There were no Tigers in the US sector of the Normandy campaign, but GIs swore they'd seen them. They were probably Panzer IVs with Schürzen and spaced turret armour.
I think that shützen (skirts) was a very innovative idea to give a slightly under armored but very reliable tank an extended lease on life! With the unintended benefit of the allies seeing it as a Tiger!
The US also faced virtually no SS units in Normandy either. Nearly all the elite SS units faced off against the 2nd British Army which included the Canadians as well as country’s troops.
@@timonsolus No. It was an answer to the Soviet AT Rifle which could penetrate the sides and rear of the Pz III & IV. It had nothing to do with protection against hollow-charge weapons.
The most effective tank/tank killer the Germans had was the Stug III. Most produced, cheapest to build, easiest to service, lowest profile, most tank kills.
@@carl5381 if you have more of something and engage something else with it, you are going to get more kills with it. But was it the most effective or prolific?
Mr. Copson is asked whether the Tiger was the "most feared". He gives a long answer 5:10 talking about its cost, its reliability, the difficulty of maintenance etc. etc. But why? None of these aspects are relevant. Allied tankers didn't KNOW these facts, for the most part. And even if they knew them, what difference would they make? You "fear" a tank when you believe it's in your vicinity, because it might shoot you. The knowledge that its mechanics have a difficult job, or that arguments about fund allocations rage in Berlin, doesn't change your fear. He's answering a different question to what was asked. And then... he says "eight thousand Tigers". There were 1350, and even that number is double-counting components that got recycled.
@@barryfrancis7421 But how do you measure "fear"? Surely it means the emotions that Allied tankers had, not anything the Germans felt. And only the Germans knew how many broken-down Tigers were sitting behind the lines. That factor couldn't come into play for Allied tankers.
He wasn’t asked if it was the most feared, he was asked if it deserved the title. He answered the question he was asked. The 8,000 Tiger comment was odd though. I doubt he meant it, he should know the real numbers. I would guess it was a slip of the tongue.
I will not have a bad word said about the Sherman. It was a tank built for the job, and the job started in the USA. It was made by three manufacturers and their subsidiaries all main parts were interchangeable. For every complete unit supplied there was enough spares to build another three or four. They were built to be just under the max weight of the cranes of the liberty ships that were to transport them to the UK. When they got here it had to moved around the country on a standard UK freight train so had to fit under the bridges too. It had to use fuels and oils that were available by supply or capture. All of these things were taken into account at its inception, it was a feat of planning and engineering. In the air there was the Spitfire, the Lancaster, the Mustang and the Fortress, on the ground there was the Sherman. Unfortunately we in the UK with our limited resources and bad management didn’t come up with something formidable until it was over, but then the Centurion did not have to fit into the hold of a Liberty Ship. THANK YOU USA.
Development of the Cromwell started in 1940 and would have been a decent tank if it appeared in 1942. Instead, it only arrived the battlefield in 1944.
The German Tiger 1 was probably a terrific weapon, and the T34 was certainly a lot less efficient. But the soviets produced 50.000 T34 and the germans only 1700 Tiger1. This is something that our actual generals have forgotten It's no use to have the best weapon if we have only a few of them and if we are not able to produce them in large quantities. Better have less effective weapons but so many that you can't stop them.
Old Russian military aphorism: "Quantity has a quality all its own"... It has been Russian military doctrine for a very long time, that when "Mother Russia" is invaded, especially by surprise, to trade space and manpower (both of which the nation has plenty to spare) for time. The numbers matter early so that the enemy can be stalled or held long-enough to allow the resistance to organize - and later, when the tide turns and the time has come for a counter-attack, superior numbers will also matter a lot.
Don't forget the Sherman had to operate everywhere including jungle, pacific islands, western Europe, and the desert. It had to cross oceans to get to any of it's battlefields.
I think he combined the Panther and Tiger 1 production numbers. 6557 Panthers, 1368 Tiger 1. To be fair to him, either of these brought about the same amount of fear to crews.
@@davidmacy411To be fair this guy works at the Tank Museum and should know better. I’m just a tank buff and I was shocked when he said 8,000 Tigers (not Panthers). I had to replay it. The Germans would have loved to have that many Tigers.
And one of the other issues with the Tiger is how difficult it was to recover if disabled or broken down. You can find pictures of a Tiger being towed by two or three big Sdkfz 9s.
Usually the Germans were in retreat, allies advancing. It's more difficult to retrieve and repair a broken tank if your troupes have retreated past it . The allies on the other hand , if a tank needed repair , it just had to wait till the repair facilities had advanced to it
The fear among WW2 crews of Shermans exploding was real, even if the Ronson myth came later. My grandad was a tank driver with the 7th Armoured. He mentioned it to me that they tended to explode and blow their turrets, and was thankful that he was never assigned to one. Likey a rumor that started from early Shermans with dry stowage.
if you look at a frontal view of a Panzer IV G/H with the added side-skirt armour on the turret they - very superficially - look like a Tiger if you have bad visibility, far away or didn´t look long enough ... it easily can be mixed up with a real Tiger. So they probably said ... if in doubt, lets assume its a Tiger, lets go somewhere else ^^
And Allied pilots in the Pacific saw Zeros every time they saw a single-engine fighter (the Zero was numerous but most were of course other types). German pilots always saw "Spitfires". Every single Axis anti-tank gun in Africa was "an 88" even though most of them were 37 and 50mm units. TLDR: situation normal.
Chris is correct. I travelled from Australia to Bovington to see the Tiger but also to see the other fantastic bits of kit there. Very memorable. Even my wife was into it! Gotta be happy with that.
Most of the myth of Knispel was invented by an author called Kurowski. Veterans from Knispel's unit got angry at his book and how he simply invented things and put words in their mouths. There may be some truth in the myth, but we'll never know, will we? Kurowski poisons everything he touches.
With respect to Wittmann, I seem to remember both Joe Ekins and the fellow from the Canadian Sherbrooke Fusiliers said they could never be certain if they destroyed Wittman's tank. Both Ekins and the Canadian guy said his tank would have simply been "another enemy tank" and that they didn't even know who Michael Wittmann was at the time. The idea the Canadians may have hit Wittmann seems to be based on likelihood as they were positioned within 150 metres of where Wittmann's tank was destroyed.
"The vast majority of the Sherman tank crews never faced" much of the German Army either. The German Army was fatally wounded in Russia in 1941, most was on the eastern front and 80% casualties' were on the eastern front to.
The thing about what would have happened if we had Centurion in 1940 has got me thinking about something else. Imagine if the RAF and Air Ministry had actually listened to and supported a man called Frank in *1929* who had ideas for a new type of engine...
Jets were too complicated to make. You could make 4-5 propeller planes for 1 jet fighter. If Hitler had focused on more Propeller planes (Including a 4 engine bomber) instead of more wonder weapons D-day and the invasion of Europe may have never happened.
Jets not thR hard to manufacture. Once investment was available jets could be manufactured within years. Cheaper than the precision combustion engines at the top of the range. Slaves could make jets in caves. Slaves could not nakecmb or Merlin engines.
@ATOMTAYLOR a Tommy Cooker is half a petrol tin filled with sand which has been soaked in kerosene. It's a British Army extemporaneous solution to lack of ready fuel in the Western Desert.
I think he combined the Panther and Tiger 1 production numbers. 6557 Panthers, 1368 Tiger 1. To be fair to him, either of these brought about the same amount of fear to crews.
First the sherman tactic of getting within 500m but having a few shermans 'knocked out' is prized (quantity is quality) shortly later the exact same tactic for the T-34 against the germans is called suicidal..
5:16 hi, sorry to correct but the Tiger I has a 700HP engine for 57 tons of weight and the Panzer IV a 300HP engine for 25 tons. So both has about 12HP/ton.
