"Was the Famous German Tiger Tank Really That Great?" Topic

In short, Eisenhower was demanding immediate delivery of the maximum possible number of tanks with the heaviest possible gun armament, only indirectly implying that tanks with a lesser gun armament (75mm) might be acceptable in order to make up the numbers required.

It is not Indirect nor is it implied. He says it quite plainly. Under no circumstances whatsoever is the flow of tanks to be interrupted. 75mm Shermans were needed and 75mm Shermans were acceptable.

Every German is a war criminal in mkenny's eyes.

All the SS were. The SS was declared a criminal Organisation.
Its nice to see people jumping in to defend the honour of the Army that make the killing of civilians one of its top priorities in WW2. Like jaw-less Hans who with his famous MG 42 gained a little more time for the camp guards to shove a few more babies into the ovens.

I do believe senior Western Allied leadership was content to not reach Berlin

What made you suspect this? Was it their deal with the Soviets to halt their respective armies on the Elbe which is I believe, some distance (50km) east of Berlin?

"It is not Indirect nor is it implied. He says it quite plainly. Under no circumstances whatsoever is the flow of tanks to be interrupted. 75mm Shermans were needed and 75mm Shermans were acceptable."

- – -

Eisenhower does not even mention the 75mm Shermans by name; that's a distinctly indirect/implied reference in any book. In addition, nowhere whatsoever does Eisenhower remotely mention that 75mm gun tanks in specific were "needed"; he wrote only that tanks with the heaviest possible gun armament were required and that other types would be acceptable if necessary in order to make up the desired numbers.

B

"All the SS were. The SS was declared a criminal Organisation."

- – -

Actually, mkenny, that is not altogether true. While the SS as a generality was indeed condemned as a criminal organization, two SS formations were in fact exempted.

An interesting footnote in history

B

that is not altogether true. While the SS as a generality was indeed condemned as a criminal organization, two SS formations were in fact exempted.

Ahh the fig leaf……………

The Waffen SS were included so that gets the majority of The SS. Good enough for me.

You may direct any complaints to the appropriate office of the International Military Tribunal, Nuremburg, Germany.

It was this body that issued "the fig leaf".

B

I don't think he is that or saying anything like that … And many war crimes were committed by the Wehrmacht too, etc.. There were very few clean hands sadly. Especially in the SS.

But it appears some were just soldiers defending their homeland. Albeit for a very bad and evil regime.

Not to excuse any war crimes committed, but many/most soldiers probably didn't do anything that would be considered a crime of any type.

Not to excuse any war crimes committed, but many/most soldiers probably didn't do anything that would be considered a crime of any type.

If you check the Barbarossa Decree then you will see why this 'but' is a really pathetic attempt to defend the indefensible.

The crimes of the Germans in Russia are plain for all to see do not articulate any form of excuse because in truth there is none. If you just stand by and watched as children were butchered you are still responsible if you fight to keep that type of regime in power. To see how 'Collective Responsibility works consult the Barbarossa Decree.

But it appears some were just soldiers defending their homeland

Defending their homeland by invading Poland, Russia Yugoslavia, Greece, Norway, France Holland, Belgium, Crete etc?

Legion 4 wrote -
"But it appears some were just soldiers defending their homeland. Albeit for a very bad and evil regime. Not to excuse any war crimes committed, but many/most soldiers probably didn't do anything that would be considered a crime of any type."

- – -

The common man caught up in the coercive machinery of an authoritarian state is a hostage soul and all that any outside observer can honestly say at that point is – "There but for the Grace of God …"

This is often lost upon the shallow thinker who believes himself immune from such forces because he has never had the misfortune to himself have been confronted by them. For such an individual, simplistic absolutist notions of morality are much easier to embrace because they do not demand uncomfortable self-examination of one's own moral response in the face of similar state coercion.

Life is not simple.

B

I gotta agree with Mkenny on this point. As far as atrocities go I think the German Army, as an institution (as well as other govt bodies), was just as guilty as the SS.

