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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ส.ค. 2022
- During the Second World War, the German Tiger tank rose to prominence and continues to be a popular topic of discussion even today.
The Tiger is one of the most admired tanks of the war, if not all of tank history.
Joseph Goebbels' relentless propaganda machine was instrumental in glorifying the Tiger. Tank aces like Michael Wittmann were catapulted into the spotlight and generously honored for their battlefield exploits.
While some modern interpretations portray the Tiger as a semi-mythical wonder weapon its contemporary evaluations were much more modest.
Let's have a look at the conclusions reached by British experts who analyzed this tank and the countermeasures they designed to fight it.
#tigertank #ww2tanks #tankbattle
3.26 - My dad was there when this Tiger was captured. It's Tiger 131. He was with 2nd Battalion Sherwood Foresters. He was made Lance Corporal the next day.
That tank is at Bovington Tank Museum on the South Coast of England
Last running Tiger in the world?
Well done your father 👍
@@spikemcnock8310 The Foresters went to Anzio in Feb 1944. They had 200% losses. At the end there were only 16 left out of the battalion. My father was taken prisoner in the middle of the battle. All his mates died.
@@g8ymw I do think that in Australia they are presently also rebuilding what may become a running Tiger, in the fine Australian Tank Museum? And I saw that in Ukraine they had found remnants of a Tiger in a field, just before the latest war. In the German Tank Museum in Munster, just south of Hamburg, they only have a full-size "Airfix" model of one, made from glasfiber. And soon German tanks may be trying to save Ukraine from Russia!
@@finncarlbomholtsrensen1188Wer das glaubt dass deutsche Panzer da was ausrichten könnten in der Ukraine der hat keine Ahnung
Killing other tanks during WW2 was mostly a question of getting in the first shot. The 88mm Tiger gun outshot by both distance and weight of shot all Allied opposition except the UK's 17 pounder. This created a psychological fear among Allied tank crews of both the Tiger and the Panther. Shells from the standard M4 75mm Sherman simply bounced off the Tiger even at a very close range of less than 100m.
I have seen a King Tiger after the war that was preserved and the scar marks on the front hull are crazy deep! One round hit square on where the bottom plate joins the upper plate and lodged in the hull. Two other shots only just missed the bow gunner and left 4 inch deep gauge marks that are incredible to see. It shows just how thick the armour was. Had to be done by a Firefly or a 76.2mm anti-tank gun. The bow gunners ears would of been ringing after those hits.
Tiger 131 is running today, the only Tiger 1 in the world to be running at the Tank Museum at Bovington, Dorset, England. With an engine taken from a Tiger 2. It was used in the film Fury
Also, an Australian Museum has a restored Tiger 1 and they are in the process of installing an engine and running gear to make another running Tiger.
@@geoffsails what is it doing in Australia?
@@dilly_boigaming9568 It's just at a WW2 tank museum. They have a bunch of Panzer IVs, StuGs, a Panther, a Jagdpanther and 2 Tiger 1s(an early model and late model) among other vehicles from around the world. Currently restoring a StuG III and a Jagdpanther.
Top 5 worst movies all time!!
there is also a Tiger I version E in perfect conition in the french Tank Museum, in Saumur.... but i never knew if it was able to run or not...
These videos have some excellent and unique film . Good narration with interesting detailed information. Well researched and presented. Good work.
The British innovation of squeezing the 76mm gun into the M4 turret (the 'Firefly') made a weapon system that could take on any German tank.
Not really. Allied tanks had big enough gun's, Firefly , Easy 8, but not optics. Allied tanks were good at 800 yards, German tanks were reaching out to 1.5 miles. Optics.
While it was powerful the Firefly had thin armor to make it more maneuverable…
@@richardbennett3368 The American 76mm although a more powerful gun was not a 17pounder
We took the 76mm off some American tank destroyers and fitted the 17pdr creating the Achilles.
Our TDs were used by the Royal Artillery, not the tank regiments.
The Firefly was meant to be a stopgap until our tanks that were built to take the 17pdr could come on stream.
If there was one thing we were good at is bodges to get the job done
Best laid plans etc
@@ronb7931 That's always part of the armour compromise, just as the Achilles had even thinner armour.
@@richardbennett3368 Many tank engagements were made at 200 yards in the Normandy Bocage, but the average in NW Europe was 800 yards, where Allied optics were effective and there were relatively few misses. Length of barrel, turret revolution speed and high rate of fire were all significant factors in favour of the Sherman, and an experienced crew could have three more shells in the air before the first landed. Although the Tiger's armour could not always be penetrated, damage to the tracks, optics and crew hatches were often decisive in stopping them. The effectiveness of the 17 pounder in skilled hands was shown by Sgt George Dring, when he knocked out four Panthers and Tigers in quick succession.
While they weren't a strategic game changer, the British or US tanker who had to deal with them thought they were pretty scary.
When I was a kid, we had a neighbor that claimed to have jumped an 8 ft ditch with a Sheman because he was being chased by a Tiger.
True..
I watched a video off an ex ww2 us tankers who still having nightmares where they duel with a Tiger,with many shots bounces from it like bbs & this 1 tiger DESTROYED most off his tank mates like they were tin can and staring at that 88 barrel & harrowing whoomm sounds it makes when shot is the one he fears the most..
Hard to imagine what it must have been like to know that the enemy had a tank with such a firepower superiority. It's one thing to test the guns out at six hundred yards , it must have been quite another go into an attack knowing the enemy could take you out at two or three times that range.
Well that’s the thing. Historians looking back at it will say that the best asset it had was just the mythical image of this invincible tank that will 1 hit allied tanks with its 88mm kwk36 cannon And run out of ammo before an Allied tank could pen it
But in reality they were very rare even in eastern front. They weren’t practical I mean even to transport them they wouldn’t fit on train so they’d have to disassemble tracks to put on special ones that allow them to fit and then when they arrive have to be swapped out every time they are moved and that’s just one aspect of the logistical nightmare it was so it’s not like Sherman’s or even t34s which in some cases like in Stalingrad would train free on it while it was being manufactured and the crew would drive it out of factory and into battle.
Not to mention how ridiculously expensive it was not just R&D but just cost to manufacturer not to mention the insane cost to maintain it since unlike allied tanks where they can pop smoke and get out and swap tracks or repair stuff but the tigers required special top tier maintenance crew. And you sure as hell aren’t gonna find them on the front line.
And with complex German engineering and many of the components in the tank being the literally cutting edge of technology and without wwii those technologies would have taken forever to come around (this applies to like everything the Germans made, and is why the Cold War started with the east and west attempting to assimilate as many Nazi scientists and engineers as possible into their own programs. We wouldn’t have gone to the moon without those guys)
But suffice to say all this complex stuff was overkill and not practical at all.
It’s like having a bugotti as the standard car for your pizza franchise delivery drivers
But to circle back around , none of this mattered back then Bc simply the fear of even potentially running into a tiger was enough to rattle allied tankers.
And if they saw one I’m sure they freaked out and probably sent in a huge number of AT units to destroy it.
@@matts5247 Yes just like a Bugatti delivering pizza--good image. And no problem at all for a 17pdr or 76mm gun. But only if it did not break down or collapse a bridge first.
One tiger TC answered this question best. Anytime we were down to 20 rounds 21 Shermans would show up. Not the best armor doctrine but it worked.
the usual nonsense some brit`s urgendly are in need of (:-)
@@michaelpielorz9283 Another jealous foreigner
Thank you for this presentation. One note, the penetration of the 75 mm gun against the frontal armor of the Tiger is dependent not just on the angle of the armor but also the angle of the shot. For instance, a declination in the angle of the firing gun would meaningfully increase the angle of impact making it less effective. Without this information the effect of resistance penetration or perforation cannot be ascertained.
Probably why shelling by the 25 Pounder Artillery piece helped the Australians keep the Germans out of Tobruk . Vertical penetration of the deck
Unruly scruffy but hard fighters good old Aussies
@@Rusty_Gold85 The 25 pounder was generally used in a direct fire role against closing Axis Armour.