It was never a tank that they could have used in large quantities. It was designed as a heavy break-through and infantry support tank. It was designed for specialist units all along. They always needed a cheaper and faster tank which could be produced in larger quantities, and which would have better operational mobility.
The Tiger was also designed so it couldn’t fit on German rail transporter wagons until you took a day taking off the outside wheels possibly during an air attack. I also read the Churchill Crocodile was the most feared tank German units ran from it.
Wasn't the wheels it was replacing the tracks with transport tracks. a bigger limit was how many 60 ton capable bridges there were once dismounted from the train.
You said that poorly: what you meant was that the Tiger in combat tracks couldn't fit on the SSyMS 80 heavy rail transport cars until after they changed tracks and removed the outer wheels, side mud guards, etc. Not sure where the possible air attack thing comes in. The only German units that would run from a Croc would be infantry or unobservant tank crews. Anything that big and slow WITH a wagon full of fuel was a pyro's delight.
My late father in law served with the 50th Northumberland Infantry Division from 1941 - 1946 and landed with The Green Howards on Gold Beach on D-Day. He told me that almost every German tank they saw from 6 of June onwards was perceived to be a Tiger. Most tended to be upgunned and up armoured Mk IVs.
No fear of the 88mm gun among allied tank crews is the narrative being sold here. My Father only served as tank recovery and transport and even he feared it for what he would inevitably find and have to deal with inside every tank hit by it.Not necessarily penetrated.
Normandy is weird because anything with a muzzle brake with sufficiently scary effect was lumped into the 8,8 cm. You can see this with how the British reacted to 21st Panzer's S307 Pak and Becker's other vehicles based on Renaults and Hotchkisses with the 15 cm.
@@yashkasheriff9325 At the type of ranges that an 88 could obliterate an allied tank and its crew they wouldn't have had time to decide the difference even if they actually saw it.
reliable in the extreme - the russians loved it so much they asked us to extend production - and when the russians invaded manchuria they prioritised Sherman and Valentine because they were so reliable and perfect for use in remote theatres.
Very useful for light recce with the Soviets, hardier than a T-70, but relatively quite mobile. Performance in difficult ground holds it back, but handles quite nicely through the gears.
The interviewer needs to factor in the reliability as well as the cost, and then consider the industrial capability of the competing nations. For example, you can build 40 Shermans for the price of 10 Tigers, but 5 of those Tigers might break down on the way to the battlefield so in reality you have 5 tigers versus 40 Shermans. And then when you consider the industrial might of the US, they didn’t build 4 Shermans for every Tiger they actually built 33 Shermans for every Tiger.
For a historian and tank expert this chap's British underskirt hangs out way too far. This was supposed to debunk that the Tiger 1 was the most feared tank in WWII. First he basically admits it but then supposedly debunks it based on complexity and cost to produce. Sorry but that is two completely different aspects.
It is sort of true that it was the most feared. Allied commanders didn't fear it because it was too scarce to impact most battle results. Most allied tank crews and infantry never saw one so there wasn't much fear there either. On the other hand if you were one of the lucky tank crews to meet one on the battlefield there was almost nothing scarier.
Long before the Tigers appeared on the battlefield, every allied tank crew knew what the German 88mm could do to any tank. A German heavy tank mounted with the fearsome 88 could only be something fearsome.
Nothing about what he says in about the Tiger removes the fear factor. It WAS the most feared tank for WW2. None of his critique meant a single thing to the allied soldiers facing this beast. Bad take.
The trouble is that we can all say that on paper that this weapon is better than that one or it’s got a better killing range etc,etc but the proof is how did they actually do in any situation, take the Fairey Swordfish ,an aircraft that was outdated when it entered service ,it had virtually no protection and a top speed of best 130 mph.But un escorted for the loss of only 2 planes out of an attack by 21 aircraft all unescorted they put the main Italian battle fleet at Taranto out of action for a time, something that on paper they should never have been able to to
@@htcltd They also flew near sea level making the AA guns on the Bismarck unable to effectively attack them, most ships expected dive bombers and were built to counter that
It was also so slow that when they attacked the Bismarck, the German gunners couldn't slow the turning speed of their orlikon anti aircraft guns slowly enough to hit the string bean planes.
@@htcltd It's even more hilarious. They survived the onslaught also thanks to the fact that it was made with fabric (metal frame covered by fabric to be more precise), meaning that shells could pass through it without exploding or causing any shrapnel damage.
@@mrcaboosevg6089 Logical people the Germans it probably never occurred to them that designing their anti-aircraft guns to defend against aircraft attacking their ship from below, was necessary.
Michael Wittmann destroyed a HUGE numbers of enemy tanks and vehicles in his STUG III then years later as a reward he earn his spot as a Tank Commander of Tiger I
@@davidandrew1078 I was not aware of this. About 50 were kept in active service until 1951 through the use of inventories of spares available … until exhaustion.
I believe that the BIGGEST drawback of the T-34 was the lack of radios for tank to tank communications. Imagine having to use semaphore flags in a moving tank battle!
And a lack of an internal intercom. And the lack of a turret basket. And the two man turret on the 76. And the horrendous visibility on the obr41 and obr42s. The T34 had a few good features let down by many, many bad ones.
@@apyllyon As far as I know no 76 model had a three man turret, that was exclusively the 85 which was introduced in 43. The later models of the 76 were fitted with a cupola for the commander which somewhat alleviated the horrendous visibility of the earlier models.
The T-34 was designed from the outset to have a radio in every tank. A shortage of equipment meant that most T-34s in the early years lacked radio, but by 1943 most had one.
I usually dismiss clicky thumbnails, but yours is worded just right. I like Hanson's take on the effect of Dunkirk on British armor. I was an American armor soldier long ago. I am not alone in my respect for the Centurion. What a beast. I remember days at the museum at Ft Knox and seeing the cutaway of the T34. The idea of sighting through the barrel, as was done with the earliest model, made us roll our eyes in disbelief.
wrote: "I remember days at the museum at Ft Knox and seeing the cutaway of the T34. The idea of sighting through the barrel, as was done with the earliest model, made us roll our eyes in disbelief." -- Why? Did "those" from Ft Knox did not know, that T-34 had both telescopic and periscopic sights on earlier T-34? And same for loader/gunner i.e. both telescopic and periscopic sights? Just look at 28:18 of this video.
I’m glad he touched on the P47, according to German soldiers they feared allied AirPower more then anything else. Allied tank crews would probably disagree with the rest of the show however.
@@Suchtel10Nope. The exchange rate was closer to 1-2. In fact, there were quite a few engagements where the tiger was destroyed before managing to hit any allied armor whatsoever.
wrote: "The T34 most definitely wasn't the first tank to have sloped armour, although it may have been the first to have all it's surfaces sloped." -- Sure, what other tank before T-34 had a slopped armor that doubled the EAT(Effective Armor Thickness) from 45mm to 90?
yep, even the Matilda II had sloping armour AND the hull was also shaped a bit like a boat at the front (with storage compartments on either side of the driver).
Except that rather few Tigers were actually lost at Kursk. Meanwhile the Soviets, whose national past time is reinventing the Truth, claimed "hundred lost".
No evidence of that. Most red army tank crews never saw an M4 so they wouldn't have any basis for preferring one over the other. The red army loved their M4s but used them exactly how they used their T-34s. There was no preference one way or the other.
A Tiger would take out four Shermans , the problem for the Germans was the Allies and Russians produced way more Shermans and T34s than four to one Tigers , also add in air superiority, and German lack of fuel
@@dewdew80there were three encounters between M4’s and Tiger I’s post D-Day. More if you count Firefly’s. For the standard M4, once the Tigers came out ahead, once the M-4’s, and the other was inconclusive.
@@veetsv1597 through process of elimination many historians believe that three instances may actually be real encounters with Tigers out of a heap of rumored encounters. Those three instances do not have conclusive evidence.
