be assumed by the E-75 or E-100 series, with an E-50 "Standardpanzer" taking the place of the Panther.
I went to the exact museum a few weeks ago-I loved it!! If you’re going to go, it is in Munster, not Münster-they are over three hours drive apart.
Has anyone ever heard the term “Nachschutz”? I heard a German WW2 tanker use that expression in a documentary. I can’t find a translation in any of my dictionaries, and they had never heard this term at the DPM. I would translate that as defensive armor-can anyone fill me in on this?
I think it should mean Nachtschutz.
@@MilitaryHistoryVisualized …I was able to go back and find the video in question. Fritz Langanke said “panzer Schutz”-or armor protection. How I got nach Schutz out of that I don’t know, but as an Ami it made sense to me as armor protection for rounds being fired back in our own direction. At any rate I was wrong-my apologies. 😳
@@edt8535 oh well, no worries, thank you :)
The Neubaufahrzeug were originally designated as PzKw V and VI depending on the manufacturer, (if they had gone into production).
The DW I and II were forefathers of the VI programme.
Considering so much technology didn't exist (a decent engine, a proper suspension, etc), I've always wondered what would happen if someone built one of these from scratch with nothing but 21st century tech (composite/reactive armor, modern engine and drive train, etc). Would be really interesting to see if it could have lived up to the expectations they set for themselves...
Still, one of the single, most beautiful tanks ever designed.
@jonowens460my favorite is the Jagdpanther.
There is just something so pretty about that angled block with a cannon
The Centurion was superior in every aspect, vastly so in many, and it looked much prettier too imho. What you suggest about using modern technology to build something similar is exactly how tanks have evolved - what we have today in the west are basically evolutions of the Centurion.
I dont quite see how a leopard one is an evolution of a centurion @@iangreenhalgh9280
If you built a "tiger" from scratch with modern components and technology you would just have a Leopard II.
@@iangreenhalgh9280But the centurion technically was not a „real“ ww2 tank since the first really build ones were only produced after the war. also imo the centurion is way uglier. but thats just because i like smoother tanks more.
Tiger is just the logical conclusion of making a Pz III/IV bigger
its not
It’s literally a bigger Pz4. Very similar designs.
@@Nope-i6jIt’s a bigger Pz III.
They are equally square and both use torsion bar suspension.
@@Nope-i6j Nope. Pz IV concentrated armor on the front, especially later versions. Tiger I had pretty much evenly spread armor (slightly ticker front) .
Yall drunk. Its clearly based on Pz 1 which ate way too many pies.
TH-camr: *Says anything positive about the king tiger*
Lazerpig: "So i take that personally"
Lazerpig when someone says tanks other than US and British ones are good.
TBF he is right most of the time.
@@naamadossantossilva4736 when not telling bald-faced lies or spreading poorly researched nonsense.... Which is very rare.
@@naamadossantossilva4736 He is mostly a moron, and few other times is wrong 😆
I do agree on Lazerpig's video stating that T-34 (all versions) were crap, and that the Panzer III was one of the most successful tank designs of the war.
Nice Video. Regarding the "VK" I had a discussion with some viewers after my Halftracks Videos. In those I said that "HK" stood for "Halbkette" and "VK" for "Vollkette", which would make sense. But some peopel said and Jentz and Doyle write in the glosary of several of their books that it stood for "Versuchskonstruktion". Would be nice to get a definitiv answer on this if that is possible from the sources.
There are actually two, Vk (Versüchskonstruktion) and VK (Vollkette). The change in use of these words happens about the start of the war. My own theory is that, with breaking the Versailles Treaty openly, there was no longer a need to hide designations (like how both the Panzer III and IV were commissioned as "Begleitwagen")
@@shockblaster1201 sounds plausible. Thanks
Versuchs Kraftfahrzeug, originally VsKfz, (experimental motor vehicle), or fully tracked, (Vollketten).
VK = Versuchskonstruktion.
Any other meaning doesnt reallt fit in German military, design and construction nomenclature. If it supposed to mean "Vollkettenfahrzeug" all halftracked vehicle designs would have had the prefix "HK", meaning "Halbkettenfahrzeug". As far as I know this wasnt the case.
Play War Thunder for free and get a nice bonus pack with vehicles, premium time and more: playwt.link/militaryhistoryvisualized
Hi, du hattest im Video erwähnt, dass es auch nach längerer Spielpause einzulösen wäre. Weißt du wie ich es dann einlösen kann?
Vielen Dank für die Videos, über einen Deutschen Zweitkanal würde ich mich freuen, bei den Videos in denen du nicht zu sehen bist müsste der Aufwand ja überschaubar sein aber kann natürlich sein, dass sich das überhaupt nicht lohnt.
@@fredib7990 Müsste eigentlich automatisch via den Link gehen, aber ich hab das selbst nicht probiert. Sonst hatte noch niemand diese Frage.
Der Aufwand ist leider ziemlich hoch und nochmal dasselbe "machen"/sagen ist auch eher nervig.
Ich kann www.youtube.com/@MTGJW empfehlen, da bin ich auch manchmal Gast und viele grafische Elemente sind von mir bereitgestellt.
Hier noch ein deutsches Video zur Frage: th-cam.com/video/ti6Vwt04sWw/w-d-xo.html
@@MilitaryHistoryVisualized
Ich hatte mich in einem anderen Fenster im Browser auf der WT Seite angemeldet und dann wurde mir nach dem neuladen des Links mein Konto vorgeschlagen. Vielleicht fragt es ja jemand anderes auch mal nach. :D
Bei Herrn Wehner hab ich schon alles gesehen, hat mich auch gefreut, dass du da zu Gast bist. :)
Falls Ihr mal über Thumbnails sprecht oder du welche erstellst dann bitte kein rot verwenden, da sieht man den "gesehen" Balken schlecht :D
Vielen Dank für den Link und deine ausführliche Antwort.