Perhaps this is why you never see Shermans firing down from a mountain or on top of a house. 🤡
There’s a few TH-camr’s, presumably with too much free time, who have made slow motion computer simulations of various shells hitting various armoured tanks. They’re very interesting.
From 1943 on, the Germans were having difficulties obtaining tungsten and cobalt to make armor steel. Many later Tigers had fractures from being struck by shells.
The next expert that needs to learn something about metallurgie in WW II
You don't make armour out of Tungsten or Cobalt lad!
Tungsten is what goes through armour used for bullets not armour.
Tank Armour was & is still primarily made from Steel which is an Iron carbon alloy.
The problem the German had was a shortage of crude oil for quenching to surface harden steel & is why they devised clever but inferior method of surface hardening for steel armour.
Some tigers like many of the Hertz & other tank destroyers had their armour water quenched as the other methods became unviable & took knowledge of chemistry.
You see optimal armour hardness is about 300-450 Brinell with the lower end softer but less likely to shatter while the upper end shatters.
In this range what is best depend on many factor especially crew location .
water Quenched steel is about 600-700Brinel making it very brittle so it shatter/''crack'' as you put it akin to glass.
Russians did water quenching as well not because they lacked oil but basic understanding of material science for the most part & in communism quality means nothing compared to meeting production so you are not shot dead by your commissar.
Would you want to be in a Box of glass that getting shot at big guns?
Well that is what the German got in late far in 1944-1945 roughly.
@@michaelpielorz9283 Agreed!
Mind what has an Expert ever known I say?
I'm an Engineer we show our results in production/action for words are cheap & of little worth.
We don't even talk much as profession simply technical drawing & figures in front of each other then telling each how they fvcked up.
@@arnijulian6241 Thanks...historians like Johnson ("Modern Times" and Tooze ("The Wages of Destruction" mentioned the German's difficulty in optaining Tungsten(Wolfram) from Spain, and Cobalt (From Sweden) as a big factor in the decline of German armor. Thanks for the correction.
@@genekelly8467 Many historians barely speak German & panzer means armour/a tank.
It wasn't a decline in literal armour but tanks/panzers.
You see tungsten is for the AP rounds & what is the point of a large tank gun if it ha nothing to fire?
As for cobalt it is used in high powered magnets since 1931 & the German on late Panzer IV's such as the G model as well as PanzerV/panther & PanzerVI/tigers used all (electrical traverse) now an Electric motor needs magnets thus the Cobalt.
VK 45.01 (P) Porsche tiger & Elefant tank of Ferdinand truly awful used a gasoline-electric drive meaning a diesel engine that powered a generator that then powered an electric induction motor to spin the drive sprockets of the tracks.
You had so much cobalt in this from the Genie & electric motor.
Cobalt was also used by late year Germany for high speed wear rotating parts like crank, transmission & prop shafts which German mortars even to this day have a habit of snapping.
They make them to thin to save space or make them to long as they position the mounting & drive to far apart.
British tanks never had shaft issues.
Yanks did on M4 Sherman's & such but how the rounded housing on the transmission was shaped it is easy to take of & replace even on the road side.
Most yank tanks only took a day to replace shaft issues so a truck could deliver the part & bish bash bosh back together.
A late German tank has a shaft snap you have to cut panels off & use a crane in a tank garage or workshop while gutting it to get to parts.
weeks of work if not month rather then days like the allies had on most work.
Reliability & ease of repair is something media & games never cover but this is why the Germans lost ww2.
If a German tank broke down or got knocked out it was out of the fight for weeks while the allies a day or 2 at most generally.
What the point of having the best tank in the world if it spend more time in the depo & workshops then on the battle field?
German Leopards suffer from much the same issues today.
& the USA Abrams follows German tank construction so repairs are an issue but not as much as the Leopard.
Fv4043 or challenger tank has non of these issues being relatively easy to repair & very reliable.
Why no Challenger 2 has ever been destroyed to date though damaged but repaired on field.
There is a lot more to fighting vehicles including tanks besides triangle being armament, armour & speed.
I'd rather good communications, optics & sights above all as you aren't blind.
Next is an engine & transmission that is reliable rather then performance.
I'd rather be slow but the engine always runs rather then fast but thigs break constantly.
people obsess with tank external rather then the internals as mentioned.
Near Caen after D-Day a Tiger had a little run in with a certain battleship called Rodney and its 16 inch guns this resulted in a ...severe emotional moment for the Tiger crew ..damage evaluation was not possible as nothing was left !
Yes, I do believe Rodney also turned a Panzer upside down and left it see-sawing on its roof. You've gotta love the Rodney......the ultimate bad boy on the Normandy block!
An interesting story, but if nothing was left, how do they know it was a Tiger?
@@daveybyrden3936 The aircraft doing the spotting and directing the fire identifed it as such .
@@sjt275 Well, that calls into question the correctness of the spotter's identification.
Some troops - especially the British - were trained to identify Tigers. Others - including some Germans! - didn't know a Tiger from a Panther.
David, Byrden,
Absolutely right. They identified it as a Tiger, even though nothing was left? I don't recal 503, near Cagny, recording a completely obliterated Tiger of theirs. They recorded those lost and damaged to the air bombardment, armour etc.
enjoy your vids.......thank you
They would have been a game changer if produced in average numbers, worth 10 T-34s , but the Russians had 1000. For each tiger
The Russians did not have 1,8 million T-34s ;-)
Plus the odd JS1.
Tiger tanks were being knocked out or disable….from T-34s, and Upgraded Sherman tanks.
It would only take 3 of either to disable or destroy a Tiger Tank, one shot might knock out one Ally tank, but not 10 of them….Sherman’s were fast, and would definitely get close and behind…..flanking the Tiger tank, and disabling it.
In short….a German tiger tank would get only one shot, before being swarmed.
@@ebperformance8436 If it wasn’t for Hitler, D Day never would of happened,Americans would have been slaughtered on the beaches , air superiority would have been complete with jets, radio controlled bombs would have sunk everything. In a few years Germany would have the A bomb and the world would be better off than how it looks now! Russia would be gone and that would be no loss if you’ve noticed Europe would have been free of communism. America would have safety with Our nukes. Immigration would still have destroyed us as it is today. Thank God the Ww2 generation is dead not to see this na5ion now!
I'm sure the first thing that came out of that 'modest evaluation' would have been 'Gosh look at that barrel!'😎
Man oh man I wouldn't have wanted to been in any engagement with this armored beast. That 88mm canon inflicted a world of hurt on virtually anything opposing it!!😖
Tiger was a labour intensive tank that rquired a lot of looking after by experienced crews. That experience diminished over time and poor maintenance became an issue with all German equipment not just tanks.
There is a tiger tank somewhere in the old Hervey Bay military training area in Queensland Australia
It was taken there after the war for assessment under tropical jungle conditions
It sank into a swamp and was never seen again
I'm surprised you would tell us that. You should really be working to get the scrap rights and recover it and make a pile of money.
In the uk, we have the only running tiger
Anyone wanna go swamping?
@@geoffsails yes me
Presumably that'll be recorded as a FAIL then?
I read somewhere the Tiger engine had many roller bearings in it , - ingress of dirt onto the engines in harsh conditions causing premature bearing/engine failure.
Ball bearings are critical to many mechanical devices found in heavy vehicles, such as certain types of transmissions. After the U.S. Eighth Air Force heavy bombing raids against Schweinfurt in 1943 - some of whose targets were ball-bearing manufacturing plants - the Germans often ran short of them, and had to find work-arounds for them, use badly-worn examples or do without them entirely. If you've seen the film "Saving Private Ryan," during the beginning sequences of the final battle one can hear a screeching sound as two German tanks approach, a Tiger I and a Panther. That grating sound is because of the lack of ball bearings.
