The Char B1: The 'Real' Tiger Tank?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ก.พ. 2023
- Discover the lesser-known Char B1 tank, an unorthodox design with thick armor and powerful defensive capabilities. Compare it to the iconic Tiger I and examine the myths surrounding its success.
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I think the B1's biggest claim to fame is that it's clearly a huge influence for many Imperial WH40K tanks. 😎
40k is my only hint to your reference
Definitely getting Leman Russ vibes from it
@@nickellison2785 Big time.
Thats exacty what I thought. Isn't this the Leman Russ!?
@@nickellison2785 Looks more like a Rogal Dorn, or one of the Malcadors.
My grandfather, a tank commander, was captured on 13 June 44 having had his tank destroyed by Wittman (he'd jumped out to check on the next tank that had been hit) and spent the rest of the war in a POW camp. Grandmother was told he was MIA, probably dead, but never believed it. Returned after the war, never spoke a word about it to family. A remarkable generation.
So he was with 7th Armoured Div at Villers-Bocage?
@@executivedirector7467 4th County of London Yeomanry (Sharpshooters) - which have been part of that Division
@@FREEDOMRIK73 Brave man.
Unfortunate that their regimental, brigade and division commanders were so bad. All relieved by Dempsey, and rightfully so.
I had a buddy whose father was abusive. But, his father had driven Shermans in WWII. On one occasion the father was instructed to hoist the body of his best buddy out of the driver's seat of his tank and then sit in the same spot and drive that tank.
No wonder the guy was messed up.
Same with my great grandfather being a POW in the eastern front, he lost an eye
The story of Tiger 231, a tank that the Soviets could not kill at Kursk, no matter how many times it was hit by anti-tank shells, probably contributed to the legend surrounding Tiger I. Tiger 231 was hit 252 times by rounds of various calibres from a number of anti-tank weapons but nevertheless managed to drive off the battlefield with all of its crew members alive.
Edit.
Some more detailed information on that particular event :Tiger ‘231’ of Leutnant Zabel from schwere Panzer-Abteilung 503 was hit 252 times by fire from all calibres during combat near Semernikovo, on the outskirts of Rostov-on-Don on 11 February 1943. The tank was able to be driven a further 60km to the rear area and returned to the unit.
Strangely though Micheal Wittman was killed when his Tiger was hit with a single shot from a Sherman Firefly (and does that then make the Firefly a better tank?)
@@russellfitzpatrick503 And exactly how does this relate to Tiger ‘231’ of Leutnant Zabel from schwere Panzer-Abteilung 503?
Reminded of the Russian film, "The White Tiger".
@@russellfitzpatrick503 that only means that the Sherman firefly had a 17-pounder gun equipped specifically for the purpose of taking out Tigers.
@@russellfitzpatrick503 the 17pdr could penetrate 150mm at 1000 meters. No WW2 tank's side armor could withstand that, unless they stood at an extreme angle.
At Villers-Bocage the lone Tiger took 3-4 rounds at short range from a Firefly and only suffered minor damage, undoubtedly because it was well angled.
All French tank designs leading up to WWII also had to deal with a manpower shortage in the French Army. So many Frenchmen died in WWI, the French Army had to plan knowing they didn't have the same number of troops possible in other armies of the time. Hence, the 1 man turret in many French tanks leading up to WWII.
Very true and Thumbs Up. And being so nationally tired of centuries of constant warfare, means the whole "Surrender Monkeys" attitude about the French soldiers is the talk of arrogance. Same for the Italians. Both nations had good records in WWI and prior.
That's a silly theory
@@smartiepancake Bullshit. Both countries had lost more lives than the UK and US and the average person wanted to end war. That's why they surrendered to either side in WWII.
If you're talking about French tank turrets, I'll leave the poster to defend his statement.
@@smartiepancake France suffered more casualties relative to its population than any great power during ww1. In 1935, when those born in 1915 reached conscription age, France could expect 184,000 future soldiers, while Germany could expect almost 3 times this figure. It was obvious France couldn't hope to match Germany's number in any future conflict and couldn't afford to fight an other battle as costly as Verdun. And indeed when ww2 broke out Germany's population was two times that of France, no wonder why the Germans were able to have a lot of tanks with 4 or 5 personnels and 3-man turrets while the french had to stick with smaller crews.
The japanese built their tanks on french know-how and also lost heavily. Had they worked more with the Germans there would have been a different Pacific Wa outcome.
My grandfather served on a B1 bis during the battle of France. His accounts confirm your story.
So, the Char B1 story at around the 15 minute mark earned itself a top gun, confederate, high calibre, steel wall battle hero awards, plus cool-headed, probably master gunner. Unfortunately, being only Tier 4, it misses out on a Radley-Walters or Pools medal :(
I actually got most of those in a single battle when it first came out in that game, before they adjusted armor stats and model to be balanced with the rest of tanks in game. There were only 2 or 3 tanks that could even penetrate it and 1 of them could only do so from the rear, fun times. 😁
@@alexwalker2582 Oh nice, awesome :D
LOL. World of Tanks. Won't mind getting back to playing it a little.
😂 it even has a limiter that prevents it from pulling more the 17gs
Loved both the B1 Char and AMX 40 in WoT. One is a slow heavy tank with an alright gun, the other is a slow heavy tank with good camo...
One of the main problems was that the French tended to 'spread' their tanks out along the front line instead of using them en masse like the Germans did. Who knows what may have happened if they had copied German tank tactics too
Probably also interesting to point out that the germans didn't actually really expect this attack to work necessarily. They were surprised it did. There is an interesting interview on youtube by the chieftain interviewing the panzer museums historian about all kinds of stuff.