Not sure this guy really understands the impact of the tiger. There were never 8000 tigers, but 1 or 2 could cause a lot of destruction to opposing tanks. There were reasons why several commanders scored 10's of kills. As for 4 shermans or 1 Tiger, you'd go for the tiger every time.
I think it's better than nothing, but I also think its kind of a stupid idea. How do you train infantrymen (who will rarely see a tank, in the Japanese army) which rivet to push? So you're being shot at, you're stressed AF, you haven't slept through the night in weeks, and you have to remember which of dozens of identical-looking rivets to press on. No thanks. Better to have something really easy to see, like the postwar 'doorbell' the Czechs put on their T-34-85s, or even better, put a phone on the back, like the US Army did in the field in WW2 and at the factory postwar.
yep, and although no American tank crewman would have referred to the Sherman as the Ronson, there's anecodotal evidence to suggest that the British were the ones who coined the phrase after their debut at the Battle of El Alamein - the 1920s slogan wasn't "lights first time" but was worded closely enough......
-- Its a frigging scarry tank, and for a good reason, especially if you looking at it only a couple of meters away. IDK why Chris thinks that Tiger I scare is a WWII Myth?
Tiger 1 or 2 was not a good battle “tank” it was slow, got bogged down, and could easily get outpaced by a T34 or Sherman, and a massive waste of fuel compared to its competitors. its interesting that its classified as a tank yet struggled to do normal “tank” things. the Tigers were more or less a heavily armored anti tank gun than an actual tank. however i cant deny it was the ww2 “boogeyman”
The Ronson comment was new to me and sounds like an American comment, the British comment was about them being called Tommy cookers because they would easily “Brew up” so it’s the same style of comment inferring an unhealthy likelihood of catching fire, I don’t know enough to know how true that was but it sounds like the kind of dark British Army humour I am familiar with.
Fletcher never went out and updated things or would not do additional research even if… the information existed at Bovy in the files that would explain things. Instead he went off the top of his head from stuff he’d dug into in the 80s 90s.
Also they were know to the Germans as Tommy Cookers, possibly the Ronson Myth came later, but, is it a Myth, the Germans definitely did call them Tommy Cookers.
T-34 wasn't massively reliable but what it was is easily serviceable in the field. In USSR, and Russia today, the tank driver is designated "mechanic-driver" and crew can perform regular maintenance tasks with them.
I always thought the Stug III although not a tank was a most effective bit of kit. Nevertheless, he has his opinion, but I'd take my chances in a Panther or a Tiger over any allied tank. Production numbers made Shermans and T34 effective.
9:24 Early M4 variant with three hull machine guns, and two, turret-mounted machine guns. The hull guns were all M1919A4.30 caliber machine guns, two fixed, and one mounted in a ball mount for the co-driver.
@@mrcaboosevg6089 Once they got better ammunition storage (water jackets I think) Shermans were safer. Plenty of pictures and video of Panzers on fire also. You were much safer in a Sherman than being in infantry.
Plus the "Tiger I" had something called "zimerit" (I don't know how to spell it correctly): "Zimerit" may have had the ability to prevent "sticky bombs" from sticking to the tank body.
The fact is that tank vs tank combat on the Western Front amounted to 15% of all engagements for Allied tankers. What percentage of that 15 percent was Tiger 1's? This obsession with Tiger vs Sherman is ridiculous. Never mind the problem with comparing a medium tank to a heavy tank. Also, not necessarily a myth but a misconception, Tiger 2 was not a development of Tiger 1. Tiger 1 was a stop gap temporary solution to the development of Tiger 2 being delayed. Tiger 1 was actually very crude. It is a monolithic slab of metal with square corners and a turret shaped around a gun.
No, it wasn't crude. You think a machine that complex and effective is crude because of the shape? That's like calling a square body pickup crude compared to a curvy one. Squared shapes are not without advantages and sloped are not without drawbacks.
Tiger-too heavy for bridges, too expensive,tranny not fit for purpose, underpowered engine, fuel guzzler. Also it used petrol (gasoline) which was in short supply in Germany from 1942 onward.
An unreliable tank is filled with hope. A broken tank, like fixed gun emplacements is a sitting target. A slow tank is like the previous, just a little faster. A tank that is hard to repair in the field is a burden on supply chains - more parts, more men, more food, more downtime and weakens the effectiveness of an objective.
-- Ah, Chris, Chelyabinsk is where Kirov heavy KV/IS tank factory from Leningrad. T-34 was designed and manufactured in Kharkov, and moved to Nizhny Tagil which is beyond Ural Mounts to Ural rail road train factory. Both Chelyabinsk and Nizhny Tagil are in Siberia couple of thousands kilometers away from the original factories.
The ShermaM4a3e8 was much better than the Tiger 1&2. It was much faster to produce, could be modified to serve multiple roles, and had a much better turret (traverse stabilization, faster traverse, etc).
"Disproportionately said to catch fire" is absolute horseshit. You can compare the burn rates of M4, T-34, and Pz IV, and see they're all comparable, but M4 always comes out ahead in the end because the crew is far more likely to survive, fire or no, which was touched on. But it was no more or no less likely to catch fire from a hit than any other tank of the era, and less likely than some others that receive more praise. Panther, for example, had a particular type of lubrication oil that pooled on the hull floor and was flammable. Ferdinand overheated its engine/transmission and caught fire just trying to top a hill. Another bit about the name "ronson" or even "zippo" was that flamethrowing variants of the M4 were known by those names.
Also the Wet ammo storage helped but for different reasons, the ammo is way less likely to be struck on the bottom of the hull which is the safest place to have ammo back then
@@elkrumb9159 but the British didn't get the wet stowage versions - the US kept those for themselves. It was the early M4s that were highly vulnerable, as the 75mm rounds were stored in "ready racks" around the turret for convenience. These early variants also lacked the loader's hatch, and didn't all have the large hatches like the later ones so were not quite so easy to get out of
@@sean640307 you’re correct about everything except the ammuntion and British, The reason why early Sherman’s from the British were so easy to set on fire was mainly because they overstocked on ammuntion, even if they didn’t have wet ammo, they were still at the back of the sponsons and below the turret basket
@@elkrumb9159 oh, I know the British had a tendency to cram extra rounds, but the early M4A1 had the ready racks around the inside of the turret. I have cut-away drawings of them showing what I mean, but unfortunately we can't post them on here. Later ones were moved down low to reduce the incidents but they had to learn their lesson the hard way. As Ken Tout wrote about the Normandy battles, the average British Sherman that was hit and penetrated had about 12 seconds before they "brewed up". Of course some took longer, some didn't burn at all. The British had taken to putting the rounds into ammunition boxes, down low. It helped considerable.
The most feared tank was the one you were up against until it`s been dealt with period , it matters not how superior the hardware , it matters how good the people fielding that hardware are
76mm 17 pounder could penetrate 150mm of steel at 1000 yds, better than the 88mm on the Mk VI (with a full powder charge). (Around Nov-44, the powder was reduced 25% due to the shortage of nitrogen to make explosives.)
Agreed. The Tiger WAS the most feared tank in WW2. Wether this was rational or warranted didn’t matter, fear is irrational, so not sure you busted this myth at all 🤷♂️
the most feared weapon of WW2 was a crewed 88, smashed anything at 2000 yards, just ask the Russians from Jun 41 to May 45 and some, took out over 40,000 T34's alone, very few crews survived that massive impact
and ? You want a medal or something .. I noticed moving Panzer 3's also in the T34 section .. but i don't need medals or a chuffdee badge so i didn't bother mentioning it
German Tiger tank was not the most feared? Why do US veterans say they feared it the most? Why do US battlefield reports report so many sightings of Tigers, far beyond what actually existed? Because US troops were so terrified of them they saw them everywhere.