If you are mechanically-inclined, you know that fine grit, dust and dirt and mechanical devices do not mix well. North Africa was a challenging place to wage war, and not simply because of the fighting. The constantly blowing dust, sand and grit in the air and on the ground wrecked havoc on engines, transmissions, et al. such that both sides had to adopt specialized maintenance procedures to deal with the problem. None-the-less, equipment failures due to accelerated wear were common.
Excellent presentation
Beautiful machine just not reliable and very thirsty.
Excellent video, thanks very much.
Thanks for watching!
Like I said two videos back.....the 6 pdr had a decent reputation of taking out over confidence Tigers and Panthers
TRUE...
THERES NO TANKS THAT HAS SUCH INFINITE OR GOD ARMOR EVEN IN MODERN TANK TODAY.. BUT DURING WW2,THE ONLY WAY TO COMPLETELY DESTROY A PANTHER OR TIGER IS USING 'APCBC' -ARMOR PIERCING COMPOSITE BALLISTIC CAP' WHICH IS HARD TO COME BY IN EARLIER ENCOUNTER WITH THEM
A 6 pounder took out Wittmann's Tiger inside Villers Bocage. It went through the side armour around the wheels for the track and apparently did terminal damage to the transmission. Wittmann and his crew had to walk a number of kilometers to get back to his own lines.
surprising really that a 57mm gun could do that.
@@moss8448 Not really the 6pdr OQF could penetrate over 110mm of armour at 500 metres, enough to penetrate a Tiger Ausf E frontally, and easily penetrate both Tiger Ausf E and Panther from the side at up to 1000 mtr.
@@freddieclark what a great system ammo delivery wise
Very nice production's. As an "Original Transcon RR" enthusiast, and a WW2 history buff, these narratives make perfect sense. Thanks and subscribed. 😇
Glad you liked it
Even with its 'faults', I'm sure Allied tankers feared/respected the Tiger as Allied infantryman did with the MG-42 machine gun.
I seriously doubt Allied infantry would be aware of the difference between the MG 34 and the MG 42, particularly if the 42 was modified for reduced fire.
"Look out lads, it's a Tiger"
"Don't worry, it'll break down in a minute"
Is a conversation heard nowhere, ever! 😄
The fact is, if you ran into one, the Tigers gun could outrange most, if not all allied tanks.... Even with its faults it was still a fearsome weapon...
As the allies found out in the ETO average combat ranges were 650-800 metres. This completely nullified the Tiger's one major advantage.
@@freddieclark Only in France, in Germany combat ranges of more than 1000 meters were very common.
@@TTTT-oc4eb By the time the allies were on German soil the threat of any large scale panzer attacks was pretty much gone.
@@freddieclark There were plenty of tank vs tank action in Germany from late 1944 and onwards.
@@TTTT-oc4eb Oh please, not in any way comparable to those fought in France and the low countries. By the way the western allies did not begin major operations in Germany until early 1945.
Well, one way would be to keep the Tiger chasing you until it broke down... They're great looking things (and, when they work, they were fearsome) - but they spent most of their time being repaired.
At 01:35 it says a Tiger knocked out 31 January was "First to be captured by the Allies".
That's not so. The USSR was an ally, and they had captured Tigers on 18 January.
At 03:55 it says "Winston Churchill and King George VI were shown the tank (131)"
Those two men are indeed in the video at that point, and they are examining a Tiger.
But it's not Tiger 131.
At 04:10 the narration is about Tiger 131, and we're seeing images of Tiger 131.
But at this moment a photo from Russia is inserted, showing a different flavour of Tiger, on railway cars that didn't exist in Tunisia.
The photo seems to be a mistake.
At 05:32 the narrator starts into a long segment about Tigers in Tunisia.
But he shows us film clips from Italy and Germany.
There are plenty of photos from Tunisia, including photos of the very tests that he's talking about.
At 09:06 the narrator says the 508 battalion was first to meet the Allies in Italy (with Tigers).
He says Tigers began fighting in Italy in February 1944.
The narrator doesn't seem to know that Sicily is a part of Italy.
Tigers of the 504 fought there in mid 1943.
I believe that the Tiger I got it's present reputation from a short descriptive paragraph on the outside of a kit they made of it - which I saw and built in the early 1970s. It said that regular US Army practice was to use at least 4 tanks to fight one or else not fight it. But that was the time when we were all discovering that Japanese language histories and assembly instructions could somehow not translate very well, even though the Tamiya and Hasegawa kits were superb.
That was nearly 50 years ago, though. I think this is an example of why there should be an organization that reviews and regularly makes pronouncements about "what's actually true." Because letting companies interested mostly in making money determine what real facts are is JUST A BAD IDEA in general.
But, the US army would be operating in platoons and companies, so realistically no fewer than 4 Shermans would be sent after a Tiger, that's just doctrine and nessesity when combating a heavy tank with medium tanks that often couldn't penetrate Its heavy frontal armor. It's a reasonable thing to write on the box.
Any report of a Tiger would most likely bring in at least a company of Hellcat Tank Destroyers, because that's what TD companies and battalions are for.
I also think any enemy tank must have been scared those who faced it and the tiger was big. The Germans would equally have feared any allied tank that was advancing and firing at them.
Obviously, the Brits looked very closely at the design of the Tiger which helped them, right at the end of the war, to introduce the Centurion which was one of the all time greats.
I beg to differ,Tiger was.,at best,a mobile pillbox.If anything influenced Cent development it was the Panther
@@stevenbreach2561 ... and the panther was a copy of the t-34 with improvements.
There's something about the Tiger that has an awe about it. Bit like the Spitfire.
The amazing thing, about the Spitfire, was its Engine, it was similar in design to the Rolls Royce "Car Engine", and in a steep Dive, it used to cut out, but, the German Fighters (Messersmitt & FW190) engines, and firepower, were far more advanced, particularly, very early in the War, but the manoeuvre ability, of the Spitfire, was something that the German Pilots feared, what a fantastic Fighter Plane, the Spitfire was, with their very young, and inexperienced Pilots, some with only 5/6 hours of training, against The German Fighter Aces, who had been preparing for War, since 1937. The 4 main reasons, that we won WW2, were (1) Pearl Harbor, this cowardly attack, brought the USA, into WW2. (2) The "RAF" in the Battle of Britain. (3) Germany attacking, and losing, during their failed Invasion of Russia in (1941) they also, had to endure, the worst "Winter" in Russia, in living memory. (4) The Allies, successful Invasion of France, in 1944. (D Day). We also must not forget North Africa, where we were fighting against F/M Rommel's, Afrika Corps, who had many of the dreaded "Tiger Tank's". I lived through WW2. (I was 10 in 1939) We came VERY close to LOSING, WW2, and it was only for the fact, that when Japan, attacked, Pearl Harbor, it then brought the USA into the War, otherwise, 82% of the American, Population, were AGAINST coming into the War (fact). Prior, to coming into WW2, the USA, sent us "Tens of Millions of Lease Lend Aid" via the North Sea Convey (Including Sherman Tanks, and all types of Guns & Ammunition, Lorrie's, Bren Gun Carriers, and Millions of Tons of FOOD. Coop93
I just remembered something, that happened, in the British parliament, in 1941. It was suddenly announced, that Japan had attacked "Pearl Harbor" this caused Winston Churchill to jump to his feet, and shout out "Today we won the War" how right he was. Because without that happening, we would have stood NO chance of winning, we were completely unprepared for War. Our best Tank, was a "Valentine" that had a very small caliber Gun 45 mm ?, but we did have the "Bren Gun Carrier" (big deal). Coop93
@@gordoncooper9532 Dont forget Reciprocal Lend Lease not one cent of which was paid by the USA e.g. 200 double strip airfields built for the USAAF by Brits Millions of GBP and not one penny was forthcoming So enough of what we owed, concentrate on what they owed.
@@gordoncooper9532 After the Battle of Britain Germany could not invade . Britain had its Empire to sustain it. Win NO, Lose NO.
