Tiger Tank (Panzer VI Ausf.B, Heavy Tank)

and

King Tiger Tank

Extremely lethal and extremely armored, the Tiger and its later version

Tiger II ( King Tiger ) were the most dreaded german tanks. Their technical complexity limited their production and field use.

Tiger tank

After years of research for a heavy next generation tank, german designers were eventually required to quickly produce one by Hitler's 53rd birthday in April 1942. It would be armed with the most powerful german gun, the 88mm, which was used both as a heavy anti-aircraft gun and as an anti- tank gun. Two prototypes were ready for Hitler's birthday, and one, by Henschel, was selected for production. Officially marked Panzer VI, it was the first german tank which was given a name, they named it Tiger. 1350 Tigers were produced between august 1942 and august 1944, when production shifted to the heavier and even more powerful Tiger II, which was named King Tiger.

There were only two variants of the Tiger, a gunless command tank, and a

strange heavy rockets launcher version of which only 10 were produced.

The gunless command tank was equipped with a winch for its secondary

role of tank tow, a sign of the many technical problems that caused the

loss of many german tanks.

The Tiger was an outstanding design. Many modern tanks are remote

descendants of it. It had an extremely powerful gun and matching optics,

which allowed it to kill every other tank from a longer range. It had very thick armor which made it almost indestructible from front. But it was also very complex for production and maintenance, unlike its american and russian enemies which were mass produced in great numbers and were very reliable in the field.

Its complex suspension wheels system, designed to carry its heavy weight, could get stuck with stones and even with mud, a severe problem for a tank. This was particularly severe in the russian winter, where frozen mud totally immobilized Tigers during the night, making them sitting ducks in the morning, when the russians attacked. It also had two sets of tracks, one for roads and one for the field and combat, an even greater complexity.

The tiger was a heavy tank (55 tons) with a crew of five. It carried 84 rounds for its killer 88mm gun, and was also armed with two machine guns, one coaxial and one above the front hull, with almost 6000 rounds. It was slower than other tanks and had a road range of just 100km, which was an increasing problem as germany's fuel supply was decimated towards the end of the war, but in the battlefield its firepower and protection were unmatched.

King Tiger tank

In order to defeat any possible future enemy, the german designers began to plan the Tiger's successor as soon as its production began in late 1942. It would have even more firepower and more armor protection than the Tiger. One rejected prototype was supposed to carry a 150mm!! gun. Another prototype was rejected because its electric system used "too much" copper, a sign of the extreme difficulties the german industry had to cope with in the later stages of the war ( the most extreme example of that, in my opinion, was the design and production, in late 1944, of the He-162 Salamander, which was a jet fighter made mostly of wood ! ).

The design of the new tank, which was marked Tiger II and named King Tiger, was completed in late 1943, and production began in December 1943, initially together with the Tiger, and since august 1944 instead of the Tiger. Only 485 King Tiger tanks were produced before the war ended.

It first fought against the russians in May 1944 and in France in august 1944. Its very thick armor, especially in the front, protected it from the guns of enemy tanks, but made it slow, because its engine could not compensate for its very heavy weight of 69 tons, and its size made it harder to hide than other tanks, which was a serious problem given the massive presence of allied fighter bombers at that stage of the war. It was also technically unreliable, like the Tiger. Many were simply abandoned or self- destroyed for lack of fuel, rather than by enemy fire.

The King Tiger had a crew of five. It was armed with an extremely powerful long-barrelled 88mm gun, even more powerful than that of the Tiger, which fired armor-piercing rounds at a muzzle velocity of 1200 meters per second, about a third faster than those fired by the Tiger. It carried 84 rounds and also two machine guns with almost 6000 rounds, like the Tiger.

(Source: http://www.2worldwar2.com/tiger-tank.htm )

Tiger Tank

The Tiger tank was one of the most feared weapons of World War Two.