Surprisingly mixed quality of information from Mr. Copson. Incorrect quantity indication of tiger production and no information about the completely different action doctrine of a Tiger compared to a Sherman, T34 or Panther. Keyword heavy breakthrough vehicle. The Tiger was never designed to be used like a Panther or Sherman. As far as the production costs are concerned, a tiger adjusted to todays scale at 3.7 Mill. € cost each, half about the cost of a M1 Abrams and significantly less than a Leclerc or Leopard. Does NATO make about the same mistake here?
There were no Tigers in the US sector of the Normandy campaign, but GIs swore they'd seen them. They were probably Panzer IVs with Schürzen and spaced turret armour.
I think that shützen (skirts) was a very innovative idea to give a slightly under armored but very reliable tank an extended lease on life! With the unintended benefit of the allies seeing it as a Tiger!
@@janmale7767 actually that supplemental armour was designed to stop anti-tank RIFLE bullets.
@@sirridesalot6652 : And bazookas.
The US also faced virtually no SS units in Normandy either. Nearly all the elite SS units faced off against the 2nd British Army which included the Canadians as well as country’s troops.
@@timonsolus No. It was an answer to the Soviet AT Rifle which could penetrate the sides and rear of the Pz III & IV. It had nothing to do with protection against hollow-charge weapons.
The most effective tank/tank killer the Germans had was the Stug III. Most produced, cheapest to build, easiest to service, lowest profile, most tank kills.
The Stug III was very effective. It was basically the Volkswagen Beetle of tank destroyers.
Most tank kills? Where did you get that statistic? Warthunder?
It was never a tank. It was an assault gun, repurposed as a tank destroyer. A means o getting a long 75mm gun into a Panzer III chassis.
@@seanmurphy7011it’s actually a fact. STUGs are responsible for the most allied tank kills according to the Bovington Tank Museum researchers
@@carl5381 if you have more of something and engage something else with it, you are going to get more kills with it. But was it the most effective or prolific?
The movie Kelly's Heroes demonstrated that the Tiger 1 was completely impervious to paint shells.
This one was a T34 made to look like one, but a fine job if not an expert! I did suppose at first it was a real Tiger they had found somewhere!😁
But not to gold :P
The Tiger tank used in Kelly's heros, was in fact a T34 tank modified to look like a tiger, the same T34 - Tiger tank was used in saving private Ryan
@@Castlelong333 Are you sure there was what, 30, maybe more years between the movies. And Kelly's was made in Yugoslavia.
@@sjoormen1 ya I am pretty sure, have a good look at the two film clips with the T34 - tiger tank they are the exact same
Mr. Copson is asked whether the Tiger was the "most feared". He gives a long answer 5:10 talking about its cost, its reliability, the difficulty of maintenance etc. etc.
But why? None of these aspects are relevant.
Allied tankers didn't KNOW these facts, for the most part. And even if they knew them, what difference would they make? You "fear" a tank when you believe it's in your vicinity, because it might shoot you. The knowledge that its mechanics have a difficult job, or that arguments about fund allocations rage in Berlin, doesn't change your fear.
He's answering a different question to what was asked.
And then... he says "eight thousand Tigers".
There were 1350, and even that number is double-counting components that got recycled.
Great. Your comment is better than the video itself.
I beg to differ, the reliability aspect is a factor if the tank is broken down some miles from where it's needed.
@@barryfrancis7421 But how do you measure "fear"?
Surely it means the emotions that Allied tankers had, not anything the Germans felt.
And only the Germans knew how many broken-down Tigers were sitting behind the lines. That factor couldn't come into play for Allied tankers.
He wasn’t asked if it was the most feared, he was asked if it deserved the title. He answered the question he was asked. The 8,000 Tiger comment was odd though. I doubt he meant it, he should know the real numbers. I would guess it was a slip of the tongue.
Exactly!
The only German weapon I remember my father speaking about in terms of what "worried" them - was the 88's.
But the Tiger was equipped with the 88mm 😅
@@87derblauereiter and every tank after 42 was equipped with even more powerful guns with higher rates of fire
I will not have a bad word said about the Sherman. It was a tank built for the job, and the job started in the USA. It was made by three manufacturers and their subsidiaries all main parts were interchangeable. For every complete unit supplied there was enough spares to build another three or four. They were built to be just under the max weight of the cranes of the liberty ships that were to transport them to the UK. When they got here it had to moved around the country on a standard UK freight train so had to fit under the bridges too. It had to use fuels and oils that were available by supply or capture. All of these things were taken into account at its inception, it was a feat of planning and engineering. In the air there was the Spitfire, the Lancaster, the Mustang and the Fortress, on the ground there was the Sherman. Unfortunately we in the UK with our limited resources and bad management didn’t come up with something formidable until it was over, but then the Centurion did not have to fit into the hold of a Liberty Ship. THANK YOU USA.
Development of the Cromwell started in 1940 and would have been a decent tank if it appeared in 1942. Instead, it only arrived the battlefield in 1944.
@@tvgerbil1984speed of US development is somewhat scary when you compare to other nations
The German Tiger 1 was probably a terrific weapon, and the T34 was certainly a lot less efficient.
But the soviets produced 50.000 T34 and the germans only 1700 Tiger1.
This is something that our actual generals have forgotten
It's no use to have the best weapon if we have only a few of them and if we are not able to produce them in large quantities.
Better have less effective weapons but so many that you can't stop them.
Old Russian military aphorism: "Quantity has a quality all its own"...
It has been Russian military doctrine for a very long time, that when "Mother Russia" is invaded, especially by surprise, to trade space and manpower (both of which the nation has plenty to spare) for time. The numbers matter early so that the enemy can be stalled or held long-enough to allow the resistance to organize - and later, when the tide turns and the time has come for a counter-attack, superior numbers will also matter a lot.
Don't forget the Sherman had to operate everywhere including jungle, pacific islands, western Europe, and the desert.
It had to cross oceans to get to any of it's battlefields.
At 8:08 -> "....you're looking at 8 thousand Tigers..." ??? The number of produced Tiger I and Tiger II together was around 1900 total.
Yes. I was surprised he said that too.
Perhaps he was thinking of the Pz.IV?
I think he combined the Panther and Tiger 1 production numbers. 6557 Panthers, 1368 Tiger 1. To be fair to him, either of these brought about the same amount of fear to crews.
@@davidmacy411To be fair this guy works at the Tank Museum and should know better. I’m just a tank buff and I was shocked when he said 8,000 Tigers (not Panthers). I had to replay it. The Germans would have loved to have that many Tigers.
@@michaelc2254 this so cold museum makes lot's of mistakes in nollage overall..been doing that for long time now...
And one of the other issues with the Tiger is how difficult it was to recover if disabled or broken down. You can find pictures of a Tiger being towed by two or three big Sdkfz 9s.
How was the josef stalin II or KV 1 pulled when broken down. How did the russians go about that...
Usually the Germans were in retreat, allies advancing. It's more difficult to retrieve and repair a broken tank if your troupes have retreated past it . The allies on the other hand , if a tank needed repair , it just had to wait till the repair facilities had advanced to it
That’s a result of the tigers heavily armoured weight, that’s not the issue on the battlefield. The heavily armoured tiger is the one to sit in.
The fear among WW2 crews of Shermans exploding was real, even if the Ronson myth came later. My grandad was a tank driver with the 7th Armoured. He mentioned it to me that they tended to explode and blow their turrets, and was thankful that he was never assigned to one. Likey a rumor that started from early Shermans with dry stowage.
No, it wasn't.
Not a rumour. The dry shermans did blow up easily.
Didn't the Germans casll the Sherman the Tommy Cooker ?
@@nigelhopkinson6614 unsure. but we called them ronsons, because they started up every time.
What did he drive? Stuart? Chaffee?