Germans meet heavy armored vehicles way before KV and t-34. It was Matilda and French tanks in 1940. So they want a cannon capable to destroy such targets. Also they didn’t expect to meet such tanks in USSR so they didn’t develop 8.8 tanks early
Yes. And 88 became a thing against those yet in 1940
It should be noted btw that the 100mm mandate would ask for a barrel more in line with the longer panzer 3 barrel not nessisarily a longbarel design like what we got. Remember getting a higher penetration out of a higher mass is easier than increasing it for the same mass.
Not at that range.
That's the history I want hear about! Topic of all mighty machines is overdone so much, but very rarely covered from economic/political side which has much more to do with them than seems to be. Excellent job, thank you
Excellent clear and concise explanation Vielen Dank
Glad it was helpful!
The Tiger I has always seemed to me a bit like a supersized Panzer IV.
Wichtiges Video, empfehle hierzu auch das dreiteilige Video vom Panzermuseum Munster über den Tiger 2 "Der vergessene Blitzkrieger".
Andere Frage: ist inzwischen gesichert, wofür "VK" bei den Prototypen steht ? Mein letzter Stand war noch "Versuchskonstruktion".
Vollketten, fully tracked.
Mr Military History Visualized: I'm from Sweden but I do know that the English word ACCELERATED is pronounced: ACK-CELI-RATED.(with a hard K sound like the words rack,pack or sack) Maybe some of your English speaking viewers could explain it better. You do a fantastic job so I'm just trying to help you out. Fantastic content for a nerd like me, I salute you!!
I'm not correcting him because his English is *far* better than my German, and I grew up with my Dad occaisionally dropping into German around the house, as well as taking it in high school. 😂
I hope your hands are better, Sir. Brilliant work, as always.
Ah, the Tiger, the finest tank design of the 1930s.
The request to develop a longer version of 88 mm gun was not unreasonable. The original 88mm Flak 36 were already in use and showcased in AT warfare in Spanish Civil War, and in 1939-40 the Western Allies had direct experience with the guns and its AT capabilities. For the Germans it would be difficult for them to not anticipate their opponents were already developing countermeasures or heavier armors against the 88 mm gun they had known for years already.
Well, idea might be not "unreasonable". Back in 1940. Like idea of 107mm anti tank gun in soviet service.
Execution of that idea in 1944 though was unreasonable - when it was no real targets, that demanded that additional power.
@@vladimirpecherskiy1910 What? IS-2, ISU-152, Churchill VII, Pershing, Sherman Jumbo, more than enough, plus for foresight incoming very closely Centurion and IS-3, and if Siegfried line wasn't dismantled western allies would deploy T28 and Tortoise. How are there no heavy targets in 1944?
@@vladimirpecherskiy1910 While I have to say that was partially true, where the Germans forces weren't having much troubles with armor penetrations unlikely in early war, and vice versa the Allies forces didn't really feel safe in their tanks against German AT,
However, like arms development is something akin to business development, it never plan to just meet the current demands, but to anticipate and prepare the future demands as well. Soviet IS-3, being more resistant than any existing Soviet tanks, debut in 1945 though the war ended bit too soon for it, but it proved Allies and Soviet tank development were always ongoing, so it was only sensible for the German Anti-Tank development to be as well.
The original 88 mm L/56 was starting to become obsolete in early 1944, as the newer 75mm Pak 42 outperformed it slightly in penetration, while 88mm did carry around 30% more HE power, given the Germans were on defensive and mainly fighting Allied AFV attacks rather than trenches or bunkers, it was not the most useful advantages.
So it made little sense to keep producing both 75mm and 88mm L/56, and German leadership faced two choices, one to completely retool the 88mm L/56 production for 75mm Pak 42, or simply upgrade their existing 88mm to Pak 43 L71, which could to a limited extent still use the old 88mm shells. Naturally, with economic consideration in mind, they chose the latter option.
@@sthrich635 Well, I like BMW, but I am driving Hyundai. Can you guess why? Yes, because Hyundai at least 2 times cheaper and doing all what I really need. May be one or 2 times a year if would be nice to have something like Ford F-150, but I will not buy it because of that - not enough justification. It is nice to have the best possible - for free. Usually it is not for free though. And in particular case German army paid enormous price for that really limited advantage - which had about no practical application at a time. Not only in price of machine itself, but in other vitally important characteristics of that machine. For example - it ability to get to a buttle 😁
BTW ii is a misconception, that 75mm Pak 42 superior in armor piercing than 88 mm L/56. Not true, it is actually other way around. What is true, that 75mm Pak 42 can outperform 88 mm L/56 in case it use discarding sabot with tungsten penetrator. Which practically was not offered for 88. And tungsten was in really short supply in Germany at at time? so much so it was cheaper discarding sabot with still penetrator developed for 75
@@czwarty7878 Out of all mention, only IS-2, Pershing and Churchill VII did provide some protection against 8.8 cm KwK 36 (Sherman Jumbo had partial turret protection) wile only Churchill VII was really protected from the front at all distances.
Fantasy about IS-3 and Centurion has no relation to reality.
So you would get that a bit better - in whole war it is known for sure only 2 (two) cases direct fight between Tigers and IS-2 and it was like 3800 IS-2 produced. May be in reality it was more cases - like 4 or even 6 - but, I think, you got an idea.
Aesthetically, the Tiger I is badass.
ah yes square with another square on it
The tiger is the best looking tank in history I’m sorry this is just a fact
It drove, it shot, it was armored. It did everything a tank was supposed to do.
Thanks!
Thank you!
The Tiger did some things well but got one thing horribly wrong... it was waaaay over gunned especially for when it was designed. The 88 was complete overkill which was a major reason for the tank's bloated weight.
A high caliber 75 would've been plenty of gun and you could have had a trimmer, lighter heavy tank without the deployment issues and would've been cheaper and faster to manufacture.