@@jacktattis bullshit they had a bigger air force when they started east in'41.Hitler planned on finishing off the fauntleroys later after the Bolsheviks - Englishman.Cute little Island certainly smack around places like Austalia or Canada with little populations,maybe some Ghandi disciples or Falklands Goat herders,had problems with the Big Boys - no empire though. The Reds and the GIs saved the crumbling crown
Here's a thought. Yes, the Tiger was massively armoured and had reasonable speed for it's size. But others more knowledgeable than myself have explained in detail why the size and weight were problematic. However, surely the only standout feature beyond debate was the 88mm gun and nothing more?
Perhaps a lighter and slightly smaller tank with an 88mm would have been a more sensible option. Or scrap the Tiger and focus on development of the Panther?
They made a light armored tank destroyer with the 88. Knockout any tank at 2500 yards away. Sherman was a good tank, in killing their crew.
I always thought they'd have been better off cranking out lots of Panthers with that long barrel 75mm.
The most effective German armored vehicle was the StuG III. Building a larger vehicle in this style mounting the 88mm might have been more effective.
A smaller tank with the 88mm gun would not be practical. You need a vehicle that can carry the weight and has sufficient internal room to operate the gun.
@@leonardosena6338 The Sherman was quite a surviveable tank. I've heard multiple stories of tanks being taken out, their crew surviving, picking up a new tank from a depot, and returning to battle. With one of these stories, iirc, the crew was on their fourth tank.
They did have a brief problem in Normandy where they were going up against heavier German guns that were setting off ammo stored in the turret. Wet storage on the floor of the tank was introduced in response to this, which solved the problem (though just moving the ammo to the floor may have been all that was needed.
If I had to be a tanker in WW II and could pick any tank to be assigned to, I would pick a Sherman for the highest probability of making it through the war alive.
A large part of this survivability of the Shermans is due to other factors, such as air power, overwhelming superiority in artillery, the superior supply chain of the Western Allies (so no shortage of ammo for artillery), superior combined arms doctrine by later in the war, etc. But fact remains that a loss of a Sherman generally didn't mean the loss of the crew, and most Shermans were not lost at all.
Part of the superior supply chain is that instead of producing temperamental wonder weapons that some profiteer demonstrated to Hitler, Allied equipment had to get through more bureaucratic procurement boards which generally required them to be engineered for reliability, and backed by spare parts and maintenance crews to keep them all operational - as well as overproducing equipment so that they had spares readily available.
Survival rate of Tiger tanks was quite low (over 90% lost during the war) primarily due to them being used on the losing side. (overwhelmed by the Red Army or just not being very survivable against Allied combined arms doctrine.
@@iansneddon2956 7300 Shermans were lost from DDAY UNTIL THE END
Finally a reasonable analysis
'Bill' a captain in charge of a battery of 6 x 25 pounders in the desert told me this. An aircraft came in one morning and machine gunned them. This happened again on the second day in identical circumstances. On the third day the aircraft again came at them with flaps down und undercart. At point blank range it got 6 x 25lb HE rounds. Dispite numerous radio messages this American aircraft had ignored all recognition signals. Bill was court marshalled - at the Americans request - and repremanded. He said at the court marshall he didn't care if they shot him, his men mattered more. A few months later he was made a major. Unfortunately there were no remains of the pilot. Bill died in a home in Briton UK age 84. An Englishman is never angry until it's 'almost' too late.
Thanks, that adds a lot to our knowledge of Tigers.
It adds to our knowledge of Americans though.
@@GoldsmithsStats My blood oath.
" Jim. get into the truck, I have something I want to show you!" Half an hour later we arrived . there was maybe 75 Shermans parked in that cornfield. all headed down the road to be melted down and made into wire, hooks and other useful steel things. Someone later told me the Wire Mill's big ladel had no problem holding such a load.
Later we were at the Rock Island arsenal seeing a Sherman that had way too many punctures to remain useful as a weapon
Then there was the incident of my Grandfather's prank with the Civil War cannon in the Country Square. A wooden plug was supposed to make it harder to mess with it. That piece of wood went flying down the street! Breaking a wooden door , from bott0m to top.
Tiger 131 is still running today. 10 hours of maintenance for every hour of operation. Later Tigers had better engines. The decision to use massive amounts of Shermans was George Marshall's
Tiger 131 is using a later engine that was removed from a Tiger II to make it mobile, so.... your point is?
Not quite. Between the Wars only $85,000 was allocated for research into tanks. It showed. As the main weapon of U.S armored columns the M4 resulted in horrendous losses that threw an extra load on the other arms. Only though the combined efforts of armed infantry, self propelled artillery, tank destroyer units, and pinpoint bombing by P47’s were our great tank losses partially offset. Theses losses forced a basic change in the application of our Armed Forces Doctrine which said that tanks were not supposed to fight tanks and were for breakout situations only, which further meant that Germans sought out our tanks whenever possible. A heavier tank like the M26 would have given our tank crews a fighting chance. The armored divisions only began receiving M26’s at the end of November 1944. The M26 should have come much sooner. Patton, who usually got his way, directed that the M26 project be set aside and concentration be instead on the M4 (because we needed a fast medium tank and “tanks were not supposed to fight tanks anyway”). This was a disastrous decision based on inflexible military thinking.
@@pierrelaband Strange then that the M4 Sherman in US service in the ETO had a 3.6 to 1 kill ratio over the Panther tank. Also the US tank crews had (percentage wise) far far fewer losses than the Infantry branch. Patton had absolutely NOTHING to do with the decision to delay M26 production, he was a field commander not part of the Armour board (I assume you got that nugget from reading Belton Cooper, and it is hogwash) it was General McNair of Ground Forces Command, back in the US, who delayed the M-26 program. Pinpoint bombing by P-47's?, I assume you mean close air support which actually was terrible at taking out enemy armour, as Both the British and Americans detailed in after battle examinations.
Steam locomotives needed about 150 hours of maintenance for each hour of operation……..good that these things weren’t steam driven!!!
Stavros
@@freddieclark I have read that close air support was not as effective as believed, but that doesn't seem to be the opinion of the men at the sharp end of armoured operations. Several biographies, by tank commanders like John Render and Bill Bellamy, credit the Typhoons and P-47s with breaking up German armoured attacks and my father, also a TC, often expressed his thanks for having his life saved by the 'Cab Rank' system. The direct damage may have been less effective than thought, but the psychological effect on German formations was apparent.
301 is preserved in working order at The Tank Museum at Bovingdon, Dorset
Many of our tank comanders said the easy way to knock out a Tiger Tank was to fire a shell into its arse where it most vulnerable. This policy was adopted by the British and American tank commanders in World War 2. Alan/Liverpool.
I read a book years ago called "The Tigers are Burning" and it broke down the weaknesses of this machine. The book mainly focused on the battle of Kursk, and why the expectations of the tiger and other of the larger tanks like the Ferdinand failed to do the job. ( great book, but full of flaws )
That book and most on Kursk have been debunked so badly.The Tigers in small numbers more than distinguished themselves and were superior to any Allied tank PERIOD!! Read the books by George Nipe ,Blood, Steel and Myth and Decision on the Mius for truthful figures on how Badass the Tigers were!!
@@malemesjager41 you know, I wondered about that book. I was going to mention some of the inaccuracies, but it was still a good read. But I agree with you totally
Hi Gowensbach,be sure to get the Nipe book Blood,Steel and Myth.... believe me you'll enjoy it!!😎
@@malemesjager41 I will, thanks. I thought I might have it already, but that was guns, germs and steel lol
@@malemesjager41hate to rain on your parade! But upgraded Sherman, and T-34s was able to knock out a tiger tank.
The Tiger tank did have Weaknesses….it’s engine was not well protected, a shot from behind, did destroy, or disable them.
3.23 The Bovington Tank Museum has down-lowed a Utube story debunking the Churchill shot that jammed the tiger turret. Close examination reveals the shot was from a 75mm projectile fired by a French made 75mm gun recently capture from the Germans by British soldiers. The Churchill didn't mount a gun that large.