Still, I don't believe every German was complicit. If I recall correctly, Hitler got much less than 50% of the popular vote and there were instances of disobedience, plotting, and even attempts to remove him by force. I also find it hard to lay blame on a young teenager for doing what he's been taught.

According to Hans von Luck's deeply, deeply dishonest memoirs, he made lifelong friends in every country he invaded and pillaged, and never saw any atrocities, not even when he went to Auschwitz to visit a mate.

So that's all right then. It must have been the other members of the Wehrmacht doing all the liquidations.

Defending their homeland by invading Poland, Russia Yugoslavia, Greece, Norway, France Holland, Belgium, Crete etc?

It's not that simple, e.g. we know what happened to Germany after WWI. That does not excuse or justify it. But it may explain it … to a point …

Blutarski +1

According to Hans von Luck's deeply, deeply dishonest memoirs,

You can't totally base an opinion on just one author, especially someone like von Luck. He obviously was covering his … But we do know many war crimes were committed by Nazi Germany's military. As with the IJF's in the CBI & PTO.

we know what happened to Germany after WWI.

The victim card. Germany was let off the hook in 1919. That mistake was not going to made in 1945.

You can't totally base an opinion on just one author, especially someone like von Luck

Having read a good number of German accounts from all ranks I can confidently state the bulk of the authors either do not mention war crimes or simply deny they happened. It was all part of a concerted post-war effort to re-write history and demonise The Soviets and paint it all as some great Christian crusade to save Europe from the Soviet Hordes (this offensive term even gets a mention earlier in this thread). von Luck is the norm and I do not understand how anyone familiar with the literature could suggest otherwise.

catavar wrote – "Still, I don't believe every German was complicit. If I recall correctly, Hitler got much less than 50% of the popular vote and there were instances of disobedience, plotting, and even attempts to remove him by force. I also find it hard to lay blame on a young teenager for doing what he's been taught."

- – -

That is all I'm saying, catavar. From research I read a long time ago regarding the German military, it was estimated that about ten pct were members of the NSDAP (Nazi Party); about ten percent were ardent but silent anti-Nazis, with the vast middle eighty percent more or less apolitical. Of course, the SS was a rather different and far more "Nazified" creature. Take all that for whatever you think it is worth. But once subject to the essentially unbridled coercive power of an autocratic government, one's ethical horizons can be dramatically diminished by the ever-present threat of institutional retaliation.

Were there numbers of individuals who, whether by psychopathic inclination or by long indoctrination from childhood, willingly committed atrocities? Most assuredly yes. Were there others who regretfully participated in such acts out of fear of personal punishment or retaliation against their families? Also no doubt yes.

Who among us really knows how WE really would have acted under similar circumstances? This is a complicated moral and ethical issue that deserves more than ex post facto armchair moralizing (Note – I'm not suggesting that you are in any way so indulging).

B

"I gotta agree with Mkenny on this point. As far as atrocities go I think the German Army, as an institution (as well as other govt bodies), was just as guilty as the SS."
I agree with that statement, too. I don't think anyone disagreed with that.

Here's where I disagreed with him:

-Stating the German military didn't quit until after Hitler offed himself doesn't make me some sort of Nazi lover or apologist, it is simply my opinion from a purely military point of view, and I certainly wish they would have quit (surrendered unconditionally sooner).

-I believe the Soviets were every bit as bad as the Germans. I believe we couldn't have won the war without the Soviets, but I find it quite fitting that those two got to suffer the most from each other's barbarity.

-I believe the Anglo-American alliance could have, and I wish they would have, done more militarily and politically to keep Eastern Europe from being enslaved by the Soviet Union. The post-war world could have been such a different, likely better place. I will stipulate that I don't believe going to war with the Soviets was the answer, and I'm glad it didn't happen, either immediately or in the almost fifty years it took for them to collapse.

Some of my opinions could be wrong or not possible, but I really don't see anything all that controversial in them and do not understand why he got himself all worked up.