The Tiger tank was very heavily armoured and carried powerful weapons

on board. In the war in North Africa in an early encounter with the Allies

in Tunisia, eight rounds fired from a 75mm artillery gun simply bounced

off of the side of the tank – from a distance of just 50 metres. Such was

the potency of the Tiger, that it got an aura of invincibility. However, such

a status was not necessarily deserved as the Tiger could be stopped and

its sheer size caused problems.

The development of the Tiger began as early as 1939. The development

programme was accelerated after May 1941 when the Wehrmacht asked

for a 45 ton tank which had as its principle weapon an 88mm gun. The

88mm gun had already proved itself in battle as an artillery weapon. The

thinking behind carrying such a heavy gun was that it would allow the

Tiger to outshoot any gun carried by Russian tanks.

The first Tiger prototype was scheduled to be ready for Hitler’s birthday

on April 20th, 1942. This gave the designers a limited time to produce the

tank especially as the Wehrmacht was continually changing its design

requirements.

Companies produced their own versions. The Henschel Company had as

their first Tiger prototype a 30 ton vehicle carrying a 75mm gun. However,

even before its production, it was out of date as the Russian T34 had better specifications all round. The Porsche Company also competed to produce a tank suitable for the Wehrmacht.

On April 20th, 1942, the new versions from both Henschel and Porsche

were displayed in front of Hitler at his base in Rastenburg. The Henschel

design was considered to be the more superior and easier to produce in

mass production. The full production of the first Tiger tank started in August 1942. The official designation of the new tank was Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger Ausf. H.

The Tiger I was the first German combat tank to be fitted with overlapping

road wheel suspension which gave the tank very good weight distribution.

For a tank the size of the Tiger, its ride was stable and was considered to

be comfortable for the crew on board. The first Tigers were fitted with two

types of tracks – a 20.5 inch track for travel and transportation and a 28.5

version for combat.

However, for all its formidable weaponry, the Tiger had its problems – and

one of these centred on the tracks. During the winter, mud and snow would pack into the tracks and freeze up, thus jamming the tracks. When the Russians realised this, they timed their attacks for the early morning before the snow/mud could thaw out.

The original Tigers were also underpowered. The first versions were fitted

with a Maybach V12 engine with a 21 litres capacity. This was later

increased to 24 litres capacity in December 1943. The gearing made the

Tiger easy to drive – the 8 forward gears could be used with a pre-selector.

The sheer size of the Tiger was also a problem. Few bridges were strong

enough to cope with the ever increasing weight of the various different marks of the Tiger. Therefore, the first 495 Tigers were fitted with a snorkel which allowed them to cross rivers up to a depth of 13 feet. This was abandoned as an economy measure so that later versions could only operate to a depth of 4 feet.

One of the most advanced features of the Tiger was its assembly process.

Flat section armour plate was used throughout the assembly process, which allowed the use of heavy armour. Various parts were made as one complete unit complete with interlocking joints that made assembly a quick process.

The hull of the first Tigers was divided into four sections; two in the front for the driver and the bow gunner and radio operator, a central fighting

compartment and a rear engine compartment.

The Tiger was in production for two years, from August 1942 to August 1944. Some 1,350 were made with, at its peak, 104 being made in just one month in April 1944 – evidence, if it was needed, about the effectiveness of the manufacturing process. However, each tank cost over 250,000 marks to manufacture.

The Tiger was armed with an 88mm gun and two 7.92 MG-34 machine guns.

The Kursk offensive saw the first large scale use of the so-called ‘tank wedge’. The Tiger was slower than a medium MKIII or MKIV and its turret movement was slower. Therefore, the Tiger went into battle with the faster but less well armed MKIII’s or MKIV’s protecting their flanks.

The Tiger first saw action in August/September 1942 in the Leningrad campaign. However, the terrain was swampy forest land – not very suited to the Tiger. But on January 12th, 1943, four Tiger’s , with eight MKIII’s, faced 24 Russian T34’s near Leningrad. The ground was frozen solid which greatly aided manoeuvrability. 12 T34’s were destroyed and the other 12 retreated. Given the correct terrain to fight on, the Tiger easily proved its fighting worth.