Churchill VI and VII did have that gun and they did go to Tunisia
um no tatters the tanks.artillery from the USA
@@bigwoody4704 Some tanks YES but no artillery
we had 5.5 inch and 25 pounders they were not compatible with your artillery
eat shyt slappie monty was a pedo is only studied as a bad example.if Morshead had his advantages he would have won quicker
*FDR and American Foreign Policy,1932-1945,by Robert Dallek,page 347* "Trobruk has surrendered with 25,000 men taken prisoner "the telegram said."....one of the heaviest blows I can recall during the war......I did not attempt to hide from the president the shock I had received" Churchill wrote .President Roosevelt made an offer of immediate help. The Americans agreed to ship 300 new Sherman tanks and 150 self propelled 105mm howitzers to the British in North Africa
Along with the Torch Landings - forces included 60,000 troops in Morocco, 15,000 in Tunisia, and 50,000 in Algeria. O'Connor and Auchinleck/Dorman-Smith built that Desert Army and both had already won there. ULTRA supplied enemy troop locations/movements and these deployments forced Rommel's hand as now there would be more enemy troops to deal with. And he wasn't getting either reinforced or resupplied and God know how many trucks, tanks, jeeps, planes were sent fresh from US Factories.
@@jacktattis See the tank museum video about the incident. I think they would be unbiased.
This video is mostly NOT about its claimed subject (how the British destroyed Tigers).
It spends the majority of its running time talking about places where Tigers fought, how their mobility was bad, how the British got samples, what the British did with their samples, etc. This is all tangential to the title subject.
Only about twently percent of the video is directly about "how the British destroyed Tigers". We hear about some British guns and the damage they could do to it. Numbers and angles are quoted to the half-degree, which is much more accuracy than we need.
But even that segment does not fulfil the promise of the title. It's only about some gunnery testing.
A video with this title should explain what tactics the British would employ against Tiger units, what weapons they would most often have available, and how they would use them.
Yes interesting video. But, as you say: needlessly inaccurately titled.
@@user-oo8xp2rf1k clickbait
That was very informative. Really broke down the myth of the unstoppable Tiger.
No one desired to tangle with a Tiger but they were far from indestructible. There were only about 110 in all of Normandy and many were broken down and in need of repair. As the campaign carried on the Tiger virtually disappeared from the entire battlefield. They were a non factor in the campaign and indeed in the war, with only about 1300 being produced from 1942 to 1945.
@@ToddSauve They clearly had their issues, but to claim they were a non-factor in the war is nonsense. It is well known that they were very formidable on the battlefield and their 88 mm Guns were legendary. At the time of their introduction they were nothing short of dominant. Their production numbers were low because they were expensive and complex and because Hitler was foolish with Germany's resources.
@@beestoe993 Many, many more Allied tanks were knocked out by 88 mm antitank guns and 75 mm antitank guns than by Tigers.
I am _not_ saying Tiger tanks were not good tanks. But when put in proper perspective they made almost no difference in the outcome of WW2.
In Tunisia, where the Tiger got its reputation, only 7 of the 32 Tigers deployed there were destroyed in combat in 5 months of trying. The Tigers in contrast, knocked out around 150 allied tanks (lowest figure, upper figure is 200 plus).
@@lyndoncmp5751 Still, you know that in the overall scheme of the war the Tigers were a hiccup. That is looking at it in hindsight and not as the poor soul who was tasked with facing it, or waking up with the fear of it.
But how to kill a Maus?
(Good trick I heard was that you first immobilise the vehicle by driving a Hetzer under the front tracks, then you immobilise the turret by somehow getting a Type 89B up on the engine covers - then you can take it out at your leisure with a Panzer IV in a handy elevated position. Easy Peasy!)
They may have been aiming for the schweine kopf at the bottom of the gun which happened with Panthers until the design was changed. Hitting the correct spot could ricochet a round through the deck armour into the cabin.
Same problem exist on any tank with a rounded mantlet. It happened on Tigers as well. This 'defect' is first mentioned in the report done on the Kursk Panther (gifted by the Russians) which was released just before D-Day. It says it is one possible theoretical weakness and given it will have been seen by a good number of Allied tank crews I suspect it to be the root of all the subsequent claims that ' I heard trooper X in the 234th Huzzas did it on the 12th of never'. Andrew Wilson's 1974 book 'Flamethrower' makes good use of the legend and 90% of the later accounts that mention it happening are just repeating the specific incident claimed in Wilsons book.
@@michaelkenny8540in the battle of France the Germans came up against a Char tank which was superior to their tanks but they found a weakness, a grill on the side which they used to knock out the French tanks.
The kill ratio of Tiger was 10:1 in small combat and 17:1 in bigger battles......
The tiger 1 was about as perfect of a tank could get back then. Honestly had they just slanted the armor more all around they could have kept the basic design of the tank and would have been even more devastating than a tiger 2. Cheaper/lighter/and simpler to build.
Excellent....
"The Tank that killed itself" lol.
Excellent.history! Good job!
Thank you!
@@FactBytes sure boss! Do more REAL facts!
I met an old WW2 US ARMY Tanker one day leaving the gym and had the opportunity to talk. He told me he fought in the battle of the Bulge. He said he was assigned to a Sherman and knocked out the Tiger Tanks by hitting the tracks and from behind. He was one sharp dude. Opened the door of his Buick for his wife like he was 20 years old.. A true gentleman. One of the last bad asses of WW2.
The conclusions re production being complex, and consequently slow, line up with a very interesting talk on Tank production in WW2, where the Russians massively outproduced the Germans, there were various reasons for this, but it was a relatively simple machine which could be produced quickly and also maintained in combat easily.
One interesting aspect of this is that the Russians were aware that the 'working life' of a tank was normally no more than a few months, and they used lower quality components rather than the high quality components that the Germans used.
The German obsession with 'wunderwaffe' also held them back by constantly developing new aircraft instead of churning out a 'good enough' aircraft like the Spitfire.
@@capoeirastronaut I guess you’ve never heard of the BF-109 and FW-190, have you?
All western tanks today were build with high quality than sheer numbers, so the germans were right to build Tigers.
Do you remember the Moskvich! people were passing by Porsche and BMW to snap up one of those. But fair comment amount and quality of crew matters It's a good job the Ukraine lot aren't facing Georgy Zhukov and co, even with Challengers and the yank tanks. As I have lived near ROF Barnbow Leeds since 1954 ( sadly now a housing estate) I watched ( and heard ) tanks since 1954 starting with the Centurion ( better sounding don't you think than a bloody Matilda ) They used to come Down Austhorpe road on the back of Antar Tank transporters with Motor cycle outriders, used to make you feel proud that we could still make something!!
@@WisGuy4 The biggest problem for the Germans was their training programs for replacement pilots. The German plans were for short wars, so the instructors from the training programs would be sent into combat to gain experience they could bring back to the schools afterwards. Great for Poland, but after the losses in France they went straight into the Battle of Britain where they consistently lost aircrews at a much faster rate than the British. Production capability was another weakness (as Britain outproduced Germany in aircraft by almost 2:1 in 1940, for example).
Chamberlain's government had stressed aircraft production - at one point just telling the RAF they could buy any plane built in Britain without regards to their budget, to leave it to the Government to figure out how to pay for it all. And in 1939 they established the Commonwealth Air Training Plan with the goal of training 50,000 pilots per year. They fell short and it wasn't until later in 1940 that the graduates of this program began to reach Britain.
Key point is that while Germany was planning to defeat the RAF quickly with no clear plan on how to do so, Britain was waging a long-term battle of attrition in the air.
When the Battle began, Germany sent around 800 single engine fighters (most/all Bf-109s) against RAF Fighter Command that had around 650 operational fighters which included obsolete Gloster Gladiator biplanes. At substantial cost over weeks of fighting, the Luftwaffe turned their might against radar stations, airstrips, and aircraft manufacturing and managed to bring RAF Fighter Command's strength down to 700.