This myth is not busted.The allies saw tigers any time they spotted a german tank. The fear of the tiger were very real.
if you look at a frontal view of a Panzer IV G/H with the added side-skirt armour on the turret they - very superficially - look like a Tiger if you have bad visibility, far away or didn´t look long enough ... it easily can be mixed up with a real Tiger. So they probably said ... if in doubt, lets assume its a Tiger, lets go somewhere else ^^
They thought everything was a Tiger
He said the fear was real so…
Remember... he is speaking from the convenience of an Ivory Tower my friend... framing and perception are amazing things
And Allied pilots in the Pacific saw Zeros every time they saw a single-engine fighter (the Zero was numerous but most were of course other types). German pilots always saw "Spitfires". Every single Axis anti-tank gun in Africa was "an 88" even though most of them were 37 and 50mm units. TLDR: situation normal.
Chris is correct. I travelled from Australia to Bovington to see the Tiger but also to see the other fantastic bits of kit there. Very memorable. Even my wife was into it! Gotta be happy with that.
Get yourselves up to Cairns the armour museum up there is doing great work.
You lucky bugger! I hope to get there one day.👍😁🇦🇺
These "experts" seem not to have heard of Kurt Knispel.
Most of the myth of Knispel was invented by an author called Kurowski. Veterans from Knispel's unit got angry at his book and how he simply invented things and put words in their mouths.
There may be some truth in the myth, but we'll never know, will we? Kurowski poisons everything he touches.
Who??
Exactly what I was thinking during the video.
True
Better than the TH-cam comments 'experts'
With respect to Wittmann, I seem to remember both Joe Ekins and the fellow from the Canadian Sherbrooke Fusiliers said they could never be certain if they destroyed Wittman's tank. Both Ekins and the Canadian guy said his tank would have simply been "another enemy tank" and that they didn't even know who Michael Wittmann was at the time. The idea the Canadians may have hit Wittmann seems to be based on likelihood as they were positioned within 150 metres of where Wittmann's tank was destroyed.
They were closer , and on the side that wittmans tank was said to be hit
@@outinthesticks1035 Radley Walters was with the Sherbrookes.The guy was an amazing tank commander.Have never heard his take on this incident.
Fantastic episode guys! Thanks Chris that was so interesting and informative.
The vast majority of the Sherman tank crews never faced a Tiger or a Panther tank .
Most of their losses came from anti tank weapons .
I think the Russian crews of Russian Shermans faced quite a few Panthers.
That’s why the 75mm was preferred
"The vast majority of the Sherman tank crews never faced" much of the German Army either. The German Army was fatally wounded in Russia in 1941, most was on the eastern front and 80% casualties' were on the eastern front to.
Against which the Sherman had no effective armor to speak of.
@@daveybyrden3936 To their dismay
The thing about what would have happened if we had Centurion in 1940 has got me thinking about something else. Imagine if the RAF and Air Ministry had actually listened to and supported a man called Frank in *1929* who had ideas for a new type of engine...
Jets were too complicated to make. You could make 4-5 propeller planes for 1 jet fighter. If Hitler had focused on more Propeller planes (Including a 4 engine bomber) instead of more wonder weapons D-day and the invasion of Europe may have never happened.
Jets not thR hard to manufacture. Once investment was available jets could be manufactured within years.
Cheaper than the precision combustion engines at the top of the range.
Slaves could make jets in caves. Slaves could not nakecmb or Merlin engines.
There is a lot of misinformation in this video. Try again with accuracy.
"8000 Tigers" That's news to the rest of the world.
Yup and he was oblivious to the fact that the Germans called the Shermans Tommy Cookers.
@ATOMTAYLOR a Tommy Cooker is half a petrol tin filled with sand which has been soaked in kerosene. It's a British Army extemporaneous solution to lack of ready fuel in the Western Desert.
yeah, he's probably thinking of Pz IV production.
I think he combined the Panther and Tiger 1 production numbers. 6557 Panthers, 1368 Tiger 1. To be fair to him, either of these brought about the same amount of fear to crews.
@@davidmacy411 then he could have added the 450ish Tiger II on top xD
First the sherman tactic of getting within 500m but having a few shermans 'knocked out' is prized (quantity is quality) shortly later the exact same tactic for the T-34 against the germans is called suicidal..
5:16 hi, sorry to correct but the Tiger I has a 700HP engine for 57 tons of weight and the Panzer IV a 300HP engine for 25 tons. So both has about 12HP/ton.
Tiger had a tactical advantage, but srategically a drain. Wars are in the end won by logistics.
The Germans did this over and over. V1 and V2 costs compared to how many fighter aircraft. Having a strategic bomber, etc.
The Tiger cost only 50% more than a Panther. It was meant to be a small production run specialised breakthrough tank and it worked.
@@williamzk9083 It worked? Talk about rewriting history. lulz
I think James Holland says that over half of Tigers lost were simply abandoned by their crews.
It was never a tank that they could have used in large quantities. It was designed as a heavy break-through and infantry support tank. It was designed for specialist units all along.
They always needed a cheaper and faster tank which could be produced in larger quantities, and which would have better operational mobility.
The Tiger was also designed so it couldn’t fit on German rail transporter wagons until you took a day taking off the outside wheels possibly during an air attack. I also read the Churchill Crocodile was the most feared tank German units ran from it.
Wasn't the wheels it was replacing the tracks with transport tracks. a bigger limit was how many 60 ton capable bridges there were once dismounted from the train.
Crocodiles are easy to distinguish from the other types of Churchills, they always had a trailer in tow, the fuel tank for the flamethrower.
I sure would!
You said that poorly: what you meant was that the Tiger in combat tracks couldn't fit on the SSyMS 80 heavy rail transport cars until after they changed tracks and removed the outer wheels, side mud guards, etc. Not sure where the possible air attack thing comes in. The only German units that would run from a Croc would be infantry or unobservant tank crews. Anything that big and slow WITH a wagon full of fuel was a pyro's delight.
My late father in law served with the 50th Northumberland Infantry Division from 1941 - 1946 and landed with The Green Howards on Gold Beach on D-Day.
He told me that almost every German tank they saw from 6 of June onwards was perceived to be a Tiger. Most tended to be upgunned and up armoured Mk IVs.
Thank you this proves that it was not a myth. My uncle was with the North Nova Scotia Highlanders in Normandy and said they all had Tiger fever.
No fear of the 88mm gun among allied tank crews is the narrative being sold here.
My Father only served as tank recovery and transport and even he feared it for what he would inevitably find and have to deal with inside every tank hit by it.Not necessarily penetrated.
German 75/L70 found on the Panther and Jagdpanzer IV would do the same thing.
Normandy is weird because anything with a muzzle brake with sufficiently scary effect was lumped into the 8,8 cm. You can see this with how the British reacted to 21st Panzer's S307 Pak and Becker's other vehicles based on Renaults and Hotchkisses with the 15 cm.
@@yashkasheriff9325
At the type of ranges that an 88 could obliterate an allied tank and its crew they wouldn't have had time to decide the difference even if they actually saw it.
T-34: "Quantity is also a quality"
The quote, attributed to Joseph Stalin, is “Quantity has a quality all its own.”
So said Stalin.
this tank was halfarsed German. the gun certainly was
@@achimotto-vs2lb But costed only a quarter. Four T-34s for the price of one Tiger. That's how you win wars.
junk
No matter what my favorite is still matilda 2...Colin Forbes and his Tramp in armor might do something with that but still...
Great book!
Wow, I read that yonks ago. Loved it!
The Matilda II was a great tank in Europe and North Africa in 1940 and 1941, and was still very effective against the Japanese in 1943-45.
@@timonsolus The Queen of the Desert.
good book that. Still have my paperback copy
Thanks Chris, always a pleasure to hear you speak.
The Valentine should get an honourable mention, surely?
reliable in the extreme - the russians loved it so much they asked us to extend production - and when the russians invaded manchuria they prioritised Sherman and Valentine because they were so reliable and perfect for use in remote theatres.
Very useful for light recce with the Soviets, hardier than a T-70, but relatively quite mobile. Performance in difficult ground holds it back, but handles quite nicely through the gears.
Many models of it and many adaptations. It did its job well.