V/R,
Jack

@ Just Jack

The full Hastings quote on psychological dominance is:

It is one of the strangest aspects of the north-west Europe campaign that, even as Hitler's armies sank to their knees, they retained psychological dominance on the battlefield. The most baleful consequence of the Bulge was that it reinforced Eisenhower's fears about German counter-threats….the Germans were able to withdraw at their own speed from the Bulge, because the allies made no attempt to cut them off. Allied commanders remained fearful about exposing their own flanks in attack, even when the Germans no longer possessed the resources or mobility to intervene with conviction…[Eisenhower] refused to acknowledge that von Rundstedt's armies were indeed, at last, on the ropes. He wrote, spoke and behaved as if the Wehrmacht was still the same enemy as that of Normandy…Montgomery's demands for boldness would deserve more respect from history if either the British or American armies had displayed the determination and fighting skills to make good his visions. Yet since September 1944 many allied commanders had expressed dismay about the lack of aggression shown by their troops, save exceptional units such as the airborne and Rangers. After counter-attacking in the Bulge, the allies had signally failed to seize the opportunity to translate the repulse of the German forces into their destruction.

He doesn't attribute the dominance to specific weapons, but I think it is reasonable in part to do so, given that every German tank was a Tiger, every gun an 88, every machine gun an MG42 and every soldier a fanatic.

The comparative vim of the Germans even in 1945, and individual allied conscripts' reluctance to get killed in what must be the last months of the war, certainly created a climate in which the winners could be intimidated into inaction by the soon-to-be-defeated.

I thought this was about How good Tigers were (not)! Bovington Tank Museum has the Sherman Jumbo a longer response to the Tiger. It never made it to production all the Tigers were not enough to sway the ware effort so QED Tiger never was a significant threat. Again a Tank crew facing a working Tiger was in for a hard time. However more lives would be saved by Shermans helping out infantry attacks.
EGO Shermans save more lives ergo much better.
Firefly's must be as good or better than a Tiger,better gun and more of them and more reliable.

They are better than Tigers but seem generally to be almost ignored.

The M4A3E2 "Jumbo" was most assuredly not a response to the Tiger. The Jumbo was an "assault tank" originally meant to deal with fortifications. The added armor would withstand enemy fire as the Jumbo got close enough to destroy the bunker. This is one reason all Jumbos originally mounted the 75mm gun and not the 76mm. By the time it was deployed to Europe its role changed. Jumbos at first were parceled out to independent tank battalions desperate for a tank which could stand up the the ubiquitous PaK 40 75mm anti-tank gun. Jumbos would lead columns of regular tanks, better able to absorb damage. Later many of the Jumbos were upgunned to 76mm. Improvements in the 76's HE round along with a need to deal with enemy armor as well as anti-tanks guns, led to this.

Not sure why you say it never made it into production. 254 Jumbos were produced of which 250 were shipped to Europe.

If you check the Barbarossa Decree then you will see why this 'but' is a really pathetic attempt to defend the indefensible.

True in one sense, IMO …

To see how 'Collective Responsibility works consult the Barbarossa Decree.

Seems again like a broad brush to me, anyway from a legal perspective. Albeit I'm not a lawyer. So I guess if we go with collective responsibility then they all are guilty regardless. Which again does not seem a viable legal remedy? But again many were guilty of war crimes …
Of course it is just easier to say they all are guilty. However the Nazis are guilty of that kind of "logic" too ?

The victim card. Germany was let off the hook in 1919. That mistake was not going to made in 1945.

I know as I said "That does not excuse or justify it. But it may explain it … to a point … "

Having read a good number of German accounts from all ranks I can confidently state the bulk of the authors either do not mention war crimes or simply deny they happened.

As have many of us here. As I said, "He obviously was covering his … But we do know many war crimes were committed by Nazis". Regardless of what von Luck or many others said. They lied or withheld what they knew, etc.. etc. I'm certainly not letting von Luck or any like him off the hook. Sadly many Germans and Japanese did not pay for their crimes. Probably von Luck and some of those like him may/should have been put up against a wall. But for whatever reasons, he and others were not. It may have been the old "burden of proof" situation ? He very well may have been guilty of a number of crimes? Go with Collective responsibility ?

von Luck is the norm and I do not understand how anyone familiar with the literature could suggest otherwise.