Firstly a 88mm gun fires larger high-explosive shells, which were about 90% of the ammunition used by tanks anyways. Most tanks were destroyed in WW2 by anti-tank guns and aircraft, some by artillery and infantry, and the rest by attrition, lack of fuel and spare parts. Or in the case of France, by jumping out and running away without a fight.
Secondly, a larger caliber 75 is exactly the 88, which is what the number means. Caliber 75 means the diameter of the gun. Perhaps you meant a longer 75 ?
The Germans thought ahead to not only deal with what was then expected to be encountered but to also be effective against the expected subsequent generation of allied tanks, which the Tiger I did on the whole, still knocking out IS-2, Pershing and Comet in 1945.
So uh, The Panther that was developed later for the reasons you listed above?
Have you been working on your accent? I must say your recent videos are much easier for me to understand without captions.
Not really, thanks. Maybe you got used to it?
@@MilitaryHistoryVisualized You have a nice accent:)
@@MilitaryHistoryVisualized Maybe 😀
I asked some German girls what they thought of france owning Alsass-loraine, and they didn't even know what it was.
Great stuff! Thank you!
The king tiger at the panzermuseum has turret number 321, but on the glacis it has a rhomboid-with-S-inside (for schwere tank company) which has a number 1 next to the rhomboid, meaning 1st company vehicle.
What tank numbers doing?
This video was very informative - thank you for sharing it we us
Good information, poor sponsor. However I understand both you and the Tank Museum need to get funding from somewhere.
It looks like German spies knew about the heavy and new Soviet Tank designs and kept it a secret until Barbarossa was being planned to begin.
I look at all the effort spent producing variants vs numbers and wonder why ? I think it came down to a known shortage of men in Germany. So they were constantly looking to maximize the number of kills a tank crew could inflict before loosing the crew.
So while it seems odd to make more and more complex vehicles verses numbers it was actually logical. They knew the industry of the allied forces could out produce them. So they had to out kill them.
I think it was also well known the Germans that they were never going to outproduce the combined industry of the allied powers, so they took an approach that would maximize the effectiveness of each individual unit produced. Quality over quantity.
Whether they succeeded in that is debatable.
It's not as if SMK, T-100 or KV weren't everyone's secret. They've been tried during Winter War and there was enough cooperation between Finland and Germany.
why would the germans assume they would never be able to match the allied forces industrially? they were not at war, nor expected to be at war, with the united states for most of their weapons developement. and pre-ww2 heavy industry levels of german and the USSR were almost the same in terms of number of workers, and german industrial output was more than twice that of the USSR due to greater productivity per worker (note that the german workers were in tern less productive per worker than american workers). Soviet military production in ww2 was only greater due to earlier full mobilisation aswell as a more rationalised system earlier. If germany had adopted a similar scheme of industrial war mobilisation they would have achieved an industrial output significantly greater than the USSR. Even After the US joins, the Americans are still bottlenecked by haveing to ship their equipment across the ocean (hence why their forces were small despite a manpower and industrial advntage over germany). [source: The Soviet Defence Industry Complex from Stalin to Khrushchev, pp. 99-117]
furthermore German designs could often be better suited to mass production than allied counter parts. a good example is the panzer 3, which took a meer 4000 manhours initally, and just 2000 manhours by the time they ended production, to build. compared to about 25 000 manhours for most shermans or most T-34s, the infamous rushed T-34s from factory no 183 still took over 5000 manhours to build. another example is the 75 manhours for an MG42 vs the 120 manhours for a bren gun.
the allied advantage in manpower is also overstated. but even if it wasn't they could have simply had more mechanized units and less leg infantry. the vast majority of the war was fought by infantry and artillery. no manpower was not the limiting factor.
the actual reasons for SOME of their designs being overcomplicated to produce is that most of those designs were intended for specialised tasks, not standard armament. The exceptions are more a result of rushed designs and poor opimisation than specific "quality over quantity" thinking, infact the top down decision making was constantly pushing for increased quantity at the cost of quality and this push is why the panther was rushed for example. and their overall industrial output in the war was a result of a failure in mobilising their industry to war, infact when hilter introduced policies in 1939 aimed at mobilising more industry to war production war production, it failed to produce results as productivity decreased compaired to soviet mobilisation that saw an increase in productivity alongside an increase in the % of industry involved in war production. The reason for this was the soviets had greater pre-war plans for war mobilisation and thus were able to do it more quickly and efficiently. german failures to mobilise were so bad that it was orginally thought that they deliberately chose not to mobilise between 1939 and 1941, but we know now from german archieves this is BS. they tried and failed due to poor planning.
@@SamuraiAkechi There wasn't enough coordination between all of the Axis members; as shown in the recorded meeting between Hitler & Mannerheim, where Hitler was shocked that Finland knew the USSR had 30,000+ tanks produced before his invasion yet his own officers never brought that up during planning.
@@dalel3608it's as if Finland was allied with the allies despite being allied with the axis
Thank you for that detailed explanation. No wonder they lost the war. They lost sight of wah was important.
I Play much Warthunder since a few months. What I don‘t like on the game: many technical datas are incorrect to get more balance. Perfect for players bad for the reality of the game.
all gzmes are western biased. in ukraine you can see normal t72 kills abrams easy and ood russian planes own nato missles and defences.
Wonderful find.
16:30 What was the significance of the number 501?
Probably just a easier to confirm and manage serial number, since they had contracts they had to make 500 Tigers 1, and couldnt stop until they were all made. Maybe a number in the hundreds was easier to confirm considering production rate and storage facilities + shipment schedule (train carts available) etc.?
501: 5th company, company XO vehicle.
500,: company chef's vehicle.
511, fifth company, 1st platoon, 1st vehicle. Etc, etc...
Vehicle identification numbers were quite lengthy and occurred at the manufacturer.. Painted on vehicle numbers were stenciled and decided by BN staff.