It was never implemented in real frontline scenario but in test run afterwards it works 👍
It isn't so much that the pazers were better its just the Chars were barely engaged, mostly because of poor doctrine and dispersion more or less.. while the panzers are formidable its just the maintenance is terrible and the later ones are straight up experiments and a poor waste of resources
Everyone but the Germans subordinated their tanks to the infantry. The real problem was the French overloaded their crews, didn't use radios, and barely trained them. Many of them deployed without knowing how to fill the main fuel tank. The French were actually more afraid of a coup from their own army than the Germans. Considering their history, that is understandable. So a professional well trained army was considered a liability.
It would be pretty hilarious to watch an armored spearhead try and run commanded by flag signals.
The Char B1 was more like the forerunner of the Churchill tank .... high tracks, heavily armored for the period, slow moving but more useful in helping infantry to assault enemy positions.
Indeed, had the war ramped up a little slower, the french were going to supply Britain with some of the B-1 tanks. Of course that never got off the ground because of how 1940 went.
I wonder if that is why the Churchill was built.
That's because tanks were classed between roles. The B1 was a pure infantry tank and the comtemporary British one that came in mind was the Matilda II which proved its worth at Amiens (it had even a better frontal armor). Rommel had to bring his FLAK 8,8 cm to stop their rampage. After the Matilda came the Valentine, and the Churchill.
@@davidbocquelet-dbodesign The Char B1 (and the more numerous B1 bis) was armed with a 75mm howitzer in the hull and a 47mm gun in the turret. The Churchill Mk 1 was armed with a 76.2mm QF 3 inch howitzer in the hull and a 40 mm QF 2-pounder gun in the turret. It was the early mark of the Churchill which bore the most similarities to the Char B1.
Captain Pierre Armand Gaston Billotte in the Battle of Stonne proved that the Char B1 bis was a great design for its time. Armor and gun technology made it obsolete after the Battle of France. The tank deserves more historical interest and credit. More than equipment, the French military was defeated by its own government through years of deliberate neglect and mistrust of the military and the officers within the ranks.
The Somua S-35 was a good contender for the first universal tank. Tough, fast for French tanks, reasonable gun. Had the flaw of splitting into two if you hit the seam.
Not to mention its unergonomic crew layout.
Charles De Gaulle who's paper on the role of the tank some say inspired many military minds in Germany did well with the Somuas under his command in the actual battle. He was a student of Petain. Petain it is said did sought to keep his student's ego and influence under control and rebuffed him. De Gaulle saw the tank's potential as an offensive tool while Petain wanted it used as a defensive tool. De Gaulle had pleaded for radios in every tank before the war. I personally feel Petain, after Verdun simply had no stomach left for slaughter. Avoiding invasion by creating the Maginot line seemed to be his main focus. Sadly neither were in place or ready by 1940. Cheers, I agree the Somua S-35 was a great tank too often overlooked.
@@marcwiart5657De Gaulle commanded D2 tanks, not S35 if recall correctly
@@parodyclip36 His 4th division during the invasion had a mix of tanks D2, char b1, Somua, ect. Before the war though you may right seems to me the D2 was an earlier tank?
How the fuck do you think somua of all the tanks was universal tank
Very well done. I personally like this type of comparison.
It wasn't just the armor of the Tiger that made it special, it was that gun. The 8,8 was still a fiercely capable weapon system at the end of the war, while the firepower combo possessed by the Char B1 was long in the tooth even at the outbreak of conflict.
And that says nothing about the ergonomics. Tanks today use the same layout as the Tiger did, while B1 had a commander who had to load, fire and control the crew all at the same time. This video is bs.
And don't forget the highly trained and integrated crew, usually from the same district.
Though these quality's dropped off towards the end of the war, there were still enough experienced crew who made the platform deadly.
@@grimreaper3882 Agreed. The "soft factors" generally out weighed "hard factors" such as Armour and Penetration. In the case of the Tiger I it has superiority in both. In the case of the Char B its Armour and penetration were such that it had an overall advantage over the 3.7cm armed Panzer III despite the superior soft factors of the Panzer III. The moment the Panzer III received the 50mm gun, which could penetrate the Char B, the Panzer III it had the overall advantage over the Char B. The 5.0cm armed Panzer III had a big kill ratio advantage over the T-34/76 which has similar commander work load issues of the Char B with hideously poor optics.
-The German tanks had the following crew arrangements: 1 A driver. 2 A radio operator hull gunner. His job was to relay and record radio communications thereby alleviating the commander while keeping out an eye for danger out front, using the machine gun and protecting the buddy tank. 3 The gun aimer, 4 the loader who helped the gunner to traverse in the manual traverse and in some cases kept a lookout and 5 the commander who also had a machine gun if needed. The German tanks also had a 'viewing cuppola' that greatly increased their situational awareness. On the Panzer III and IV this was an armored tube atop the turret with 8 viewing slits for the commander. He could thus maintain situation awarness relatively safe from MG fire and artillery. On the Tiger and Panther there were 8 periscopes to allow the commanders head to be in the turret safe from AT fire as well. A T-34 that was buttoned up was almost completely blind due to the poor optics and limited field of view.
-The result was that the 5 man tanks saw the target first, got in first shot, got in a second shot before the other tank responded.
-Neverthless the Char B clearly worked in some situations and I think it could have been developed into a capable assault gun and tank destroyer. The commanders turret reduced further and only armed with a 20mm gun or heavy MG and a powerful AT gun in the hull position.
The Char B1 had a massive Achilles Heel in its armor. German AT gunners were told to aim for the grates along the sides of the rear of the tank. Instant demobilization.