Again I am not and I don't think anyone here is … Obviously he is one source and as we know just the tip of a very big and very cold dark ice burg … No one here is supporting or making excuses for the the Nazis. But I think it would be inaccurate to paint all WWII Germans with a broad bush. As already said … it's just not that simple …

I do agree with what most Just Jack posted as well …

UshCha & Marc … good idea to get back OT …

Is the question "Were individual Tigers that great" or "Was it a good idea to have a handful of Tigers instead of a bucket load of StuG IIIs"? because these are different questions.

NATO's post-war doctrine, likewise that of the IDF, is to have small but high-quality forces. On balance I'd say the Tiger was a sound idea, deficiently executed. 1,500 was not enough, they didn't have the gas to run them all and they reputedly needed 10 hours' maintenance per 1 hour of ops.

If they'd had 3,000 Centurions with the Centurion's availability rate, they'd have been in a better position. They'd then have had a better weapon with better armour, a better gun, better range and more likely to be operable. The NATO assumption was that something like that would have been good enough to defeat the Warsaw Pact.

I can see why the Germans felt they needed to build the Tiger. I think it had it's uses; especially offensively. Everything heavier (StormTiger, JagTiger, KingTiger and Elefant) was madness in my opinion.

I'll use any excuse to put a Sherman Jumbo in a game.

Some of us like to paint history with a Broad Brush while others love their Ubiqutous Sterotypes. While easy to stir up heated debates this way they are far from the Truth. Which I'm not going to debate here because frankly this is not the place. All I will say is that I knew people from many different sides in that war and living through it as an Enlisted Soldier was hell on any side. And before you claim Nazis cornered the market on Atrocities better go read some history about Bomber Command and it's policy of Poluation Extermination. Or maybe read up on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or maybe just the Fire Bombing of Tokyo. Ah you say … but those were "justified" because they helped Win th War. Good Luck!

…but I find it quite fitting that those two got to suffer the most from each other's barbarity.

Quite right. The people must suffer for the sins of their overlords.

4th Cuirassier true, but the Firefly was already a match certainly In Europe where battle ranges are typicaly smaller. So the point is if the Centurian, had made it it may have been the best tank. As it was the tiger was not enough of a step forward compared to the Firefly to make it to the ranks of great tanks. In addition as I understand it though it used the AA 88mm gun it was restricted to a lesser charge than the ground version due to suspention issues.

It may have beeb initially a Dream tank in exceution it was a nightmare.

Looks as if mkenny got DH'd. I'm staying out of this one.

Wolfhag

@ UshCha

Yes, the Firefly is better than is widely recognised. Its 17-pounder could defeat the Tiger's armour at any normal battle range just as easily as the Tiger's could do the reverse.

The inference that I draw from this is that the Tiger I wasn't good enough, by 1944 at any rate, to function as the basis of a small-but-high-quality tank force. It was not an option for Germany to deploy 30,000 Shermans or T34s either, simply because of the fuel and manpower commitment. So what they needed was a small force of something better than a Tiger.

You probably could then hold off hordes of Shermans and T34s with a handful of outstanding tanks. The Tiger wasn't outstanding enough to do so, but on paper at least, something like the Centurion would have been. The Panther was conceptually closer to what was needed. A conjectural alt-Panther, with the same KwK but a better engine, reliable transmission, less fiddly suspension, and all-round armour protection, could certainly have been brought in at or under a Centurion's weight or cost, with equivalent effectiveness.

The problem of course is that to win or achieve stalemate in 1943-45 by transitioning to such an army of alt-Panthers, Germany would have had to have such a goal in mind from, oh, the late 1930s. To conceptualise, perfect and produce the appropriate design while switching resources away from limited-shelf-life things like the Panzer II, III and IV, they'd have needed to be looking some way ahead, and they'd need the counterfactual allies to have followed much the same tank development path as they actually, factually did.