Am Ende war der Tiger viel bedeutender für die Gefechte der Wehrmacht als der Tiger 2
I have to say, I like Ralph‘s talk from the Panzerkonferenz about the Tiger-design, but I do have to wonder if the response to it would have been the same if the vehicle had been considered a failure on the battlefield.
Thanks !!
Sure I'm missing something that's already out there, but why wasn't there a better plan for how to power this thing? Seems like the transmission was always hopeless for Pz Kpfw VI Ausf. B
When German industry was facing a shortage of high quality steel for tank production; I am surprised that they did not recycle such steel from the Kriegsmarine. At the same time submarine production was competing for the same alloying ores.
The 88mm proved vital during the campaign in France...
Why didn't germans standardise the 88 and put it in the panther? Or vice versa the long 75 on the tiger.
The 75 was chosen to maximize anti-armor performance, the 88 was a better all rounder gun. The Panther would need an entirely new turret to mount the 88 and it would inevitably add weight to a tank that was already struggling with an over strained transmission. Putting the 75mm on the tiger would be feasible but would downgrade it's high explosive shell and have only minimal benefits for its anti armor abilities.
To be honest the long 75mm gun of the Panther was way better in anti tank performance, but there wasnt any particular reason as to why it should have been the standard tank gun, both the 88 and 75 could penetrate all T-34 variants frontally from at least 1km and one thing that its always forgotten is that shell size (mass) is far more important than it seems, the 75 shell had an incredible muzzle velocity, but was relatively small and this didnt allow it to just bypass "slim" armour like the 122mm shell of the IS-2, wich was ridicusly slow but could penetrate anything by sheer brute force
@@alexvonrom7942 The 122mm D-25T had a muzzle velocity of 806 m/s. The Tiger I's KwK 36 had a muzzle velocity of 780 m/s for its APCBC round and 930 m/s for its APCR round.
It's not an exceptionally high velocity gun, especially not if you're comparing it to something ridiculous like the KwK 43 with it's 1,130 m/s, but its definitely not low velocity.
@@zoro115-s6b oh, I saw somewhere that by the time it had made 1km the velocity dropped to 600ish meters, might be wrong tho, thanks for the correction :)
@@alexvonrom7942 I don't know about the velocity at 1000 meters distance but given the weight of the projectile velocity dropoff wouldn't be that high.
I think the reputation for soviet guns having low velocity might come from the 152mm howitzers on vehicles like the KV-2. It could also just be a reputation the 122mm got because of the comparison to the 100mm that was also considered, which is indeed higher velocity, but that's more of a testament to how good the 100mm is than anything to do with the 122. The 122 was considered a bit suboptimal as an anti-tank weapon, but that was more because of fire rate than range, accuracy, or velocity, all of which were fairly good.
Thanks B, the Tiger story is more fun when Dr P stays th out of it lol.
Good video
Not the usual regurgitation of same old stuff.
Whenever I Theorize a Better Tiger
I either get a Rear Turret tank Destroyer like a Ferdinand
Or a Tiger 1 but Sleeker and Smoler
Still a very dynamic dynamic MBT Style design but still Emphasizing The Heavy and high caliber attributes
Either way
The Tiger 2 and a bunch of Obese jags Are just a Waste of Time
It seems like the Tiger I was an up scaled, up armoured Panzer IV, with a more powerful gun. The Panther & Konigstiger demonstrate superior design ie sloped armour, etc.
I don't know if superior design and konigstiger should be in the same sentence. While the Tiger and Panther had technical issues, they could and were ironed out of worked around. The Tiger 2 though would have never worked, too heavy.
Look! Plastic Tiger!
I mean the short 8,8 was really not a good cannon for example in comparison to the l70 7,5. The 8,8 was bigger, used bigger and more expensive ammunition, and had less penetration values with pzgr. 39 or 40/41. I think the only advantage of the short 8,8 would probably be that there is probably more explosive filler in he und aphe.
The Tiger Is gun caught up with the Panther's in AP at around 2,500 metres and was better and more accurate at very long range. When Panthers and Tigers worked together it was the Tiger that was chosen to do the very long range sniping at 2,500 to 3,000 etc metres.
Tiger I's high explosive round was considerably superior to the Panther's.
>Free to play game war thunder
Oh trust me, it's not free to play
I think the tiger did pretty well in combat, the problem was servicing the damn thing.
I've read the tigers had a ratio of about 5hrs maintenance per 1 hour fighting (not just driving, fighting)
@@bamspam23 It gets worse. The engines are supposed to have interchange parts. Some of the parts they found out only work with replacements made from certain factories so if a replacement part didn't come from the same factory the tank was built, there was only a 1/3 chances the damn thing would work!
This was the issue with basically any tank, especially heavier tanks (just as much Tiger as Churchill, Pershing and IS-2) and the more tanks are used the more service they need, and as most important assets the heavy panzer battalions were used basically constantly. This was not problem of the tank, this was problem of a country losing the war. Somehow this simple concept is hard to comprehend for some people.
They still had a better than 70% overall average operational rate in 1944.
The choice of flat vs sloped armour was about ergonomics (comfort for crew). Flat armour provided more interior room and made the crew more effective. Crew comfort and efficiency worked hand in hand. The Tiger 1 had size limitations to contend with that sloped armour would have been problematic.
source?
@@MilitaryHistoryVisualized I was in Armoured Cav and we were taught the reasons pro/con for how tanks are designed. German and American tanks overall had more room, while British tanks were cramped. Russian tanks were a mish-mash inside depending on position. We were taught sloped armour requires more steel and lessens interior space unless the tank is made larger, which requires even more steel. Look at the Panther compared to the Pz4. Same crew configuration and interior size, but the Panther is much larger in every dimension.
The US Army teaches things that seem to work on paper.