@@ianhowdin993 Which isn't what history indicates.
@@ianhowdin993It wasn’t
The interviewer needs to factor in the reliability as well as the cost, and then consider the industrial capability of the competing nations.
For example, you can build 40 Shermans for the price of 10 Tigers, but 5 of those Tigers might break down on the way to the battlefield so in reality you have 5 tigers versus 40 Shermans.
And then when you consider the industrial might of the US, they didn’t build 4 Shermans for every Tiger they actually built 33 Shermans for every Tiger.
After some teethening-problems the Tiger1 was quite reliable.Unreliability of Tiger 1 is annother myth.Panther had more issues(weak drivetrain f.e.)
@@hansulrichboning8551 References to back that statement up?
The thing is that the Germans didn't have enough manpower for "quantity has a quality of its own"
Similarly, those comparing the Spitfire to ME109 hardly ever mention the 3:1 cost of production.
@@sotroof Or enough fuel and oil to run them all if they did have them.
For a historian and tank expert this chap's British underskirt hangs out way too far. This was supposed to debunk that the Tiger 1 was the most feared tank in WWII. First he basically admits it but then supposedly debunks it based on complexity and cost to produce. Sorry but that is two completely different aspects.
It is sort of true that it was the most feared. Allied commanders didn't fear it because it was too scarce to impact most battle results. Most allied tank crews and infantry never saw one so there wasn't much fear there either. On the other hand if you were one of the lucky tank crews to meet one on the battlefield there was almost nothing scarier.
Long before the Tigers appeared on the battlefield, every allied tank crew knew what the German 88mm could do to any tank. A German heavy tank mounted with the fearsome 88 could only be something fearsome.
Excellent episode. Chris Copson was outstanding.
Except for those annoying little boo-boos.
Nothing about what he says in about the Tiger removes the fear factor. It WAS the most feared tank for WW2. None of his critique meant a single thing to the allied soldiers facing this beast. Bad take.
And your source is?
@@elkrumb9159 Countless memoirs of WW2 vets?
This was great! Thank you very much.
8000 Tigers? Thought there were only 1500.
You are right, I think it was 1200-1300 Tiger I and 400-500 Tiger II
1,346 production Tiger I and 489 production Tiger II.
this is just fake expert from tank museum
Yeah, he’s got the production of the Tiger mixed with the Panther.
@@blitzkopf7267 Indeed. What was the name of your book again? I seem to have forgotten.
My grandfather built centurions when I asked him, and he always said, "I can't tell you, it's secret." He worked at Vickers Armstrong, on the tyne!
The trouble is that we can all say that on paper that this weapon is better than that one or it’s got a better killing range etc,etc but the proof is how did they actually do in any situation, take the Fairey Swordfish ,an aircraft that was outdated when it entered service ,it had virtually no protection and a top speed of best 130 mph.But un escorted for the loss of only 2 planes out of an attack by 21 aircraft all unescorted they put the main Italian battle fleet at Taranto out of action for a time, something that on paper they should never have been able to to
I recall reading that when they attacked the Bismark the German's fire control system didn't work because it was not designed for aircraft that slow.
@@htcltd They also flew near sea level making the AA guns on the Bismarck unable to effectively attack them, most ships expected dive bombers and were built to counter that
It was also so slow that when they attacked the Bismarck, the German gunners couldn't slow the turning speed of their orlikon anti aircraft guns slowly enough to hit the string bean planes.
@@htcltd It's even more hilarious. They survived the onslaught also thanks to the fact that it was made with fabric (metal frame covered by fabric to be more precise), meaning that shells could pass through it without exploding or causing any shrapnel damage.
@@mrcaboosevg6089 Logical people the Germans it probably never occurred to them that designing their anti-aircraft guns to defend against aircraft attacking their ship from below, was necessary.
Michael Wittmann destroyed a HUGE numbers of enemy tanks and vehicles in his STUG III then years later as a reward he earn his spot as a Tank Commander of Tiger I
After WWII the Tiger was not even considered for the rearmament of the French army, the Panther was.
And it failed miserably.
@@davidandrew1078 I was not aware of this. About 50 were kept in active service until 1951 through the use of inventories of spares available … until exhaustion.
The reason why Wittman is given more attention is that the number of 131 is confirmed tank kills not various vehicles, bit of a difference there.
"Press the rivet to talk to the crew!"
"Do you have the slightest idea how little that narrows it down?"
Not to mention that iirc a crewmember had to exit the tank in order t o talk to the infantryman.
@@sirridesalot6652 Still better than nothing.
@@sirridesalot6652
Or they could open a pistol port or that nifty little hatch on the back of the turret, and talk through that instead.
It wasn't to talk it was basically a door bell, to mean stop....
Gentlemen very well organized and presented. Interviewer, thank you for letting Chris talk without interruption.
I believe that the BIGGEST drawback of the T-34 was the lack of radios for tank to tank communications. Imagine having to use semaphore flags in a moving tank battle!
And a lack of an internal intercom. And the lack of a turret basket. And the two man turret on the 76. And the horrendous visibility on the obr41 and obr42s. The T34 had a few good features let down by many, many bad ones.
@@emceedoctorb3022 the 34/76 did receive a 3 man turret late 42-early 43, produced by a specific arsenal, and later expanding to multiple factories.
@@apyllyon As far as I know no 76 model had a three man turret, that was exclusively the 85 which was introduced in 43. The later models of the 76 were fitted with a cupola for the commander which somewhat alleviated the horrendous visibility of the earlier models.
The T-34 was designed from the outset to have a radio in every tank. A shortage of equipment meant that most T-34s in the early years lacked radio, but by 1943 most had one.
@@apyllyon There was never a 3 man turret on any 76mm-armed T-34.
I usually dismiss clicky thumbnails, but yours is worded just right. I like Hanson's take on the effect of Dunkirk on British armor.
I was an American armor soldier long ago. I am not alone in my respect for the Centurion. What a beast.
I remember days at the museum at Ft Knox and seeing the cutaway of the T34. The idea of sighting through the barrel, as was done with the earliest model, made us roll our eyes in disbelief.
wrote: "I remember days at the museum at Ft Knox and seeing the cutaway of the T34. The idea of sighting through the barrel, as was done with the earliest model, made us roll our eyes in disbelief."
-- Why? Did "those" from Ft Knox did not know, that T-34 had both telescopic and periscopic sights on earlier T-34? And same for loader/gunner i.e. both telescopic and periscopic sights? Just look at 28:18 of this video.
I’m glad he touched on the P47, according to German soldiers they feared allied AirPower more then anything else. Allied tank crews would probably disagree with the rest of the show however.
And artillery; biggest complaint amongst the German army was that even a US noncom (sgt or cpl) could call in arty if a situation needed it.
Really brilliant video, I learned a little from it.
48,000 man hours to build an M-4, 300,000 man hours to build a Tiger1.
Without air support a Tiger can destroy more than ten sherman, but the US had a much bigger industrial capacity.
@@Suchtel10Nope. The exchange rate was closer to 1-2. In fact, there were quite a few engagements where the tiger was destroyed before managing to hit any allied armor whatsoever.
@@phoenix211245 What did i say? Without air support. But from 1943 onwards Tiger could not fight without danger from air strikes
About 500 for a T34.
@@TheLucanicLord Even for the Russians would that be too cheap.
Great video guys, very enjoyable.
I would think the Churchill tank, although slow had the ability to punch through
Through what and with which gun? If you say "2 pdr" I say "Paper bag". You get the idea.
Where was this, "Expert", found?
The T34 most definitely wasn't the first tank to have sloped armour, although it may have been the first to have all it's surfaces sloped.
Man pretended to forget about the lower sides of the tank, then pretended to say something smart on the internet.
wrote: "The T34 most definitely wasn't the first tank to have sloped armour, although it may have been the first to have all it's surfaces sloped."