Throughout the Battle of Britain the Luftwaffe was shrinking while the RAF was generally growing in strength.
In June 1941, around the launch of Barbarossa, the Luftwaffe's overall strength was not much different than the portion of their strength they had sent against Britain in 1940. They still hadn't recovered from the Battle of Britain.
Meanwhile, by May 1941 RAF Fighter Command had almost 900 Hurricanes and Spitfires stationed in Britain to defend the Isles. This force was almost equal to the total operational single engine fighters of the entire Luftwaffe. This of course excludes RAF fighter aircraft deployed elsewhere, such as Egypt. By September 1941, RAF fighter command had over a thousand Spitfires and Hurricanes (the Spitfire by this point was in superior numbers to the Hurricane). I don't have stats for the additional RAF strength deployed elsewhere, but point is that after 1940 the RAF had strength to spare while the Germans couldn't do much more than keep up with replacing losses.
My Uncle was the Captain of the 607 th Tank Destroyer division and took out a King Tiger with a Grenade Launcher division and shot the Grenade through the Hatch of the Tiger and earned him the Bronze Metal ,,, His Stories were Amazing I have a feeling he was the only one to do this/?
Statistics showed that on the average, one Tiger killed 5.25 Allied tanks. This includes the non combat losses like breakdowns where German tank crews were forced to destroy their own tanks when they broke down.
However, one Tiger used the same amount of Steel as in producing 22 105MM German howitzers. I believe those howitzers as a whole would have destroyed more than 5.25 Allied tanks. From this Video, the narrator states that these Tigers were used as artillery. Really?
The howitzers would have done a more effective job.
The Tigers were fearsome, but German Industry could have done more with those resources.
100 meter penetration doesn’t seem impressive. Hard to imagine how many would get killed while getting to that 100M range.
That's why you wouldn't try to get to that range, you would retreat.
@@ThePTBRULES Only reason I’d be 100 meters from a Tiger in WWII would be because my vehicle and both legs were broken! I would’ve left long before then or buried myself in a deep foxhole etc.
I saw Tom Hanks shooting one with his Colt 1911
All the Tigers shown in your video were the earlier Tiger One. You said little about the later Tiger Two which I assumed solved a lot of the teething problems and it had even heavier armor, as seen by the slopped turret. The Tiger one have a lot of vertical surfaces which were designed out of the Tiger Two. But it took till the Leoperd to eliminate those interlaced wheel design which are very difficult to maintain. It was a superior design effort , along with the MG42 , consider it was done in the middle of a losing war.
The Tiger II was considered even more of a failure because the faults of the Tiger I were far worse, same engine but 16 tons heavier!
I love how everyone jumps on the tank v tank battle as everyday, when it was anti tank guns and artillery that killed most tanks.
I think in total around 1100 Tiger 1 and 2 were made. And because of many "improvements" on German tanks, they had difficulty in finding the needed spares, so many became left in Russia during the retreat because of that. Opposite the really - huge numbers of new T34 produced in several and newly built Russian factories in the east, which all had interchangeable spares! American industrial experts helped Stalin building new and highly efficient factories, when he realized that the Germans may soon overrun his arms factories and that they would have move them out of reach from the Germans.
Could you give us an example of an "improvement" on the Tiger that would immobilise it if you needed the old part but could only get the new part?
@@daveybyrden3936 By constantly making improvements they introduced new parts and drives - not necessarily on the Tiger, of which they hadn't that many, but on new types, which at one time needed spares! And when needed, they couldn't find any spares and had to leave, other vise fine tanks in the battlefield. The Russians produced one fine tank, which - mostly stayed the same (T34 got a larger turret) but on which spares from many Factories could be used, interchangeable. I think T34 was produced in 4 factories. And when you have ten times the number, it doesn't matter if one brakes down.
@@finncarlbomholtsrensen1188 All right, then.
Could you give us an example of an "improvement" on a Panzer that would immobilise it if you needed the old part but could only get the new part?
@@daveybyrden3936 Well easily! By constantly making improvements and new and better systems you also still need - new spareparts for those, besides being able to deliver the - old parts also for the former types! I know of (Not personally, of course! I'm only 75) a lot of, other vise fine German tanks, which had to be left, when they broke down, because - no one knew where to find the essential spareparts for them! And in a still more - small industrialized Germany, because of the bombing, it must have been harder to find special spares! In 1944 German production of airplanes reached its highest numbers, but only a few actually functioned, to be able to defend Germany.
@@finncarlbomholtsrensen1188 I used the word "example" which means that I'm asking for a specific item - tell us what it was, why the tank could not move without it, and why the "improved" part could not be used.
thanks for sharing...
That is the best looking tank of all tanks I would live in a tiger 1 just beautiful and scary at the same time
"...evaluation was more modest..." ? I'd say a 4 to 1 cost over a Mk IV, but a 10 to 1 kill ratio (or so) says otherwise. The video is excellent; the war-time analysis had some propaganda in it. Relative to other methods, almost no Tigers were killed by Western Allies tanks. And even the mistaken identification of a German tank to be a Tiger caused panic during the Normandy campaign (but we got better).
Whitman's Tiger had it's turret removed by a Sherman Firefly from over 800 yards away.
wera you not listening more than one Tiger was taken out by Churchills 'only' equipped with 6 pounders
@@philippedersen7178 No, Joe Ekins could not possibly have killed Wittmann's Tiger on August 8, 1944 near Gaumsnil in Normandy. The shot that killed Wittmann came from the opposite direction of Ekins. The _only_ logical conclusion is that one of the Shermans from the Sherbrooke Fusiliers fired the shot that penetrated his Tiger in the left rear engine vent area and entered the ammunition stowage, igniting it and blowing off the turret. The Sherbrooke Fusiliers were less than 500 feet from the Tiger while Ekins was a kilometer away.
The British 17 pounder had no trouble dealing with the tiger 1, tiger 2 was a different matter.
@@andrewaustin6369 Actually, Fireflies took out Tiger 2s in Normandy. In one battle a Firefly took out two of them during the breakout south of Caen! But the Tiger 2's drive train usually took them out of the battle for the Allies. That and there were very few bridges that could support their weight.
The truth of the matter is Tiger 1s never did a good job at open battlefield combat. Their shining moments were either in long range sniping engagements or sneak attack/ambush in close quarters combat. When angled properly close range or long, it was nigh invulnerable to almost every gun the allies or Soviets had at the time. Most Tiger 1 commanders also had combat experience before in either a StuG assault gun or one of the Panzer III or IV variants which led to a decently armored, fast moving heavy tank with a powerful main gun with an experienced commander and crew against mostly fresh recruits in an outgunned, lesser armored medium tank, like the T-34 1940-1942 or the M4 75. There was even accounts of a Tiger 1 that stormed a town occupied by British forces and had a close quarters engagement with a Sherman Firefly. The Tiger angled properly and bounced 3 shots fired by the Firefly before knocking it out. Although the armor had many weak spots and was plagued with over complex German engineering, the Tiger 1 was a menace in the hands of an experienced commander and crew. Just wished more Tigers survived, as it's probably the most iconic tank of WW2, if not all of history.
The zTiger was a mechanical nightmare.
Some of the Tigers Tank getting hit two hundred times most of the time from 76,2mm Putilow antitank cannon Still stable remaining in combat around Kursk -Parachowka battle ground
Cool....!!
You didn't mention blowing up its fuel before it got in the tank! That worked, too.
Great vid, thank you!! //Lars
Interesting
Why were Tigers equipped with gasoline engines (Maybach) and not with diesels? A fuel availability problem?
Funny how gunnery success or failure as gone full circle, well in periods I'm talking about, it's unfortunately still being assessed in the Ukraine 🇺🇦. But in the Nepoleonic Wars ,especially Trafalgar the British ships rate of fire and obviously seaman ship was paramount to the outcome. In North Africa was yet again decisive by the Gunnery skills of Artillery, BRITAIN seems to excellently get by the Money Mean ,expectations of politicians thinking, That its theirs and only their's, Must be spent in Whitehall or Westminster. The Bubble, Which the Country always sorts out side the Bubble. THINK THEYED HAVE LEARNT BY NOW , obviously not . Ho well you can't educate Pork nomatter who the Hog is .