@@HeinzGuderian_ but that is post-hoc rationalisation and explanation what worked in hindsight. @MilitaryHistoryVisualized video showed you source where it's clear Germans wanted sloped armor from the start, just couldn't do it fast enough
@@czwarty7878 still doesn't negate the fact that sloped armour requires more steel in order to maintain interior room, which Germany did not have in vast quantities. The turret ring would also have to be smaller if the rest of the tank wasn't made larger, making either a smaller interior or using smaller guns. Designing doesn't happen overnight. They knew the pros/cons of sloped/flat armour long before 1936. The costs weren't worth the effort. Most countries opted for flat armour for the same reasons.
The T34 had a 4 man crew. The TC was doing double duty and wearing himself out. Everyone else used a 5 man crew, and when the Germans made the Panther it was huge compared to the Pz4. It was 3 ft longer, 1.5 ft wider, 1 ft taller. Interior room was comparable. It was also 20 tons heavier albeit much of that was from thicker armour, not just the additional dimensions.
Sometimes you have to compromise. Angle the tank or angle the plate. Both ways work. We don't bother with either of those choices today.
thanks, the issue is I heard so many "interesting" and also read plenty of them over the years, yet, when I got back into the original sources, a lot of time, it turns out to be that the various statements were just (utter) hogwash.
Germany did not lack steel btw. they lacked a lot of other stuff, steel was not really among it. Additionally, the amount of steel used for tank production for quite some time was rather low as well.
great video!
Glad you enjoyed it
how can it be that the Germans didnt know about t34 and KV1 ?? Didn't German advisors analyze and test captured t34 & kv1 during Finland Winter War 1939-1940 ? Finland was full of Soviet armour during Soviet invasion from november 1939 onwards.
T-34 was not used in the Winter War.
KV was rarely used and basically in the Winter War the Germans sided with the Soviets. I made a video about that: th-cam.com/video/j0YTz5hiYfs/w-d-xo.html
so they VK 45 02 was already the concept they wanted
Did they try installing the longer gun on an existing Tiger I or was it so big thats why they had other tiger models made (or planned)
The KwK43 L/71 didn't fit in Tiger turret, so it would need Tiger II turret (this was basically what VK4502H was)
Great video
What is the main purpose of a tank? I would say that once a tank is fighting other tanks it is at a place where attrition can start unless it is a very asymmetrical encounter viz gulf war. I believe the true purpose is to rampage behind FEBA hitting L of C where its machine guns become its primary weapon. Fighting other tanks is dangerous, even if you are in a Tiger. I tend to see a tank therefore as having a main armament of machine guns with a secondary armament of an anti tank gun for use in dire emergency. Tanks fighting tanks is wasteful of expensive vehicles.
Nice thumbnail
so sad we couldve had a littlejohn type squeezebore tiger...
I remember reading somewhere that a group of Soviet engineers were given a tour of one of the current German tank factories. They made a point of accusing the Germans of not being honest and showing them the latest tank designs. Apparently this gave the Germans some food for thought as to what kind of tanks the Soviets were making.
I heard this as well, several times, but I have not seen a legitimate source.
I heard it, that it should have made the German suspicious, but didn't.
@MilitaryHistoryVisualized it's from Panzer Leader by Guderian. I only have the kindle edition, so I'm not sure what the page number is, but it's in the background section of chapter 6.
@@orgunthanks the problem is that that memoir is full of wrong information in so many ways.
@@MilitaryHistoryVisualized yeah
Well, I think that is a bit misconception in a base in title "rejected Success". And a bit of general historical misconception about how things works historically. Yes, request of heavy tank had been created before war with USSR started. That does not mean appearance if T-34 and KV did not affect final result. Historically it is usual thing that different requests and ideas coming to a pipeline before events and later events sorted those out - some became rendered out, some getting priority. And that exactly what did happen.
Equally would be incorrect to state, that initial target was a King Tiger. Naturally it was desired that tank would have a biggest gun possible (and available at the time in this case) and best armor. Naturally Henschel would be happy to sell the most expensive machine they can. But definitely army was not in vision to get 68 ton tank - no matter what Hitler imagine for himself.
But that's exactly how it was. The Tiger I was just a stop gap solution. They originally weren't called Tiger I and Tiger II, they were called Tiger A and Tiger B.
Ralf Raths (director of the german tank museum) has a very long video about the development process of the Tigers.
@@HaVoC117X "Stop gap solution" in whose mind and when? I had seen recently a very good video that Boeing 737, which producing for 56 years now, had been "stop gap solution" for Boeing back then in 60-th.
Other part of which newer materialized.
Clearly "King Tiger" was not a useful option and newer been with it mass in 68 ton and mechanical disabilities yet at middle 1944.
@@vladimirpecherskiy1910 "Stop-gap solution" only implies that it is something designed to fill a specific direct need or niche by an organisation until they can get their vision off the ground. If such a solution proves sufficiently reliable, you just keep using it. So if Boeing thinks they need to put a medium-sized airliner in the market to compete while working on their next "miracle project" and Lufthansa buys 24 outright and is happy, leading to more sales, then the market has dictated that the stopgap solution is perfectly sufficient to meet the market requirements and whatever vision of the "future miracle" is a step further than is necessary. There's also little point in spending extra money to retool a production line to sell that market something else you first have to convince them they should want more than the thing they're already satisfied with.
In the Tiger's case, the Wehrmacht had already recognized that they needed a 'breakthrough vehicle' of some kind in the late '30s. When war erupted probably a little bit earlier than everyone was expecting and suddenly they learnt that a 3.7cm which they had already selected for its supposed armor piercing capability really isn't all that capable as an anti-tank tool, they came up with new specs for the project and as the video shows those specs were, very mildly put, wildly optimistic. The Tiger II was definitely the intended target; there was just not enough pushback to convince everyone that the initial target was a flight of fancy. The only real addition that the invasion of the USSR brought was the realization that the gap needed to be filled quickly and that since the KwK36 L/56 fit in the Krupp turret, they should probably just go ahead and get that out there while working on their L/70 gun. As it turns out, the Wehrmacht was sufficiently satisfied with the L/56 for the interim and finally having a gun out there that was effective against heavy armour was 'good enough' that making sure there were as many of those out there as Henschel could muster took priority. The continuation of the project with everyone wanting to have editorial power AND have their cake and eat it too meant that the Tiger II suffered badly from feature creep and mostly lack of logistical oversight on things like "can we still get all the required steel, rubber and tungsten in two years time", "just how much weight can the average bridge in Europe actually handle" or "perhaps an unskilled slave laborer isn't the best at making precision-machined parts and might hold a grudge and commit sabotage".