The latter is not too much of a stretch. The T34 wasn't designed to defeat any particular German adversary, and the Sherman was pursued because it was simple to produce and ship. Both would likely have existed in any event. The bit that's hard to imagine is anyone in Germany in 1938 foreseeing war with the Commonwealth and Russia and America by 1941, that victory wouldn't happen by 1942, and that Germany would then need tanks to stand off indefinitely two hordes by 1944.

All of which takes one back to the recognition that the fate of Germany was sealed when Russia wasn't defeated in 1941. Everything after that, Tigers included, just delayed the inevitable.

@ wolfhag

Looks as if mkenny got DH'd. I'm staying out of this one.

Before posting anything, I find it's usually a good idea to ask myself if I'd say what I'm writing to someone's face, in person. It's a surefire way to know whether what you're writing is a debating point or gratuitous offence. If I wouldn't speak it, I shouldn't post it.

I'm sure I forget this rule from time to time, but it's not a bad principle.

4th Cuirassier, You are correct, thus it escapes my why the Tiger Myth contiues. overweight, over cost and a barely adequate gun.

Plus what is overlooked the Sherman took account of the fact that Ports were limited as to the weight they could handle in one go as were may ships. Therefore for large numbers certainly earlier on there is a practical weight limit. Even now many years later heavy tanks can have problems getting about as not all infrastructure is able to take the weight of a Modern European battle tank at its combat weight. late war this was a problem for all the so called German "Super Tanks". Even more so if they were manufactured in sufficient numbers not to be a laughable side show to the real war.

Legion – Indeed, a lot of nuance in the overall situation, with no easy answer(s). I'm not sure how things could have ended anyway but the way they did.

4th Cuirassier – Thanks for posting all of that, obviously it's much more succinct than what I was able to do. I finished the book last night; I learned quite a bit of detail about the last six or so months of the war, particularly the political side/infighting, and I really enjoyed Hastings' style and view.

Lee – Indeed, and I can understand the passion, it just doesn't lend itself to a reasoned discussion on the internet.

Wolfhag – What are you worried about? ;)

On topic with Catavar, 4th Cuirassier – The idea that the Western Allies went with the German doctrine of ‘quality over quantity' in the Cold War, after having used ‘quantity over quality' themselves, always struck me as a "okay, I hope this works out' proposition. I'm glad we never had to find out, though I do enjoy gaming it ;)

I agree with the concept of the Firefly, mating the mobility and reliability of a Sherman with the gun of a Tiger, armor being almost superfluous to the equation at that point.

I'll admit to not understanding the comment about the Tiger having a "barely adequate gun," and I must also point out that, for all its limitations on strategic mobility, Tigers still made it to Tunisia, Sicily, Italy, France, and deep (not really deep, but as deep as the German penetration at the time) into Russia. Obviously not in war-winning numbers, but you all have already laid out the reasons/considerations for that.

The one aspect of a "super weapon" I'm willing to ascribe to the Tiger is the fact it was initially deployed when there were still a whole lot of tanks running around with 40 to 50mm guns, and able to be penetrated by the same!

V/R,
Jack

@ Jack

I wonder if the NATO decision – and the IDF decision likewise – to favour quantity over quality were as much practical as anything else.

The Warsaw Pact could deploy tens of thousands of tanks crewed by hundreds of thousands of conscripts for three reasons. One, it's not as though they were making tanks instead of something more economically useful. Nobody who mattered had to do without something because the resources were being used to make weapons instead. They didn't make much anyway. Two, there was no risk of political backlash against squandering national wealth in this way, because you would just be imprisoned. And three, the Warsaw Pact could coerce people into the forces, so had no trouble manning its huge tank armies.

None of that applies in the West. So, Nazi Germany couldn't go for a numerical mass strategy, because they couldn't ever have fuelled 30,000 "German Shermans". They could maybe have fuelled 3,000 Tigers, so that's what they had to build. For logistical reasons they had to have small numbers and high quality. It's just that the Tigers and Panthers weren't good enough to defeat 10 or 20 times their numbers.

Likewise NATO mainly didn't have conscription, so there was no way they could have crewed thousands of tanks, even if the home population had been prepared to tolerate not having microwave ovens and custom kitchen deliver-ee-ee-ees. Their taxes would have been higher to pay tank crews' wages and for stuff from tank factories, rather refrigerators or colour TVs.