-- Sure, what other tank before T-34 had a slopped armor that doubled the EAT(Effective Armor Thickness) from 45mm to 90?
@@RussianThunderrr None, because a plate so small angled at such an aggresive angle expects the tank crew to be dwarves. T-34 is a stupid design.
yep, even the Matilda II had sloping armour AND the hull was also shaped a bit like a boat at the front (with storage compartments on either side of the driver).
“ Tiger, Tiger, Burning bright // In the steppes of Kursk tonight “ William Blake ( 18th century visionary )
Except that rather few Tigers were actually lost at Kursk. Meanwhile the Soviets, whose national past time is reinventing the Truth, claimed "hundred lost".
@@fwinkler112 Tigers were over-engineered junk. Same applies to the Bismarck. Useless coffins.
@@fwinkler112wehraboo cope! 😂
Soviet crews preferred the Sherman over the T-34 as well.
They loved the radio system, that's for sure.
they didnt but ok.
No evidence of that. Most red army tank crews never saw an M4 so they wouldn't have any basis for preferring one over the other.
The red army loved their M4s but used them exactly how they used their T-34s. There was no preference one way or the other.
@@executivedirector7467 Though they uniformly held the American 75 in great disdain.
You forgot a bigger German ace Kurt Knispel. Great video othervise! Subbed.
A Tiger would take out four Shermans , the problem for the Germans was the Allies and Russians produced way more Shermans and T34s than four to one Tigers , also add in air superiority, and German lack of fuel
The fate of most Tigers was to break down before they ever ran into those four Shermans.
"A Tiger would take out four Shermans" How did they manage that when there are no confirmed encounters between Shermans and Tigers?
looking equipment in a vacuum like that is the problem, its called combined arms for a reason
@@dewdew80there were three encounters between M4’s and Tiger I’s post D-Day. More if you count Firefly’s. For the standard M4, once the Tigers came out ahead, once the M-4’s, and the other was inconclusive.
@@veetsv1597 through process of elimination many historians believe that three instances may actually be real encounters with Tigers out of a heap of rumored encounters. Those three instances do not have conclusive evidence.
Not sure this guy really understands the impact of the tiger. There were never 8000 tigers, but 1 or 2 could cause a lot of destruction to opposing tanks. There were reasons why several commanders scored 10's of kills. As for 4 shermans or 1 Tiger, you'd go for the tiger every time.
The Centurion is my favourite, although it just missed WW2.
Comet was mine. A really good tank
@@wombatski100 Yes, I like the Comet too
The signal rivet is very clever, hard to hit or otherwise damage.
I think it's better than nothing, but I also think its kind of a stupid idea. How do you train infantrymen (who will rarely see a tank, in the Japanese army) which rivet to push? So you're being shot at, you're stressed AF, you haven't slept through the night in weeks, and you have to remember which of dozens of identical-looking rivets to press on. No thanks.
Better to have something really easy to see, like the postwar 'doorbell' the Czechs put on their T-34-85s, or even better, put a phone on the back, like the US Army did in the field in WW2 and at the factory postwar.
Sir John Monash 'invented' combined arms blitzkreig at Hamel in WW1, which was well observed by the Germans
No he didn't.
Yes he could fly as well without a plane, all tactics ascribed to him had already been perfected by the British Army.
That Ronson slogan appeared in 1929 in a single ad. Perhaps not enough to be popularized, but way before the 1950's
yep, and although no American tank crewman would have referred to the Sherman as the Ronson, there's anecodotal evidence to suggest that the British were the ones who coined the phrase after their debut at the Battle of El Alamein - the 1920s slogan wasn't "lights first time" but was worded closely enough......
The Tiger was actually visually designed to be imposing. Seems to have worked.
It’s a Metal box it looks dumb
-- Its a frigging scarry tank, and for a good reason, especially if you looking at it only a couple of meters away. IDK why Chris thinks that Tiger I scare is a WWII Myth?
@@elkrumb9159 You would absolutely cack your trousers if you saw one of them driving down your road.
@@pr248 I would be scared if there’s even a light tank coming at me and I have zero anti tank weapons
Tiger 1 or 2 was not a good battle “tank” it was slow, got bogged down, and could easily get outpaced by a T34 or Sherman, and a massive waste of fuel compared to its competitors. its interesting that its classified as a tank yet struggled to do normal “tank” things. the Tigers were more or less a heavily armored anti tank gun than an actual tank.
however i cant deny it was the ww2 “boogeyman”
Never forget the massive numbers of trucks sent to Russia under Lend-Lease to support the offensive and defensive operations.
Aye no deep battle without motorised infantry
I just saw a documentary on the British Comet which came in late, about post D-day. Fast, well armoured and big gun.
And about as sloped as a Tiger 1. Ironic, eh?
About preferring the 4 Sherman over 1 Tiger, that would assume that you have 20 trained crew members vs. 5
Probably the right ratio in 1944
Considering the impact of a tank having fewer infantry isn't that out there
Well they did.
The actual ratio was often 20 trained Sherman crewman vs 1 trained Tiger crewman and the 4 barely trained recruits he was stuck with.
We did
The Ronson comment was new to me and sounds like an American comment, the British comment was about them being called Tommy cookers because they would easily “Brew up” so it’s the same style of comment inferring an unhealthy likelihood of catching fire, I don’t know enough to know how true that was but it sounds like the kind of dark British Army humour I am familiar with.
The irony is that a vast amount of the myths and misinformation came out of Bovington in the first place.
This
Interesting. Can you elaborate?
@@iantaylor3393yeah, curious here too
How dare you...
Fletcher never went out and updated things or would not do additional research even if… the information existed at Bovy in the files that would explain things. Instead he went off the top of his head from stuff he’d dug into in the 80s 90s.
Also they were know to the Germans as Tommy Cookers, possibly the Ronson Myth came later, but, is it a Myth, the Germans definitely did call them Tommy Cookers.
This guy doesn't know what he's talking about, the Tiger 1 did not weigh 60 tons; it weighed 56 tons! And the T-34 was not that mechanically reliable!
T-34 wasn't massively reliable but what it was is easily serviceable in the field. In USSR, and Russia today, the tank driver is designated "mechanic-driver" and crew can perform regular maintenance tasks with them.
I always thought the Stug III although not a tank was a most effective bit of kit. Nevertheless, he has his opinion, but I'd take my chances in a Panther or a Tiger over any allied tank. Production numbers made Shermans and T34 effective.
As a native English speaker, albeit from another country, I struggled to understand what this guy was saying.
I understood him fine, and learned a lot from him.
Yes, I am from the USA midwest, and do struggle at times with, not so much his accent, but the low volume of his delivery.
@@curtisweaver3682 The actual times radio fella enunciates properly, and uses well defined vowels and consonants.
If you're not from England, you are NOT a native English speaker.
9:24 Early M4 variant with three hull machine guns, and two, turret-mounted machine guns. The hull guns were all M1919A4.30 caliber machine guns, two fixed, and one mounted in a ball mount for the co-driver.
I believe the Germans did call the sherman the tommy cooker though
From what i read they called it the 'Zippo' because it caught fire so often
@@mrcaboosevg6089 Once they got better ammunition storage (water jackets I think) Shermans were safer. Plenty of pictures and video of Panzers on fire also. You were much safer in a Sherman than being in infantry.
British nickname for the Sherman was the "Ronson", as in lighter fuel.
@@mrcaboosevg6089
No. The Germans knew nothing about Zippo or Ronson.
@@chrisrumbold3621 Someone didn't watch the video.
That Firefly! Imagine if we had had them sooner.
You didn't have the 17pdr sooner so that would have been hard to manage.
The Tiger tank had one great advantage when it broke down the factory mechanics could walk to it.
Plus the "Tiger I" had something called "zimerit" (I don't know how to spell it correctly): "Zimerit" may have had the ability to prevent "sticky bombs" from sticking to the tank body.