If that seems odd, then all you need to do is look at the US adopting the 40ish-ton M10 Booker "light" tank mostly because they have had 40 years of experience with the M1 Abrams growing in weight from a 'mere' 54 tons to a stately 66.8 tons and that occasionally leading to "logistical problems". Or the Dutch who had finalized contracts for new Gryphus transport trucks with signatures and all, only to then realize that those trucks were too tall to be road-legal and now have to account for not being able to fit under some viaducts if they run their tires at max pressure and then had to have the factory update the software accordingly.
@@vladimirpecherskiy1910 you offer no substantial arguments for what you claim, you just got that idea that Tiger II was a bad tank as a dogma and can't shake it no matter what, and treating it like base axiom you go forward with your opinion. With zero thinking whether maybe what you believe is not entirely correct.
@@czwarty7878Well, if you think Tiger II was a good tank - you probably would have no problem to bring a couple examples, where it has any notifiable success in use, right? At the end it was noticeable number of those made. You would not have a problem to do so with Tiger 1.
Now I do know from a documents, that 2 soviets had a very big problem to even ring 2 captured summer 1944 Tiger 2 to a train station on distance like 12 km - those brakes up multiple times on a way. In testing they also been unable to speed up Tiger 2 on a good road faster then 31 km/h.
It is also pretty clear known from history that nobody till this day made a tank of such a mass - 75 year later. May be there are some reasons to that 😁
Why did the Germans go for qualty over quantity? Second why did the Germans had s0 many different types? Where as the allies seam to have fewer types and more of them.
Didnt they break all the time
No.
A question. With all the circumstances in mind What Tiger was a better design for the actual war? I mean, Tiger II it's more powerful but with reliability, cost, tactical use and so on accounted Which was better? Can the 88 mm L/71 canon be installed in a Panther or Tiger I without increasing the weight by 15 or 20 tons?
none, both tigers were super expensive and taxing on the german economy and were designed for what hitler wanted and not for what the army needed, hence why most german tanks werent tigers and very few were build.
@@mitchellcouchman6589 huh? What was their purpose then? it wasnt something the army needed it was just another Hitlers wonder weapon which he had to have.
What does it have to do with the tank being too expensive for the economy to handle and using resources germany didn't have like fuel, tungsten. You could make more panzer 3 and 4 for the cost of one tiger. Just the price not even the manhours, resources and others. If germany made 2 000 tigers it could be like 10 000 panzer 3 or more. That's basicly the point, they were making expesive stuff they couldnt afford instead of producing one tank the whole war like america.
The Germans already had Nashorn and Ferdinand which were two very succesful vehicles carrying that gun. Jagdpanther should have been the most succesful tankhunter of the war but the allies bombed that factory that made them because they did not want to let that to happen.
Personally do I think that this gun was a bit overkill and thus a bit unecessary. If you really have to kill the biggest allied monster tanks from 3000 meters away then would a crappy panzer IV chassi be enough for that job. Nashorn was liked and had an excellent combat record, but the Germans never seemed to wanna mass produce this vehicle on a large scale.
The Tiger II. People complain about its per unit cost but ignore Germany's massive fuel and manpower issues. Large numbers of low cost tanks were the absolute last thing they needed. Just because it made sense for the US and USSR doesn't mean the same strategy would work for everyone.
@@zoro115-s6b you asume that they did it for efficency... No they didn't they build tanks like that because Hitler wanted them. Just look on their navy, their air, the wonder weapons... All junk and useless waste of resources. They were completely clueless of what they were doing.
All They had to Do was Keep It Mobile and Slope The Armor
This Is Not Hard to Understand
It’s just a waste
Tiger 1 genuinely Showed success and then They built a bunch of Obese Decorative Panzers
Oh and Discover basic Good Mantlets
The one that I never could understand is why the Germans did not do a stop gap add on wedge of armor to give the Tiger I a sloped extra thickness where there was a vertical surface. That single modification would have made the Tiger I much stronger from the front
Maybe it would restrict traverse of the MG and driver visibility? Or maybe it would strain the vehicle too much with more weight. The armor was still pretty viable from long range for the majority of its service and maybe it was seen as good enough. It would be cool to see the performance difference in simulations though if additional armor kits were made similar to maybe like a Panzer III’s kit.
Sloped plate is also heavier. You can simple do thicker vertical plate instead - and that likely will be much simpler. Unless you can use additional space, but that require quite a bit of addition work. As you can see as a result Tiger 2 became just ludicrously heavy.
Panther, Tiger I and Tiger II used pretty much same engine. So would T-34, KV-1 and IS-2 . But IS-2 was actually slightly lighter than KV series, while German fat cats become even fatter .
There was a project for this, but it would require introducing big changes to Tiger production lines, stopping current production, and delaying Tiger II production even further. As said in the video, they wanted sloped armor from very early on, and this is basically just what Tiger II is.
Tigers were notorious for blowing transmissions due to being overweight. Adding more weight would not fix anything
Tiger 1 is probably better then tiger 2 cause welp tiger 2 more expensive and low trained tank crews drove this break through in engineering by 1945 tiger 1s mostly had veteran crews who seen the whole war
Anyone who still thinks a tank can be developed and deployed upon sighting a KV1 or T34 knows nothing about design or manufacturering (much less military approval processes)
I feel like the Tiger pioneered a lot of tactics on the employment of what would become MBTs.