@@grimreaper3882 The Char B1 was meant for the "break-through" role, with its heavy armor (at least by late 1930s standards) intended to shrug off most anti-tank guns and rifles. It should be kept in mind that the majority of AT guns issued to the Heer, utilized in its infantry divisions, which were most of the formations and manpower, was the 37-mm Pak 36. It was light enough to be manhandled by its three-man crew, and likewise was adequate against MOST of the tanks the Heer expected to face. The Char B1s 47 mm gun, although it had to be loaded and aimed by the tank commander, a glaring problem, was potent enough to deal with all but the heaviest tanks, including itself and the British Matilda II. It might have had trouble with the Soviet KV tanks had the French needed to engage them. IDK what the combat performance of French "Beutepanzers" in German service on the Eastern Front was, but I don't recall that any Char B1s were sent there. I have seen pictures of a company of B1s, all the "bis" version, with one fitted with a flamethrower in place of the 75mm hull-mounted gun, on occupation duty in the Channel Islands.
Although obviously the Panzerwaffe operated with great success in May and June of 1940, it wasn't due to the armor and/or firepower of the Panzers, which was largely mediocre. However, the layout of the Panzers and even the Czech-built 38(t) tanks did the one thing the French armor, save for the two-man "Model 35s" (built by Renault and Hotchkiss, sharing few common parts, another glaring logistical problem) could not...not burden the TC with anything else to do but COMMAND the tank! Also, the Germans not only equipped all their vehicles with radios, they used FM, which worked better and was more difficult for the enemy to listen in on. Like the Soviets, the French equipped most of their tanks that had radios to "receive only", and some had none at all! These vehicles had to have the TCs stand out of the hatch and hand-signal or shout at each, or use SEMAPHORE flags. As would characterize American armor four years later, especially in Patton's Third Army, the Germans excelled in the Battle of France at being "The 'fustest' with the 'mostest' "!
During WW2 Sven Berge read about the German testing of captured Char B1s and this inspired him later on to design Strv 103, the S tank.
What about the Stug?
@@frankhassle9366 The Stug gun had a 25 degree traverse. The success of assault guns probably inspired him a bit, but it was the Char B1 bis/ter that made him think that maybe you don't need to move the actual gun when the vehicle has such precise movement. 🙂
@@puppetguy8726 The 'double differential' steering system on the Char B clearly proved that a gun can be accurately aimed using this system. Most WW2 tanks couldn't turn on the spot like the Char B and simply had separate 2 speed gearbox for left and right track or could simply release a clutch and brake the track. It received a bad reputation but it turns out to be undeserved. Pharmaceutical Grade Castor Oil was often put in to the hydraulic section incorrectly by under trained crews rather than Lubrication Grade Castor Oil and the oil broke down. A Strv 103 type jagdpanzer tank destroyer could have been developed.
@@puppetguy8726 but the Stug was a much more successful design, showing that a tank without a turret could potentially be viable.
@@frankhassle9366 I've done a bit of research and the stugs and jagdpanzers tried out by Sweden post ww2 did have an influence on Berge. But the B1 where the driver aims and fires the gun was still the grounds of his idea and it was then compounded by his assault gun experiences.
Great video! Thanks. A tiger is king in an open field, but a rhino in a corner... That's the Char B1
The char b1 and s35 are some of my favorite tanks actually and both were powerful tanks
Thanks Simon and team for all the hard work!!
I think that one of the key attributes of any tank was how easily it could be built and therefore how many could be put onto the field of battle (in combination with ease of repair crew training etc)
which is why the T-34 and the M4A2 Sherman's dominated the war. All they had to do was swap the turret and you had tanks now with HEAVY pentrating rounds like the Soviet 85mm and the American 76mm.
Yes for main production tanks. The Tiger was never intended to be that. It was a specialist heavy tank.
The Germans had the Panzer III then Panzer IV and Panther as main production tanks.
Tiger was similar to KVs and Pershings in role.
It just looks really modern compared to its contemporaries. Being the first tank to get that big 88mm into a turret makes the Tiger 1 an important tank despite its flaws.
Char was the Tiger of the early war, certainly... but the Tiger was the Tiger of the war after it was fielded... I think that the Tiger's mythos comes from a variety of factors, generally being extremely tough to kill especially before Allied cannons were upgraded and the 88mm cannon capable of penetrating every allied tank that existed at significant range until the late war. There are fringe cases where Tigers have been noted to perform insane feats, but in general use Tiger Aces are widely celebrated as mythical tank commanders that were highly effective in war because they knew how best to make the most of the Tiger's advantages.
The Tiger's primary weakness was the constant maintenance of it, when breakdowns or battle damage would occur the parts needed to repair and maintain it often left it unable to be used for quite sometime due to both logistics issues and also the additional complications with the design of the suspension and layered tread wheels. I think that the Tiger's legendary status is for the circumstances in which it's greatest advantages were used to their best outcome... typically used like an entrenched tank sniper that could knock out tank after tank without being critically damaged in return.
Strangely, while it was technically not designed for that role it still ended up being one of the most effective ways to use it because the idea of a "breakthrough" tank is somewhat silly in retrospect.
Ultimately, the Panther and up-armored Panzer IVs were better tanks which were capable of being produced faster, better agilty, while using equivalent and improved systems and sporting as good armor... but by that time much other Allied cannons had evolved to the point where a marginally better vehicle ultimately meant little if it could still be penetrated by the current weapons and ammunition available.