So the West had to build excellent tanks in small numbers. The IDF issue was that even with conscription, the country is too small to defeat huge tank armies by trading space for time. Invasions had to be stopped at the border by quality, or pre-empted and fought on others' territory.

@ UshCha – your ports point is important. Most counterfactual history fails because it doesn't take account of what else would have changed. If Germany had built U-Boats instead of surface units would they have won? No, because then the Royal Navy would have built differently as well. But the port restrictions were what they were, so nothing very different to the Sherman was ever likely, no matter what the Germans had built.

Indeed, a lot of nuance in the overall situation, with no easy answer(s). I'm not sure how things could have ended anyway but the way they did.

So very true !

Lee – Indeed, and I can understand the passion, it just doesn't lend itself to a reasoned discussion on the internet.

You got that right …

Getting OT is the safest option or say nothing …

Jack,
I try to stay away from discussions about people's opinions (a waste of time) and historical what if's on Germany. On my German side, we had 6 lost in early WWI and two lost at Stalingrad. I have a cousin in the German Navy now too. Another German relative got busted smuggling small arms from Libya to the IRA in 1973.

When my Grandfather (Philadelphia) was in a parade to go off to France in 1918 his mom was flying the German flag from the window of their house. She was a real character.

A Controversial Opinion on Tiger
YouTube link

Wolfhag

Legoin 4 "Barely Adequate gun" on the basis that for a "super tank" it was having toi use the bet gun but reduced power as it was naot abkle to use full charge. Henge adequate as oppoed to inadequate but not the best available.

"Barely Adequate gun"

I didn't say that ? 🤔 And as far as I am concerned from what I can see, the Tiger I's 88 was pretty effective.

And yes the Tiger II's 88 was better, but you are talking about 2 different designs. E.g. the Tiger II looks more like a Pz.V. And both the Pz.V and Tiger II are much newer design than the Tiger I.

it was having toi use the bet gun but reduced power as it was naot abkle to use full charge.

What is your source for this claim? None of the literature that I have access to mentions this.

4th Cuirassier – I've wondered the same thing, I've always been curious when NATO actually reached 'war-winning' capability. I doubt it was with M-48s and Centurions; those were clearly better than T-55s, but were they good enough to fight off hordes of them? Probably not. Chieftains, M-60s, and Leopard Is, either. I figure it happened once we got M-1s, Challengers, and Leopard IIs, but even then, was technology great enough to overcome the huge disparity in numbers?

Uscha, Legion, and Deephorse – I'm the one that asked about the 'barely adequate gun,' not Legion. Like Deephorse, I understand what Uscha is saying, but I've never heard that before.

Wolfhag – Ahh, now I see. Real life gets pretty jumbled and messy.

V/R,
Jack

Muzzle velocities for the Flak 18/36/37 can be a little complicated to decipher. It is, on one hand, important to make sure the same projectile is being reference; Pzgr 39 was the standard AP round employed in the war and is the best to use for comparison purposes. Another issue lies with propellant charges: two propellant formulation were manufactured – one for normal European theater use (rated for 10deg C) and a second for tropical use (rate for 25deg C).

Terry Gander ("The German 88") gives the following MV performance with the Pzgr 39 -

Flak 18/36/37 – 795 m/s (2608 ft/sec)

8.8cm KwK 36 – 773 ms (2536 ft/sec)

Note: The US tested a Flak 36 firing tropical service ammunition rated for 25deg C and recorded a MV of 2657 ft/sec (810 m/s). FWIW.

Difference in AP performance according to German sources dated 1944 for firing Pzgr 39 at 1,000 meters):
Flak 18/36/37 – 100 mm
KwK 36 – 122 mm

To make the issue even more interesting, from what I have read it was not unknown for Tiger I crews to draw 88mm Flak type AP rounds, swap out the percussion primers used by the Flak guns for an electric primer as was used by the KwK 36.

Complicated, but interesting.