The fact is that tank vs tank combat on the Western Front amounted to 15% of all engagements for Allied tankers. What percentage of that 15 percent was Tiger 1's? This obsession with Tiger vs Sherman is ridiculous. Never mind the problem with comparing a medium tank to a heavy tank.
Also, not necessarily a myth but a misconception, Tiger 2 was not a development of Tiger 1. Tiger 1 was a stop gap temporary solution to the development of Tiger 2 being delayed. Tiger 1 was actually very crude. It is a monolithic slab of metal with square corners and a turret shaped around a gun.
No, it wasn't crude. You think a machine that complex and effective is crude because of the shape? That's like calling a square body pickup crude compared to a curvy one. Squared shapes are not without advantages and sloped are not without drawbacks.
The Panzermuseum held a conference where the director also showed the Bauhaus design philosophy influenced the shape of the Tiger
Oh I really doubt that; I'm guessing that that passed as humour on the part of the Director. And you believed it. Wow.
Tiger-too heavy for bridges, too expensive,tranny not fit for purpose, underpowered engine, fuel guzzler. Also it used petrol (gasoline) which was in short supply in Germany from 1942 onward.
what do expect back then ? some people
An unreliable tank is filled with hope. A broken tank, like fixed gun emplacements is a sitting target. A slow tank is like
the previous, just a little faster. A tank that is hard to repair in the field is a burden on supply chains - more parts, more
men, more food, more downtime and weakens the effectiveness of an objective.
meta-myth: a myth perpetuated by people constantly debunking it.
Is it just me or the Sherman "Ronson" myth was the only one that got actually debunked?
Was the Sherman also known by the Germans as the Tommy cooker or was that a Myth?
Depends on who you ask: the results were the same though.
It was a Zippo lighter not a Ronson. Great museum! This guy knows what he is talking about.
If you can source anything to back that statement, please do so.
Otherwise STFU.
Didn't the Germans call the Sherman tank, Tommy Cookers.
''Ronson" after the cigarette lighter that lit the first time!
@@mikebarnes7734 did you even watch the video😂
yes until a British firefly sherman turned up with the British 76mm gun they had no problems with tigers !!
Yep.
The Brits called them Tommy cookers too.
Four Shermans - as long as one of them is a Firefly!😉
Sherman or tiger….ill pick the tiger most allied tankers would too!!
-- Ah, Chris, Chelyabinsk is where Kirov heavy KV/IS tank factory from Leningrad. T-34 was designed and manufactured in Kharkov, and moved to Nizhny Tagil which is beyond Ural Mounts to Ural rail road train factory. Both Chelyabinsk and Nizhny Tagil are in Siberia couple of thousands kilometers away from the original factories.
-- Thank you, Chris for mentioning slopped armor and explaining what EAT(Effective Armor Thickness) is.
The ShermaM4a3e8 was much better than the Tiger 1&2.
It was much faster to produce, could be modified to serve multiple roles, and had a much better turret (traverse stabilization, faster traverse, etc).
You go on believing whatever you want. We know better.
@@fwinkler112 You dont KNOW anything if you cannot defend your assertion.
The Sherman was a MUCH better tank than either Tiger.
In WW2 allied gunners took out a thousand square outhouses for every square Tiger on the battlefield 😳.
"Disproportionately said to catch fire" is absolute horseshit. You can compare the burn rates of M4, T-34, and Pz IV, and see they're all comparable, but M4 always comes out ahead in the end because the crew is far more likely to survive, fire or no, which was touched on. But it was no more or no less likely to catch fire from a hit than any other tank of the era, and less likely than some others that receive more praise. Panther, for example, had a particular type of lubrication oil that pooled on the hull floor and was flammable. Ferdinand overheated its engine/transmission and caught fire just trying to top a hill. Another bit about the name "ronson" or even "zippo" was that flamethrowing variants of the M4 were known by those names.
Also the Wet ammo storage helped but for different reasons, the ammo is way less likely to be struck on the bottom of the hull which is the safest place to have ammo back then
@@elkrumb9159 but the British didn't get the wet stowage versions - the US kept those for themselves. It was the early M4s that were highly vulnerable, as the 75mm rounds were stored in "ready racks" around the turret for convenience. These early variants also lacked the loader's hatch, and didn't all have the large hatches like the later ones so were not quite so easy to get out of
@@sean640307 you’re correct about everything except the ammuntion and British,
The reason why early Sherman’s from the British were so easy to set on fire was mainly because they overstocked on ammuntion, even if they didn’t have wet ammo, they were still at the back of the sponsons and below the turret basket
@@elkrumb9159 oh, I know the British had a tendency to cram extra rounds, but the early M4A1 had the ready racks around the inside of the turret. I have cut-away drawings of them showing what I mean, but unfortunately we can't post them on here. Later ones were moved down low to reduce the incidents but they had to learn their lesson the hard way.
As Ken Tout wrote about the Normandy battles, the average British Sherman that was hit and penetrated had about 12 seconds before they "brewed up". Of course some took longer, some didn't burn at all. The British had taken to putting the rounds into ammunition boxes, down low. It helped considerable.
@@sean640307 true to that
Did you use a very old low resolution webcam there?
If the Tiger was not the most feared tank then what was? Myth NOT debunked.
The most feared tank was the one you were up against until it`s been dealt with period , it matters not how superior the hardware , it matters how good the people fielding that hardware are
According to contemporary German accounts, the Churchill Crocodile flamethrower induced terror amongst troops facing them.
JS-3 that just made the Berlin PARADA 8/45
No one anything won anything - same with the Spitfire in the Battle of Britain
76mm 17 pounder could penetrate 150mm of steel at 1000 yds, better than the 88mm on the Mk VI (with a full powder charge). (Around Nov-44, the powder was reduced 25% due to the shortage of nitrogen to make explosives.)
Got a source?
@@lewcrowley3710 I was wondering the exact same thing.
88mm on a Mk IV?? Wow, we got an expert right here.
Agreed. The Tiger WAS the most feared tank in WW2. Wether this was rational or warranted didn’t matter, fear is irrational, so not sure you busted this myth at all 🤷♂️
Thank you.
I sure wasn't convinced and neither were the 8000 Tiger commanders.
the most feared weapon of WW2 was a crewed 88, smashed anything at 2000 yards, just ask the Russians from Jun 41 to May 45 and some, took out over 40,000 T34's alone, very few crews survived that massive impact
Picture of a KV 1 in the T 34 section!
and ? You want a medal or something .. I noticed moving Panzer 3's also in the T34 section .. but i don't need medals or a chuffdee badge so i didn't bother mentioning it
27:24 Yes, that annoyed me too. 😕
@@kittyhawk9707 You should have as the medals that they are handing out this week are particularly dashing!
@@fwinkler112 :)
German Tiger tank was not the most feared? Why do US veterans say they feared it the most? Why do US battlefield reports report so many sightings of Tigers, far beyond what actually existed? Because US troops were so terrified of them they saw them everywhere.
Why do people think the B17 was the best bomber ?
It wasnt the Lancaster was .
Even a mosquito could carry the paltry bomb load of a flying fortress.
Surprisingly mixed quality of information from Mr. Copson. Incorrect quantity indication of tiger production and no information about the completely different action doctrine of a Tiger compared to a Sherman, T34 or Panther. Keyword heavy breakthrough vehicle. The Tiger was never designed to be used like a Panther or Sherman. As far as the production costs are concerned, a tiger adjusted to todays scale at 3.7 Mill. € cost each, half about the cost of a M1 Abrams and significantly less than a Leclerc or Leopard. Does NATO make about the same mistake here?
Obviously NATO is producing overly heavy, overly complicated, overly expensive designs and they are stupid.
What NATO needs is more tankettes!!!
true. The Tiger was a breakthrough tank. The German equivalent to the Sherman was the Panzer IV...and then the Panther.
@@gratefulguy4130 Cue Laughter right now!