In the Napoleonic wars the Americans used American black oak for their warships it was like iron. The British used to raid American forests to take away black oak for their own warships. The English still do not have an English Government in Manchester until we do the London elites will continue to treat us like serfs. We cannot even get an English Passport for ourselves!
Always enjoy a bit of validation of one's point by flippant racism.
Sure it's fair to say that the allies chose correctly in quantity over quality using their advantage of industry, and that in retrospect the Germans would of been better producing the more of the economical Panzer 4 instead of only 1500 Tigers, but every single interview I've ever seen with allied tankers had said they wish they were the ones using Tigers. The allies might of chosen correctly strategically, but it seemed criminal to me that they sent our soldiers to fight with a tank with inferior armor and gun. They did upgun some of the Shermans by 1944 with a 76mm gun which performed much better, but a little too little and a little too late since they only made a couple thousand of them
Only around 1300 where produced overall and most of them went to the eastern front. But every tank the allies met in france was a "tiger" according to them. The americans saw the tiger 3x at all during the war and the british not much more often.
Only 1354 Tigers were build, 30 000- 40 000 T-34s where build. IF you have a Porche or LADA. Hwos gonna win. Numbers.
*Americans and British during the 2nd world war see any German Tank: TIGER!!!!!
Not really accurate the British were well up on their recognition of German armour but yes a lot of Americans reported Tiger's when fighting Pz 4's.
Fortunately Germany didn't have even close the number of Tigers that have been spotted.
@@andrewaustin6369 oh really they weren't Tigers that drove the British from the continent in the 1st place. GI tankers could spot them from the side with the large wheels being the same size front to back
@@bigwoody4704 Yes but we fought German TANKS IN North Africa before you were even there Woody And we beat them at El Alamein before you were even there.
Oh and the PZIV had upper track rollers and the Tiger did not.
I have always made the case that the Tiger was a beast, but over rated under most adverse conditions, which are common in warfare. Apparently I was correct.
Well done, you.
It's a beautiful tank, baby! It lacks loud speakers , to play music very loud. And paint grenades, to paint colourfull pictures.
Oddball The Greatest
...There was frost in the ground
When the tigers broke free
And no one survived
From the Royal Fusiliers Company C...
76 Sherman Crew: You called?
The 45 Tiger tanks sent to Italy by the Germans would be of better use if they sent them to Russia which had much more open terrain.
Where do you get this number "45" ? There were two fully equipped battalions, which makes 90, plus the company in Sicily plus the Meyer group.... Ron Klages calculated the maximum number of Tigers in Italy AT ONE TIME to be 93.
@@daveybyrden3936 From his video.
@@josephgonzales4802 Ah, well, that's the problem with TH-cam.
@@daveybyrden3936 You can't believe everything you hear. 😌
When it comes right down to it the German tank is a paper tiger what was the difference between the Hellcat and Firefly they were both tanks weren't they
thank goodness there wasn't that many of those things
What Really made the Tiger tank soo formidable is its 88mm gun...!!
Yes, the Tiger's greatest defense was its gun. It's armor could be overcome at close range without too much difficulty, the trouble was getting that close across the long killing zone of the 88mm gun.
Sherman firefly match tiger’s firepower and quickly produces in equal numbers. This was on top of allied air supremacy. Tiger is no match for Typhoons, Thunderbolt.
With so much hype and stupid assumptions its no wonder the Churchill with 6Pdr was not named the Tiger Killer . It would have if it was American. Probably due to British underestimation and dour bravado. If Germany had done more development with the PZ IV Tank it would have saved them materials and supply problems extensively experienced with the Tiger1. This tying up resources didn't help their efforts one bit. Having only 12 operational Tanks out 45 breaking down is a waste of "300,00 Marks" each. The IV would have been like the Sherman quick fast and plenty that could be returned to service quicker
AGREED,and pretty much what I've gathered also prolly could have snuck a lot more Stug IIIs for practicle puposes for staunch defensive roles
Germany needed a heavier assault tank than the Pzr IV, so they had to come up with something. Also, the Germans had seen the KV heavy tanks the Soviets had produced, & expected them to get even bigger during the war - that's why the Germans ended up with their super heavy tanks programme, they were to be the answer to both their attacking requirements, & the expected Soviet new models. As it happened, the Soviets reviewed their infrastructure & requirements, & went down the Joseph Stalin tank route, which was smaller than the Germans originally expected.
You are not far off the mark, however by '44 the Mk IV was showing its age and had been upgraded as much as it could take, it wasn't as quick and fast as it had been in the early 40's.
The M4 still had room for several upgrades, HVSS, 76mm and trucked on later years with the Israelis. The Churchill was limited by it's crap engine and it's turret ring, so not point upgrading, whilst the Cromwell's upgrade was the Comet - then the Centurion.
@@ronhall9394 No The PZIV with the long Barrel L48 was well capable of up grades
Very easy with the propper gun!
less than 1900 mark 6 were produced, most of them were destroyed on the russian front, on the western front there where nut much of a threat
The drivetrain was a much worse problem for the Tiger than Allied tanks. No Allied tank wanted to go head to head with a Tiger. One round from that 88 would go right through a Sherman like it was made of paper…
That is why the RAC ambushed the Germans
jackie swetheart break you prozac in half
this from a Euro Poster
Monty lost a lot. What he won - he won with overwhelming superiority in men, materials,air supremecy and ULTRA. Then barely and poorly.Britain had a chance to be relevant and help the French beat the Germans in 1940. She failed utterly and miserably. From that point onward, whatever Britain does and regardless of what happens to her - the war ends the same way - with Germany crushed by the USSR and the US - in that order.
Yet with the notable exception of the allies decisive November 1942 victory at El Alamein, where massive supply advantages, air cover & naval blockade of German supplies, factoring in ULTRA weighed heavily in those results. The battlefield records of the “combat experienced” British commanders prior to mid-1944 featured little to brag about.
Brooke, who had been a field grade artillery officer in World War I, and whose service included planning the fire support for the horrifically disastrous 1916 Battle of the Somme, had little personal combat experience in World War II. And what Brooke and Monty did have consisted principally of presiding over a series of early war disasters inflicted by the Germans - notably, his corps’ hasty May 1940 retreat to Dunkirk and humiliating evacuations from France in the wake of that retreat.
@@bigwoody4704 Woody are you going back to Dunkirk I don't give a rats arse about that. And at one point he swung his brigade around at Night to cover the area left by the Defeated Belgians I believe However Monty was not in charge he was only a brigadier
@@jacktattis he was one of 3 sr officers,he only won with such massisve advantages even the lads he lathered up could have won
@@bigwoody4704 1. Brooke was only head of II Corps at Dunkirk
2. Montgomery was only a Maj Gen Commanding 1st Division way down the pecking order
3. WW1 were there you squibbed it at home .Monty shot through the Lung in 1914 back in the firing line 1918
4. Blamey and Morshead in WW1 from 25 th April 1915 and were at most of the Battles in France
5. Many of the Brit Generals were in WW1 well before those that you sent across
5. Patton and MacArthur in 1916 were in Mexico trying to catch Villa and failing
6. THAT IS THE OBJECT OF THE GAME WOODY OVERWHELMING SUPERIORITY
7. ULTRA British my friend Americans were not involved in fact I do not think any Americans were at Bletchley anytime
8. Germans crushed by the US ? Not when two US armies[ Hodges and Simpson ]were taken away from Bradley and given to Montgomery to straighten the Bulge.
9. It was Patton at the Falaise gap who by chasing the Germans opened up the line and allowed thousands of Germans to escape Bradley had to rein him in.