B

Blutarski,
Yes, you are correct. Here is a page out of WWII Ballistics and Armor:

A round without the HE charge cavity has more mass which will result in more penetration. Some AP shells had their cavity filled in to get more penetration or because the small HE charge did not perform well enough.

Wolfhag

Uscha, Legion, … – I'm the one that asked about the 'barely adequate gun,' not Legion.

YEeees I'm innocent !!!! I tell ya !!!! Innocent !!!! 😃😄 🙈🙉🙊🔒🔓🗝

I've wondered the same thing, I've always been curious when NATO actually reached 'war-winning' capability. I doubt it was with M-48s and Centurions; those were clearly better than T-55s, but were they good enough to fight off hordes of them? Probably not. Chieftains, M-60s, and Leopard Is, either. I figure it happened once we got M-1s, Challengers, and Leopard IIs, but even then, was technology great enough to overcome the huge disparity in numbers?

That is why the US/NATO were not only depending on MBTs but Helicopter Gunships, A-10s, CAS, Infantry AT weapons, along with high tech SPFA, etc., … A truly combined arms concept.

Now would it have worked ? I'm going with 50/50. Along with the possibility of many in the WP may not have went along with the USSR's invading West Germany, etc. And that would provide the USSR with another problem(s).

Plus as many have forecasted/believed, all involved may run out of ammo and replacements within a month or so.

When I was in the Med in 1974 we would have had M-48A3's and 106 RR's. For air support Cobras w/TOW's and AV-8A's and naval air from the USS Independence. I'll have to play out a scenario like that sometime.

Wolfhag

A side comment about ocean transport of heavy tanks after finding an interesting WW2 document on ocean transport of war materiel. The US routinely shipped railroad locomotives of 70 tons or more via regular Liberty class merchant ships all over the world. On-board ship's hoist lift capacity was not a crisis issue; the adoption of the 30t cargo derricks was a function of the weight of the "new" Sherman tank. 45t hoists could have easily been arranged.

FWIW.

B

As I understand it because of the shape of the ship's hold and tank you could only fit one M26 in the room of 4 Shermans. That was the shipping problem, not weight. Unfortunately I can't quote source, just don't remember. I'd be happily corrected.

Muzzle velocities for the Flak 18/36/37 can be a little complicated to decipher. It is, on one hand, important to make sure the same projectile is being reference; Pzgr 39 was the standard AP round employed in the war and is the best to use for comparison purposes. Another issue lies with propellant charges: two propellant formulation were manufactured – one for normal European theater use (rated for 10deg C) and a second for tropical use (rate for 25deg C.

So, if I'm reading this correctly, UshCha's claim is false? The Kwk 36 did not use shells with a reduced charge.

Whatever the case the Tiger I's 88 did KO a lot of allied AFVs regardless.

According to the German FLAK 18/36/37 manual from the US War Dept June 1943:
link

9.0kg High Explosive shell: MV 820mps
9.65kg Armor-Piercing shell: MV 810mps
Both at the same barometric pressure but no temperature data.

Tropical ammunition has reduced weight of propellant and gives normal range table performance at i25 C (77 F). Where tropical ammunition has not been issued or manufactured, special range tables are provided for use in the tropics with standard ammunition. The temperature taken as normal for standard ammunition is 10 C (50 F).

Wolfhag

The lower side armour, of the Tiger I, was only 60mm. thick, which proved to be a vulnerability if hit from the side.

Reliability and an excessive bridge loading weight was the main failing of German heavy tanks.

As Allied & Soviet anti-tank weaponry improved, the Tiger I's invulnerability became less & less.

By 1945 an M4 Sherman or M.24 Chaffee tank's 75mm. L.41 firing APCR M.93 "Hyper" could penetrate up to 127mm. of FHRHA @ 0 degrees @ 100 metres.

By 1943 the Soviet T-34/76's 76.2mm. L.42.5 F.34 gun firing HVAP "Arrowhead" could penetrate up to 149mm. @ 0 degrees @ 100 metres.

Prey that the Tiger I was once invulnerable to soon became lethal threats as the war progressed.