The Char, while it could have been used far more effectively on a strategic level, still ultimately has some incredibly problematic design flaws that are significantly worse than the one's that the Tiger had which would ultimately have it's entire design left in the dust. Conversely, many of the design aspects, ideas, and precedents created by the Tiger are still seen in tank design today.
Tigers turned out to be excellent at retreating, along with Pzr IVs, Panthers, Pzr IIIs, and Stugs and the whole lot of other over-engineered ineffective armoured vehicles the Germans produced.
@@johnthomas7517 I feel like you missed the point of the whole video, not to mention my commentary on the fact that no military vehicle is perfect, it's mostly about using it's advantages to its best effect... circumstantially, the Tiger just happened to be good within its niche.
John Thomas
The Tiger battalions and companies knocked out circa 10,000 allied tanks, assault guns and tank destroyers. Far from being "ineffective".
The combined allies simply had around 5 times as many AFVs as the Germans did. Over 250,000.
I read a history book years ago, I think it was "Campaigns of world war 2 day by day". Lots of photos, good book, check it out. It said that the char was mentioned as more than capable of taking on any armour that the Germans had, but I believe the next line verbatim was "however French logistics beggared belief, with many tanks running out of fuel and ammunition and simply being abandoned"
totally love your insight into all things military,fantastic channel,keep up the good work
13:53 Interesting. I didn't know that was the tactical difference between those two tiger tanks. I always just thought that one was simply a new or improved version of the other one.
Nice!
Panzer IV with the 7.5 l/43 or l/48, could at a distance be mistaken for a Tiger I, which added to the TigerI's reputation
Yep, David Willey speculates that the later PzIVs were deliberately made to look a bit like Tigers from a distance
Love hearing “There was no Kerbal work around.” 8:25. Simon you never fail to astonish me with your ways of words.
I stood next to one of these at the Bovington tank museum in the UK and it is seriously impressive up close. It looks like it was ripped straight out of Warhammer 40k
It is ironic. If (relatively) young general Charles De Gaulle had been allowed his wish for a modern armored doctrine during the late interwar period, the french may well have been able to hold their ground with their superior tanks.
People keep talking about different ideas of French doctrine that might have been the problem, but I think the problem was the operational battle plan. There was a plan to advance to the Dyle River, the so called Plan D. This would have the advantage of shortening the front. Then for whatever reason the French decided to advance to Breda using 7 elite divisions that were supposed to be their strategic reserve. The idea was to rescue the Dutch to prevent them from surrendering. The minor problem with this is that it meant if the French guessed wrong where the attack came from, all their units were committed to the frontline. So when the real German attack came, the best of the French army was stuck in Belgium trying to make a U-turn to come back to Franche where the fighting was happening. If De Gaulle had his armored doctrine but didn't have personal command of it, it's very likely those armored divisions would have been the ones stuck in Belgium instead.
A splendidly in depth analysis. From the evidence presented, the Char B1 was a most formidable tank undermined by the doctrine by which it was employed. Perhaps not quite as formidable as the Tiger, but no slouch either.
The only thing I can say about how all the different countries went about designing their armored vehicles back then is, viva la différence.
"If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking"-George S. Patton
In effect the Char B1 had a similar problem to the Russian T72s and 80s in Ukraine, where it isn't the tanks that are at fault but the tactics in which they are being used that are
russian tanks fault are the relative bad armor and the ammo under the turet, not similar to the B1b who had a formidable armor, but yes tactic that'a another problem
A great video, one that's very balanced despite the title. The successes of the French Char B1bis was largely due to the lack of a fluid battle maneuvering over the battlefield. Rather, both B1's discussed in the video, essentially stood still and fired away. The gunners weren't overworked. The commander and the driver methodically selected their targets with little worry about being outflanked. Even the hapless H-35 scored some fantastic kills in the right situation. But as we know, that was far from the case in the battle of May and June 1940. French armour at best simply struggled to cope with German Panzer divisions.
Furthermore, unlike those German panzer units, the French DCR's were a relatively new formation, with little training as a cohesive unit. Of the four deployed in the Battle of France, only the 1st DCR was fully equipped. The rest were still forming, with the 4th (De Gaulle's division) built more or less on the fly. The trio of French DLM's had better success, being more balanced divisions, and made the Germans work for their successes.
Of note, when the Battle for France began that May, the British and French actually had more armoured and motorized divisions than the Germans. The French started with 3 DCR's and 3 DLM's, along with 6 motorized infantry divisions. The British Expeditionary Force of 10 divisions was completely motorized, and supported by a couple of infantry tank regiments. Then throw in another DCR and part of the British 1st Mobile Division. Come June, the French formed a 4th DLM, but by them these divisions never had more than a couple of dozen tanks each.
All being on paper, the British divisions suffered from a myriad of assorted trucks, of which many were commercial vehicles pressed into service. The French divisions plodded along, always a number of steps behind the Germans. While the latter could react to a situation almost immediately, the antiquated French communications took hours, if not days to figured what to do.
Then the Tiger I, all of some 1,400 built from 1942 to 1945, so really only a few were available on the three fronts from 1944 onward. And by late 1944/early 1945, the growing number of M-4's with the new 76.2mm tank gun took away the Tiger I's thick armour with the HVAP round being more and more available. For all of the Tiger's superiority, none of meant a thing if the tank wasn't functioning. Fuel and maintenance were becoming problems, reducing the effectiveness of that heavy tank. Overwhelming numbers of Allied tanks meant the Tigers were rendered ineffective, albeit taking a number of Allied tanks and lives with it.
Pop culture claptrap has been the Tiger 1's best friend since the war, fed by Germany propaganda spewed during the conflict. A very good tank it was, when it was working and equipped with a well trained crew. But without that, it was a sitting duck for the Allies.