10. In Italy it was Clark going against orders and liberating Rome that allowed the German Army to escape He was supposed to close the trap
Just wait until it runs out of petrol
Hollow charge weapon will work
On, or about, the 12:54 minute mark, you say "The Tigers had no notable success in either Africa or Italy" and I just have to ask why, then, is the Tiger known as the most feared tank of WWII? Ok it was plagued with issues, all tanks were, especially the Russian T-34; but what most folks fail to realize is the actual numbers of tanks on the field and how that could possible impact battle.
The Tiger was produced in very low numbers, approx. 1,349 to 1,356 depending on what document you believe so let's just use a round number of 1,350 and call it a day. The Sherman M4 was produced in massive numbers upwards of 45,000 or more depending on variant and the T-34, as no actual number can be produced, it's estimated to be close to 60,000 or more. Let's do the simple math here the Enemy had 1,350 Tigers and the Allies had easily over 100,000 M4's and/or T-34's yet the Tiger managed to be called the MOST FEARED TANK of WWII; personally that right there is a Notable Success. I'm no Nazi and I'm glad the criminal Hitler LOST WWII but I do admire the tank that is known as the Tiger I and I grow tired of this continued propaganda shooting the Tiger down.
I get it, Germany lost WWII and they had some seriously bad criminals as part of their organization; sort of reminds me of the current criminal organization known as the US Democraptic Party lead by the criminals biden, pelosi and the rest but I digress. Hitler's largest mistake was putting the Jew in charge of manufacturing it's War Machine, no offense to any Jew whatsoever. When I say Jew it's simply a broad term to describe a certain people that were pressed into service and murdered at the same time. Yes I'm sure other prisoners were used and murdered as well and far too numerus to list each race involved so let's just say for lack of better description Jew.
I don't believe that there were design flaws, I mean anything is possible, but rather manufacturing errors done deliberately to stall the German War Machine. The Movie "Schindler's List" has a segment where the head engineer or lead Jew, take your pick, confronts Schindler about equipment adjustments too small to notice but large enough to make it so ammo would not fit in the barrel of a gun or possible certain nuts and bolts not torqued to specifications or certain washers left out to ensure something comes lose and the list goes on. Much of the German Equipment break downs could be attributed to what I just said, faulty workmanship designed to deliberately stall the German War Machine. Fuel leaks, for example as noted in the Movie "Kelly's Heroes" where 8 Ball is ragging about how bad the Tiger I tank is and lists all the problems as the movie comes to a close. Yes I'm mixing FACTS with FICTION but none of us were there so SPECULATION is all we have to go by.
Riddle me this Batman, how does WWII play out if Hitler waited until he had 5,000 Tiger I Tanks, 30,000 Panzer IV's plus whatever else to support his cause all built by a LOYAL Manufacturing Organization and then had his Tiger I's lead the Blitzkrieg? Who wins and why? Of course Germany sweeps WWII with these numbers and in record time and had that happened we'd all be speaking German today. Speculations aside, the T-34 typically didn't survive long enough to start Paperwork on it, and as a result shabby maintenance records were kept; at best. And one of the few records kept was the fact that most T-34 didn't survive until their first 100 km, or 63 miles, checkup. Many T-34's were driven out of the processing plant and right on to the battlefield by their crews because Germany was that close to them. Yes the T-34 with it's sloped armor could be considered a Marvel. In actually, it was an act of desperation as Russia was low on the Raw Materials needed and a quick fix for suitable armor was a SLOPE; when used it gave 2 inches of armor the ballistics of 4 inch armor. The Sherman M4 was in no better shape as it was produced quickly and had it's own set of teething pains to endure; so to point out that ONLY the Tiger I was plagued with issues is a bit near sighted. Both the M4 and T-34 were designed to do one thing, run German Armor OUT of ammunition and that's a very sad thing to say.
The Tiger I was a Marvel and had it been constructed in a Non Hostile Environment of Quality Labor and produced in massive quantities it would have been a huge Game Changer. Again the limited numbers of the Tiger I speak for themselves, 1,350 vs over 100,000 is what, almost 100 to 1 odds and STILL it almost WON. Seriously think about that for a minute, 100 to 1 odds and still you almost win; that's a very NOTABLE VEHICLE. BTW no Tiger I was ever listed as being killed from ANY Frontal Shot and yes the 17 Pounder was able to engage it at combat ranges of 1,800 meters but the Tiger I had kills over over 2,500 meters, not many but a few can be found though not sure if those kills were in Africa or Italy they can be found. The Sherman M4 nor the T-34 could penetrate the frontal armor of a Tiger I at ANY RANGE; fun facts for those that don't already know. Yes the Tiger I was a very NOTABLE TANK of WWII. I'd venture to say you didn't dig very deep for your info or you relied on Russian Propaganda, but either way I'm not buying what you've said about the Tiger I not have any notable success.
Men were known to shit their pants if they heard a Tiger was near by, name ANY other tank that has instilled that sort of FEAR. Don't bother because you can't as there was not one single Russian or American tank that instilled FEAR simply by the knowledge that it was in the area. Tanks were first seen a few years prior near the end of WWI so their progression by mid WWII was still in its infancy stage. Tanks today have advanced drastically compared to those of WWII. Oh, here's another Fun Fact, the suspension used on the current US Abrams Tank, as of Oct 2022 when this was written, and I'm sure other tanks as well, was very similar to that used on the Tiger I; or at the very least the idea of the suspension came from the Tiger I. That's NOTABLE. I doubt many have read this far and if you did I hope you enjoyed what I've said... Cheer's...
"Two broken Tigers on fire in the night
Flicker their souls to the wind..." Roads To Moscow by Al Stewart.
Usually the Germans will destroy the tiger tanks themselves because of transmission issues
Tigers didn't have transmission issues.
@@lyndoncmp5751 But they had clutch and Steering Issues
131號現在在英國多實郡愽文頓坦克博物館! Number 131 now on Dorset of Great Britain Bovington Tank Museum !
Tiger...Legend 😎
1) We have the massive US industrial might plus the never ending USSR manpower in the fight, 2) Bomber command and USAF are bombing German weapon factories day and night. 3) The USSR are advancing from the east, killing scores of higly trained panzer crews. 4) Bletchley Park could react to more or less what they felt like, as they had cracked enigma. 5) "The Tiger is a flawed design, we can kill it, with some effort" Meanwhile in Northern africa: Churchil and the King crawls all over the Tiger in awe 6) And... we "won" the war so we can write what ever narritve we want.
Well according to Tiger 131 they fought them with the largest amount of luck there is.
And also thats why in hearts of iron I make sure my tigers have at least 80% reliability
80% is an unrealistic wish
“The tank’s size and weight”. The sherman was taller, and wider, than even the Tiger 2. So the german big cats weren’t THAT massive-
But they were heavy (too heavy really) for the infrastructure & support vehicles of the time. This limited their mobility & ability to repair/recover.
@@eze8970 the problem with repairs wasn’t due to infrastructure. The tanks were too complex by design. Take the tiger for example. The roll bars that it had for its suspensions, meant that, every time one broke down, the whole turret had to be removed, the gearbox cover, the floor boards, etc. it was complicated to maintain on the roll
@@jsuarez1099 Agreed, that to. The German repair parties found it very difficult to get the Tigers back into a place of safety to repair, especially when the Axis forces were retreating. The recovery vehicles weren't up to it. So with the time required for repairs, & not being able to get the tanks to places of safety, lots were destroyed by their own side.
And that height was a disadvantage in close country Especially in the Bocage in France
@@jacktattis i agree
That's easy: They waited til it broke down.
Powerful tank but too expensive, too few, too unreliable. The Panther that would come later came in larger numbers but those things were terrible in reliability, too. Tiger II would make all this even worse.
Just deny them fuel..that's all that needed to be done...and was..
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So....Moriarty was right 'It's a piece a JUNK !!!'
Why don’t you knock it off with them negative waves? Why don’t you dig how beautiful it is out here? Why don’t you say something righteous and hopeful for a change?
@@kiwigrunt330 muttering under breath Crap
🦁