Not really. It was supposed to be a breakthrough vehicle whose tactical role was done once a defensive line was broken, after which the medium tanks would pour through the breach and do the mobile exploitation bit that is the traditional strength of armoured warfare. It only really ever got a chance to do something like that during Operation Zitadelle, which was so balls-out that Tigers had to stay in the line and keep punching at Soviet armoured counterthrusts anyway. When it comes to predecessors for the MBT, the Panther is a much better fit: The punch and frontal armor of a heavy tank with the mobility and side armor of a medium - provided all the parts worked as intended. However it was still very much mired in earlier thinking on tanks and the first true MBT'esques were things like the T-44 and the Centurion Mk.I, as they were slowly refined into that role.
@@DiggingForFacts "It only really ever got a chance to do something like that during Operation Zitadelle" this is not true, sure in late war they were primarily "fire brigade" but in earlier years there were many cases of Tigers being used in that role. "Swinging the Sledgehammer" is a publication on heavy panzer battalions which has a nice summary of early Tiger units breakthrough operations
It certainly did and was the first battlefield dominating super tank. Very much like the MBTs of today yes. Low in production, highly expensive, state of the art huge, heavy and and complex.
my first lotto purchase is going to be a Tiger 1
The Pzkw VI A is the natural evolution of the the Panzer III and Panzer IV tanks. The Panther and Tiger II are the final evolution of those tanks....after the shock of the T34....
The Germans should have stuck with the Jagdpanther, it had the best of both the King Tiger in firepower and armor protection and the Panther in mobility and speed.
Nah, the Jagdpanzer IV - the Panther was automotively very poor, it had the same under-engineered, fragile final drive as the Tger, it weighed too much for it's engine, the suspension was too complex, it was very time consuming and difficult to maintain the Panther, it just wasn't a good tank in many ways and the Germans would have been far better off never bothering with it and instead improving and evolving the Panzer IV.
@@iangreenhalgh9280 the Jagdpanther weighs 45 tons, and with the resources not being used to building another Tank like the King Tiger, can be used to workout the bugs that plagued the Panther.
@@evilfingers4302 nope, germayn couldnt afford to build tanks like that, they had even issues supplying fuel to them. Autside of panzer 3 and 4 most tanks very kinda bad for them as their economy couldnt handle them. Also there is the issue of allies having absolute air superiority so even if germans could make 10k tigers, they would get bombed to pieces and would be just a junk.
@@jarvee9407 and yet, the Germans built how many King Tigers and Jagdtigers that both took massive amounts of resources to be made.
@@evilfingers4302 500? Combined. That's nothing and their economy was dead at that point, also no fuel.
I was always under the impression that the Tiger grew out of a 1940 concept for a heavy breakthrough tank and ended up being th opposite - a heavy counter-breakthrough tank that was best used to plug holes in the line and stop enemy armoured thrusts. I also tend to think that they should never have built it and instead, put the 88 or a long barrelled 75 on a Stug-like Panzer IV based vehicle , you could build a lot more of those for the same effort and resources and they would be just as effective in the long range anti-tank role.
the tiger was not a good counter breakthrough tank. yes that is how it was used, but its a poor design for such a task due to limited range and high maintenance. as well as slow strategic speed.
A stug-like construction is quite severely inconvenienced in an offensive role from the lack of a turret.
@@juslitorsure, he was referring to defensive role
And you are quite correct.
@@matthiuskoenig3378 Well, I would think that a heavily armoured not that mobile tank that had a big long range gun would be the ideal anti-breakthrough tank because it would be used in defensive roles shooting from prepared positions, unless you're talking about using highly mobile tanks to counter attack the flanks of a breakthrough?
I just see it as a Pz IV heavy upgrade
Panzer 4 front plate as side armor
@@BloodyCrow__ Part of it yeah. But the design is basically similar to..... The Pz IV!
...Could a ME 262 style jet turbine engine have been paired with the King Tiger?
Haven't you heard of the Luftiger
Not the exact Me 262 engine, but there were some plans to make gas turbine engines for Panther (instead of King Tiger)
Since T2 was so underpowered I figured it was logical to choose it. Kinda like a Tiger / Abrams lol.
@@jamesoneill8901 Turbine technology at the time wasn't advanced enough to make a good tank engine, and especially wasn't suitable for Germany at the time, with their fuel shortages and the Tiger II already being unreliable. Even if they could build a completely modern turbine engine that didn't burn out in a matter of hours (which they couldn't), it would need an entirely new and much more complex transmission, which is the last thing the Tiger II needed.
They already had a plan for a more powerful engine in the form of the Sla. 16, which they installed experimentally on a jagtiger but never got into production.
I uninstalled War Thunder because of this tank. Good tank👍
What is this Sherman invasion you're talking about?
Interesting
maybe they are responding to British heavy tank(Matilda 78mm front plate) and assume those tank with improved armor(like how German mounted 30mm additional plate on Pz III) will be lend leased to the Russian
Why 88 & not an even 90?
Usually the calibers go back "ages", as far as I know the 88 goes back at least to WW1, if not before.
The german industry produced too many different tank models. It was bad in terms of industrial efficiency. The panzer 4 was a good machine. The tiger 1 was famous for good reasons. The penther was a good machine but it did not worth the industrial capability it was taking from the german war industry. The King Tiger was always too heavy for it's motorisation. It's gear box was too weak. It's heavy weight was a problem during it's deployment and it consume too much gasoline.
are you small or a Tiger is that massive?
Heinz Guderian wrote in his memoirs "Panzer Leader" that he had reviewed ranks on trips to the Soviet Union while the countries were allies and informed Hitler that the Soviets had over 10,000 tanks, however, Hitler refused to believe him and Hitler did not expect Barbarossa to require more than a matter weeks, so it was unlikely Hitler believed he would need a super tank to finish the job. It was far more likely that after experiencing the Matilda at Arras where Panzer III was ineffective and the Italian experience in Operation Compass, Hitler reasoned he would need a superior tank to finish off the constantly improving British tanks.