Superb comment sir. I'm a nerd, in a manner of speaking, of the western 1940 campaign since many years and this is one the most informed comment on YT that I have read since many years. Thanks.
Very interesting. I llike the content this channel puts out.
1:55 - Chapter 1 - The char B1
8:55 - Chapter 2 - The real tiger
12:45 - Chapter 3 - The real tiger ?
23:50 - Chapter 4 - Closing remarks
Two eminently iconic tanks.
But both Mr. Wittman and P. Bilotte teach us an important thing: a weapon is useful and effective only by the person or the crew who uses it.
Yes, and no. There are specialized weapons that can be shit in some hands but AMAZING in the right. Then there are ones that are all arounders that can be handed to anyone and perform very well.
Wittman was literally danger to his allies
Anyone who played WWII Online as a German back in the day when it was just the battle of France FEARED the Char. Flawed as that game was, it was the best simulation of a combined arms first person WWII sim yet made. And when a Char showed up to the battle, basically the only thing you could do is try to flank it and hit that radiator grille on the side a few times with something punchy. And even then it could always turn that little turret over and waste you. A single Char with a skilled crew could actually turn the tide of a battle to capture a town.
The issue with both the Char B1 and the PzKfW VI was logistics.
Great video again.
The Char B1 makes more sense if it's origins are explored. The design started in 1921 because the French Army was deficient in heavy tanks since the St Chamond and Schneider CA1 had left service and although the British gave the French some Mark V** these weren't designed to last. Gen. Estienne came up with a specification and a Commission headed by Gen Buat requested that all qualified French tank manufacturers build prototypes of the "char de bataille", a combination of assault gun and tank, with a hull mounted gun and MGs mounted in a turret. Four prototypes were trialled in 1924 and the Schneider-Renault SRB was selected for further development in 1925. This took years as noted because of the shifting priorities of the French Govt. The first prototypes of the Char B weren't delivered until 1930 and it took until 1934 for the first to enter service. The hydraulic Naeder transmission was a necessity since conventional mechanical or even electric transmissions couldn't traverse the tank accurately enough to aim the 75mm gun.
Love this format!
Hi Simon can you please do a video Sir Nicholas George Winton MBE was named a British Hero of the Holocaust by the British Government. Winton was awarded the Order of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, Fourth Class, by the Czech President Václav Havel in 1998. he was a British humanitarian who helped to rescue jewish children who were at risk from Nazi Germany just months before the start of World War II he saved 669 children all of them would’ve probably have been killed by the Nazis if he hadn’t got them out please do a video on this man thank you Paul.
1:52 the Char B1
8:50 the real Tiger
12:42 the real Tiger?
23:46 closing remarks
The French were always cutting-edge technology too bad Passion gets in the way c'est la vie
Thank you for your content , this brings me calm in a world of anxiety , you Sir have a gift , it’s so damn refreshing , you da Man!
The best tank is honestly one that has ok survivability, easily repaired and maintained, great numbers,maneuvering and a gun that is competitive. T-34 and M4 cleared in function and form and are a massive reason why they won
They won because of production numbers. If only 2,000 of each were built we wouldn't be talking about them.
There were only 1,300 Tigers built, and 666 Hummels, yet both performed way above their small numbers. Monty even banned mention of them! That makes the a psychological as well as a tactical weapon
They were primarily psychological weapons, far more broke down due to their tissue paper transmissions coupled with underpowered engines and inexperienced drivers.
As a broken transmission was a gun out turret off job, (unlike the Sherman) many were abandoned. Many also simply ran out of fuel.
Concentrating on churning out G versions of the PZIV would have been strategically and economically more efficient, keeping the bigger guns in the tank destroyers.
The tiger was a bit of an oxymoron, most suitable for defence which isn't a tank's role, a self propelled or stand alone anti tank gun being cheaper, easier to build and easier to hide.
The Germans did themselves no favors with their 'wunderwaffe' projects, vastly expensive, dubious results and the money could have been spent on badly needed tried and tested weapons.
Thank you for highlighting a forgotten tank. The Char B1 was a heavy tank that went up against medium tanks with unsurprising results. The Tiger I was a later model heavy tank that, on the Western Front, went up against mainly medium tanks with unsurprising results.
In fact, many like to rehash the debate of Shermans vs Tigers (BTW: mediums vs heavies) and I always say the same thing: a more interesting discussion is why America did not really field heavy tanks while Germany, Russia, England and France fielded significant numbers of heavy tanks? The Chieftain has many good opinions on this.
Thanks again!
Britain did not field a single heavy tank in WW2.
Really, only Germany and the USSR went down the 'heavy' tank path during the war. The Char was heavy by prewar standards but the Cromwell and Sherman (medium or cruiser tanks) were both heavier. The US and UK toyed with heavier designs but deploying them was not deemed worth the effort. The surviving 'Tiger beater' designs only showed up for the start of the cold war.
‘Heavy’ tanks are both a designation for vehicles like the tiger, and a descriptive word. The British didn’t use heavy tanks, they had infantry tanks which are similar but completely different in practice. The reason the Americans didn’t use heavy tanks is pretty obvious: They had to ship everything across the sea, and the heavier the tank, the more difficult that is. Similar to why the Japanese tended to use lighter vehicles.
@@executivedirector7467 ha yes the famous churchill light tank
@@lephaytheo3098 The Churchill was anInfantry tank, not a heavy tank, but you knew that already.
The huge difference between a havy breakthorugh tank and an infantry tank was in firepower. The Churchill had less firepower than a lot of medium tanks, andonly with the MK VII did it get *equal* firepower.
Even the British army did not call the Churchill a heavy. Not sure why anyone else would,
Really highlights that even in isolation, a weapon can be highly effective if in the right hands of a capable and brave crew!
The Char B1 & Matilda II definitely gave the Germans headaches. So did the KV-1. No shortage of "Tigers" on the battlefield in WW2.
Module: One-man Turret
Effect: -10% soft attack, -10% hard attack
If only B1's bigger brother, the Char 2C had served... a real land destroyer, again a design worthy of WW1.
One thing about the Wittmann tale: He was in command of 6 Tigers to block the Allies advance. After the night drive he was in command of 4 Tigers. He performed a miracle with the Tiger he commanded, and it proved that a Tiger was one of the most deadly Tanks in WWII. But he HAD to perform the Miracle as the Tiger I was a lonely hunter, thanks to break downs and complexity of production. The same goes with the Char 1bis.
Wittman 'tale' being the most salient point!
Never heard of the Char B1. Thanks for the enlightenment!
9:12 Aww, c'mon! Don't make us think...Spoon feed us!!
New Dominion Tank Police
This tank makes me think of it everytime
And it's name was Bonaparte 😁
Call me an oddball here but I think the British Churchill VII was an impressive take. Its quick firing 75mm was devastating. And it had impressive armor albeit flat armor
The one man turret wasn't the choice of the designers but rather the French army. France actually had a two man turret design which was on a handful of Renault AMC35 tanks.
Oh, no, now I have to play devilsadvocade for the 'Tiger I': Despite it's flaws, it had three major advanteges to this: The 88mm combined with the armor and with the handling!
Very informative video. Personally if I think of an iconic world war two tank, the first thing that springs to mind is the Sherman. The 76mm and the 17 pounder firefly could penetrate the tiger from the front. A 75mm would easily go through the side and rear armour.
It sounds like the B1 had potential to become iconic if it was used as part of a combined arms assault with proper communication.
How would it have fared against the 88?
@@rynehall9990 The Char B1 effectively only had the armor of a Sherman, but it pre-dated the Sherman by 5 years.
funny, your Firefly had died from a 50mm Panzer Mk III round!
"Your tank died to a weaker tank"
Tank warfare, oddly enough, is less about tanking hits, but rather seeing the enemy tank and shooting first, as well as acting as moving cover for the infantry.
Which is why the tanks that can take a beating got more famous.
yeeeah, there was more wrong with the Char B than just the lack of a radio. The guns, while big, where actually pretty bad at anything you'd consider 'range'. The 75 MM sounds impressive, but it was a low velocity anti-bunker gun. At 100 yards it could easily kill a relatively like tank like an early war Panzer 3.... but at greater range it lacked any real penetration power
The upper turret 45mm has basically the same problem. Sounds large, but it wasn't designed as an anti-tank weapon. Short barreled and low velocity, with a fairly light round on top of that, it was essentially an anti-infantry weapon. At close range, again, worked alright. In what we'd consider a typical tank engagement of the time, roughly 300 yards.... yeah, the penetration power was laughable.
This isn't the fault of the design, of course, since it was meant to assault entrenched infantry and fortified bunkers in the first place.... unfortunately it was designed to fight the previous world war
Hey Simon. Awesome video ! Can you do a video about Mount weather next ? 😊
Reloading of SA18 gun was quick and intuitive, using hand to hand principle, without loosing sight contact with target. So a loader would be counterproductive, a separate commander was what was missing in french tanks.
The short 47mm cartridge was still small enough to retain the one man turret.
The Char B1 had just 6 weeks to show its value, and as you stated was a victim of inferior tactics. The Tiger was around for almost 3 years, and was in addition supported by one of the tactical most proficient armies in history.
The Tiger 1 was arguably the first true "super tank". There had been earlier candidates in addition to the Char B1, like the Matilda II, T-34 and the KV 1, but all these had many factors that limited their value.
In the Tiger 1 it "all came together"; firepower, ammo quality, superb sights, armor (both thickness and quality), excellent offroad mobility, agility (thanks to an advanced transmission and suspension), a “smooth” ride (not surpassed until the Leopard 2), veteran crews, crew comfort, proven tactics and even good reliability.
From its introduction in late 1942 to early 1944 the Tiger had a margin of superiority over opposing tanks arguably never equalled, before or after.
Besides it extreme weight the Tiger's worst limitation was numbers, but then again it was never intended to be produced in large numbers, as it was a specialized heavy break-through tank, a role it ironically seldom performed.
The first action of the Tigers was to get bogged down in a swamp and get captured by the Soviets near Leningrad.
@@Edax_Royeaux You really blame the Tiger for this desaster?! It simply was a f*ck-up by the brass who would not want to wait until more Tigers became available and use them in a suitable terrain. You can´t blame for not being used as intended.
The American Willow Run factory could turn out two B-24 Liberators for the cost and man hours required to build a single PzKpfw Mk VI Tiger I tank. Which do you suppose could shut down the other vehicle"s factory of origin?
Look up The Chieftain video on The Tiger.
@@amerigo88 Even by YT standards, that was an extremely random comment. What on earth is your point?
@@amerigo88 Neither, despite the enormous bombing efforts and the excessive Allied casualties incurred from that, they were only ever able to disrupt the production of the Panzer VIII Maus, which isn't saying very much. WWII bombers just couldn't do enough damage to truly disrupt tank production.
The Char b1 bis reminds me of a tank destroyer due to the hull mounted 75mm.
19:53 Operational level, Brain Boy...Lol
Strategic level is the entire theater, the ideological end state.