The answer is very simple
Neither
The requirements for a heavy breakthrough tank were made before the war kicked off
@@looinrims Germany was planning for a longer war against France. They had many designs in the 1930s including a Henkel Jet Engine in 1936, the Condor "airliner" and the "Ural Bomber" project started in 1933. Some came to fruition, most didn't. Germany planned Barbarossa around the short barreled PzKWIV for infantry support and the PzKWIII E,F (37mm) and some G (50mm) as their primary tank. The Panther was a response to the T-34. It's need was not foreseen before encounters with T-34 and KV tanks.
It's kind of "funny" to see that a tank that basically was a stopgap design, from its introduction until mid 1944, had a margin of superiority over all comers that has arguably never been equalled.
Ja German engineer ing it’s die beste I’m die wald
.
peasants ! hahahahaha
The way the video kept switching between the slides and footage in the panzer museum was maddening. please don't do it that way.
I like how he says "accidenshal" for no reason lmao
KV-1 was battle tested in Winter War 1939/40 against Finland. Considering that number of Finnish generals and other officers fought in WWI as part of Juncker Battalions, it is almost certain Germans knew about existance of Soviet heavy tanks prior to WWII. Only such things are not recorded in official archives.
It was a few KV-1 used in vintner war. Quite unclear how much Finn new themself.
Rest of the world historians:
"Tiger I was excellent but everything that came after where ridiculous under engineered messes"
German historians:
"ZE KONIGS TIGER IS ZE BEST HEAVY PANZER OF ZA WORLD! EVEN BETTER THAN ZA TIGER EINS WHICH WAS ZE HALFMEASURE (despite being in development the longest -thus well thought through)
German military in the 60s:
"We want something like Sherman. Decent gun, reliable engine, comfortable crew compartment.
"Rest of the world historians" as in the pop-history pulp and internet memes that you feed on as the sole source for your opinions? Okay.
@@czwarty7878 No? That's what you hear from people who had a chance to sit in one and from historians which really cefully studied how german tanks where defeloped (including boring material science that moust skip).
Both panther and tiger 2 used complete parts engineered around 1938-40 when material scarecity was diffrent than when thoose bois rolled out- and as a result of that it was impossible to assmeble them correctly using quickly swapped material substitutions ( usually 2 or 3 substitutions drastically altering targeted properties of the part manufactued from them) - when correct anwser was to change shapes to fit availiable materials - which etremely is time consuming process in pre-cad pre-digital-spreadsheet engineering.
You can add to that volountary economic isolation of germany from the world started by big H himself on presumption of "shrinking markets theory" which accelerated process of makling alloying additives scareser.
Add to that mission creep caused by needs to resis stronger enemy AT units with degrading quality of armor (once again due to lack of alloying additives) and you have a tanks that are underenginnered, over weight and built to unachivable in curret economic conditions standards.
Compare it to T1 which was built to fit actuall human beings through extensive testing of components, and with semi-realistic economic conditions of 1940-1941 (which doesn't mean it didn't face same problems, but it's far harder to add neeedless bloat once things are rolling out of "production lines"). Like it had usable gunners optics ( unlike panther's constant 5x magnificaltion which forced commander to target quite precisely where he want's to shoot before gunner could have vaguest idea what he supposed to target), it's tactical reuirements where strict but it had chance to work properly if you didn't overextend it too much. Yes it wasn't what army wanted - but it was from period in time when what they had wasn't wildely outside of what spec said- but that also skips german (or perhaps even prussian) metality of "my thouguths trump reality" which later caused multiple engineering/political disasters of modern times like diesel gate, pump-injectors fiasco or german politics towards russia in period of 1995-2022- and propably much more examples I as a material engieer have no clue about.
@@radosaworman7628 you wrote a wall of text with zero on-topic arguments
I still don't know what "historians" you refer to, after ridiculing the video which is based literally on primary sources
@@czwarty7878 ryszard kawalec, norbert bączyk when it comes to desighn aspect (they have excellent podcast called "wojenne historie"), and Chap which name's aludes my mind but has great chanell called "TIKhistory" when it comes to ideolo-economical aspect of shrinking markets and honestly any topic when to comes to nazi ideology. Ibelive thoose two sources should be sufficient both in accesability and ease of consumption for you.
Analysys of primary sources must be taken with extreme care as depending on culture we can get lies, wild exaguration when it comes to narritive, but if noumbers they collect are not openly made up or touched up- you might be capable with getting to the bottom of the topic. And nazi germany is a place where you lie to survive so everyone lies a lot.
Sorry but when it comes to topics of historicall machines, created with from hundres of components, which are created with hundreds of parts by means of roughly hundred of operations each then you get explanations that are "walls of text". I'm very sad about your inability to comprehend that- but with bare minimum effort you might change that.
The German military never wanted something like the Sherman. How do you even come up with that.
You are wrong. There are existing photos from poland 1939 operation, germans soldiers meets t-34 personally and are speaking with t-34 crew. Look it up.
Edit: to be specific. Your opinion, germans didnt met t-34 before barbarosa is wrong. I like your work and videos.
Anyway there are couple of photos from poland 1939 from end of septemeber 1939, group of german soldiers literally 1 meter next to t-34 chatting friendly with its crew. T-34 looks like micky mouse because both hatches are open up. That nickname actually coming from this time.
I would like to see such photographs. The T-34 tank was accepted into service on December 19th, 1939. At the moment not even a prototype of the tank had been built, only its precursors (A-20 and A-32). The A-34 were built early in 1940 and tested in March-April. The T-34 only entered production in June of 1940 and began to be issued to troops in the fall, a full year after the end of the campaign in Poland.
Editing to add that the "Mickey Mouse" turret was not even put into production until December of 1941. Until then, all T-34 tanks had one single hatch that spanned the entire width of the turret.
Ratiod
Now we got your grand children trans instead glorious double the defense budget fascist daily life