Operational level is the employment and maneuver of forces in order to progress toward the strategic goals. These are the individual "operations" which comprise the daily actions of the units. Think of "D-Day", or of the Germans' last attempt to break the Allied lines, the attempt which ended in the "Battle of the Bulge".
Tactical level is the up-close, in your face stuff. It's Soldiering 101. It's the "How" of the actual fighting, like providing a "base of fire" with one unit in contact, while another unit maneuvers to destroy the enemy. It's how you clear rooms, buildings, streets, etc.
Really good video, though.
Once again, Brain Boy, a tip of my hat for your researchers. I mean, they managed to teach my dumb ass something, and that's quite the accomplishment!
Excellent video once again. You could do similar comparison to soviet KV-1 and KV-2 behemoths which were Tigers of their time at the beginning of operation Barbarossa. You could use Kolobanovs KV-1 stand against incoming German attack near Leningrad as similar example. There is also good examples of KV-1 and/or KV-2s that Finns faced during WW2.
15:34 Holy crap!! I bet the crewmembers of the Char had some beastly headaches...lol
Great video!
The B1 and the Tiger shared a lot. A powerful gun, thick armour, and a propensity to break down.
sorry to say : nonsense!!
47 mm had a capability of 2,132 FPS / 650 M/s for 40 mm of penetration of 30 degree sloped armor, at about 400 meters, 437 yards. Not bad considering early Panzer 3's had 30 mm of frontal armor.
For the time it was an excellent gun, the issue being of course, the lack of situational awareness, radios and over worked commanders.😊
Great video
There was a logistical problem with the Char B1. That was it required 85 octane aircraft fuel instead of the lower octane fuel of the other tanks. That could be an Achilles Heel to the vehicle.
If you had a mixed unit if tanks you would have to have two different fueling vehicles. This is another aspect of a logistical problem.
The Tiger I was one of the tanks of all time. So was the Char B1
Indeed, we must never forget that they were both some of the tanks ever produced.
They are indeed some of the tanks
Tiger 1 is tricky, if they had the resources and logistics it was a monster, but they couldn't support it.
Without a doubt that a fully operational Tiger one is in the running for the best tanks of WW2. The problem is the operational part, Tigers were known for constantly breaking down. And when they were broken down were a massive pain in the ass to fix. It suffered the problem of being way over engineered making it had to fix just like many other German products.
One of the biggest problems the Feench had in their 1930s Tank doctrine was manpower. Unlike Britain's colonial professional army, the French Army was huge and needed a lot of tanks and tanks need crew. Economic and manpower (related to the huge number of WW1 casualties) were the primary driver so they selected cheap and lightly crewed tanks, one of the reasons why many of the pre war tanks had one man turrets.
It needs to be said that the pace of technological advancements during the Second World War was staggering,the Japanese zero while was heavily feared by airmen and navy personnel alike was obsolete by the time the newer versions of naval planes came into service. I’m not saying the char-B was state of the art when it was first introduced but it was powerful enough to punch holes into the nazi panzers and well armored enough to keep the crew safe. It would have been obliterated by the tiger or maybe even the later versions of the panzer 4 it was going up against panzer 3s and panzerkampfwagon 38s so to that I say it was the tiger of the early war
The french 47mm SA35 L/32 was one of the best guns at the beginning of the war. It was still used to knock out Shermans in 1944 by the Germans. The gun was one of the best, the single-man turret was one of the worst. And it was very complicated to hold in operational conditions, even for unskilled crews. But it looks so cool!
P.S:. Similar stories aka "1 tank vs a group of German tanks, and the Germans could do nothing against it", you can tell even about Matildas, T-34, KV1... Most people forget how weak (in amour and firepower) the German Tanks up to 1942 were. But they were fast, hat radios (mostly only receivers), the best tactics and were the first that uses the concept of "combined weapon warfare".
I want to see one about the IS-2
The Bob Semple Tank needs a video.
Very good piece
I have to rethink the Chat
The Tiger 2 tried to make use of angles to deflect ammunition where the Tiger 1 had more vertical panels that would directly engage munitions.
You forgot the most important duty of the officer in that one man turret. Command the entire vehicle. On top of spotting, aiming, loading and firing the turret gun he also had to tell the rest of the crew what to do. If he was a troop leader, he had to command his tank plus other tanks. The poor guys would be driven insane!
Just needed a radio.
In the tiger 1 handbook that came with the tank, it says don't tow a tiger with a tiger, due to the gearboxes were so crap and blow up, also Germany only used one diesel small light armoured vehicle everything was petrol, the only scary bit of a tiger was it's gun and front armour, the rest was to big to slow to heavy to complicated to fragile
Tigers were primarily used on the defense, entrenched, with front armor and gun pointed towards the enemy. So like... very scary, yes, lol.
Contrary to myth, the Tiger was THE most agile tank of the war thanks the sophisticated transmission, steering and suspension. And the Tiger was actually one of the very few vehicles that could tow a Tiger at all.
th-cam.com/video/bBni1Nd9Ez8/w-d-xo.html
th-cam.com/video/Pz3r5WVJ91Q/w-d-xo.html
Wasn't Germany's most effective tank destroyer, the Jagdpanther, scary for all the same reasons?
@@hellomadet Yes, it was. But it was also a late war vehicle, introduced at a time when the allies were fielding more formidable AFVs and AT guns. The Tiger 1, OTH, was introduced already in late 1942 when the Allies did not have any effective direct answers, and in the period of late 1942 to the spring of 1944 (when the Soviets introduced the heavy IS-2), the Tiger had arguably a margin of superiority over opposing AFVs never equalled in history, sooner or later.
@@hellomadet The comments about the tiger's unreliability from the OP much more apply to something like the jagdpanther, which required a lot of crew hours of training, which they often didn't get, to not simply break it during operation because of its tender components. The tiger was a wartime design, as well, so differences between early models and later production models were significant. And where it was deployed also mattered, as iirc the suspension or tracks had difficulty with heavy mud and soft ground performance.
But the simple pairing of the gun it had, good frontal and turret armor, made it one of the most dangerous tanks of the war. It could go through anything the allies had the long way, at range.
This is definitely one of your better videos.
Hello Simon, I was curious if you thought about making a mega project on the uh-60 Blackhawk?
You could make another TH-cam channel just for military projects
There's an interesting book about the history of Tiger battalion 701. It says that, again and again, they defeated large numbers of Russian tanks at little cost to themselves. However, the Tigers would then be lost due to breakdowns or because they became bogged down in marshy terrain, or because they were too heavy for the bridges. The book mentions one occasion when ten tigers were lost because they bogged and couldn't be recovered. There was another instance where 20 tigers were lost during the retreat from Poland because bridges were blown prematurely and an alternative route over other bridges couldn't be found.
The Churchill tank and the Tiger 1 have often had comparisons made. the turret armour on both tanks were the same thickness.
Thank you for the comparative video of these 2 here. I think they both were designed with different wars and strategies in mind. That would slant the view as well as the Germans won the battle for France.
7:25 What were the elevation and depression ranges for the cannon?
In a hypothetical one-on-one open field fight the Char B1 could beat any German tank model that fought in the Battle of France. ~60% of the German tanks were Panzer Is and IIs, hopeless against the Char; Panzer IIIs and IVs would get knocked out before they could get close enough to be a threat. But the keys were combined arms tactics, communication, and crew workload, in all of which the Germans were better. BTW, the American M3 Lee/Grant had a somewhat similar turret gun with sponson mounted 75 mm main gun. Except the M3's main gun was higher velocity (and the turret gun just 37 mm) and the sponson's traverse capability was a bit better.
My favorite before this video.
Both are great thanks but with flies indeed.
Tiger I had a fearsome reputation. Supposedly many UK/USA tankers thought every German tank (namely PzKfw IV G/H) was a Tiger I.
There's a saying "quantity has a quality all its own." Something like 1,347 Tiger I's were built compared to 10,000s of both the M4 Sherman series and if the T34 series.
‘Quantity is a quality of its own.’
I hate this saying, it completely ignores the simple fact that if one nation has 10 times as many ‘weak’ tanks for every ‘strong’ tank of another nation, the one focusing on quality had to provide 10 times the fuel, 10 times the amount of people to crew them, 10 times the ammunition, 10 times the food and water for the crew, 10 times the number of spare parts, 10 times the number of trucks to transport all these to the tanks, 10 times the factory space/time/workers to produce these… etc etc etc.
I personally take the view like Anthony Tucker Jones, that the Tiger 1 was an ok tank. It could have been a brilliant tank, however it was rushed into production and then out operationally without fixing its flaws. It was a Hitler vanity project and the resources put into could have been used to improve things like the panzer 4 or the Panther.
Also like any military vehicle or weapons system in the hands of a well drilled experienced crew that work well together those flaws can be eliminated or at least reduced to the point that they become negligible.
Also, using slave labor and over engineering made them prone to break down. Nothing like blowing out a transmission trying to pull another tiger.
I’m here Simon.
I know the tiger is not the unstoppable monolith is was made to be. But although it had it's problems, you can't deny the amazing hard factors of the tank. 101 mm frontal armoure, 88mm main gun, and decent speed for its size. Also, just like the astetics.
The hard factors are good, yes, but the soft factors just weren’t as good. Better than something like a T-34, but nothing like the brilliance of the Sherman
I love how I can listen to this channel at a reasonable volume and miss 60% of the content. Alternatively I can listen at a volume where everything can be heard and blow out y ears every 10-20 seconds.
Stoo whispering for effect man.
I introduced the best betting platform to my Landlord last week, as am talking now we're both tenants 😹🤔
Some of the captured Char B turrets were removed and installed on German bunkers defending Normandy beaches at the time of D-Day (6 June 1944).
Video Suggestion. BioGraphics or WaroGraphics, as its both, the real story of Desmond Doss and Hacksaw ridge, because although the movie does make a point to show just how utterly insane and heroic that guy was, it misses out absolute loads of information , medals, battles and just pure feats of selflessness that the movie just didn't have time to portray that absolute specimen of a man!
It was driven and manned by Char Wallahs. It was an overgrown teapot that regularly overheated. As an oft quoted nameless British Tommy once commented, "It aint 'alf Hot Mum."
I always thought the KV1 and 2 were pretty tough. Not much could penetrate their armor.
The stories you read about the Tiger 1 in France in 1944, you read from German troops as to the KVs in 1941. The tank was hard to take out given the anti tank weapons the Germans had in 1941, just like the western Allies had problems knocking out Tigers in 1944. Later on, as German Anti tank weapons improved the KV lost its reputation, just like the Tigers were losing they reputation in 1945.
88mm and long 75mm guns could.
One of the issues that happens is that people like to construct a narrative....."the Tiger always broke down" being one of them.
The issue with that position is that it ignore the fact that "All" tanks break down.
I think that the best way to compare Tanks and not the War Machine that constructed and deployed them, is to simply imagine that there is a One on One battle with 2 fully functioning and maintained tanks, with experienced crews, using the same types ammunition.
Try to create a level playing field where its just Tank v Tank.
In that situation, during WWII, ask yourself which tank would you rather be sat in. For me, the Tiger 1 comes very high up that list