The Allies first met the Tiger at Tunisia. French shells from a 75mm gun

bounced off the hull – from a distance of just 50 metres. The tank was also

successful elsewhere – but again, behind the success, lay some major

weaknesses. A journey of just 60 miles by a Tiger could eat up 150 gallons of fuel. Maintaining a decent fuel supply to Tiger columns was always a difficult process and one that could be very easily disrupted by resistance fighters.

The Tiger was the main tank spearhead for the Germans at Kursk. Here it

did not do well. Many tanks had left their factories before rigorous mechanical checks. As a result, many suffered major mechanical malfunctions during the

battle. In the famous tank battle at Kursk of July 12th, the Tiger could hit a T34 from 1500 metres but when the two got to close-quarter fighting, the T34 proved to be superior.

It was in the retreat from Russia that the Tiger proved its defensive qualities that were to hinder both the Russians on the eastern Front and the Allies on the Western Front. On October 18th, 1943, one Tiger led by Sepp Rannel, destroyed 18 Russian tanks. Michael Wittman, another Tiger commander, had kills of 119 tanks, including great success in Normandy after D-Day. In Normandy, Wittman’s Tigers destroyed 25 British tanks, 14 half-tracks, 14 Bren-gun carriers in a short and bloody battle around the village of Villers Bocage. However, Wittman lost 6 Tigers which were very difficult to replace – as were his experienced crew.

Within Normandy, the Tigers scored victories out of proportion to their numbers. On July 11th, 1944, thirteen British Shermans were lost of out 20 with two more captured with no Tiger losses. The Tigers did well enough to survive the onslaught at the Falaise Gap and in August just 2 Tigers held up the advance of the 53rd British Infantry division.

There were advanced versions of the Tiger. The Tiger II, which the Germans called the King Tiger, first saw action on the Eastern Front in May 1944. The King Tiger first saw action on the Western Front on August 1944. Weighing in at 68 tons with a 690 bhp engine, the Tiger II was a formidable weapon. It also used a vast amount of fuel which the Germans were finding very difficult to produce

due to Allied bombing of fuel plants. The Allies also bombed the factories that made the Tigers and only 100 were available for the Ardennes Offensive (the Battle of the Bulge) in the winter of 1944-45.

At the Battle of the Bulge, the Tigers did very well to start with but they literally ran out of fuel and men from Joachim Peiper’s SS unit had to abandon their tanks and walk back to their lines.

The Allies did develop weapons to counter the Tiger’s impact on the battlefield. The Americans introduced the Sherman Firefly which was armed with a 17-pounder super-velocity gun. It was more deadly than the Tiger’s 88mm gun. The tank- busting Typhoon fighter also carried armour-piecing rockets which were more than a match for the Tiger’s armour. The Russians also developed 100mm and 152mm guns that could be fatal for a Tiger.

By the end of the war, other tanks had been developed that outclassed the Tiger – the Joseph Stalin II and the American M26 Pershing were among them.

( Source: http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/tiger_tank.htm )

King Tiger ( Tiger II )

The Tiger II was also known as "Tiger Ausf. B" or "Königstiger" (King Tiger) and was the last major tank design to see service during the war. The original Tiger design was finalised before the Russian T-34 was encountered so it lacked the excellent ballistic shape which was a feature of the Panther. The Tiger II went into production late in 1943 and was first engaged in action on the Russian front in August 1944 and was later encountered by the Allies in France in August of that year. It was born of a demand from the Waffenamt (Army Weapons Office) in August 1942 for a redesigned Tiger tank incorporating thicker armor, sloped plates to deflect shots as on the Panther and T-34, and armed with the 88mm L/71 gun, which should be capable of dealing with any new tank development

that the Russians could possibly produce.

Both Porsche and Henschel were asked to submit designs to these

specifications. The Porsche design (VK 4502P) had alternative layouts with the turret either well forward or at the back of the hull. It was to mount the longer L/71 KwK 43 gun as in the Elefant tank destroyer. At first the Porsche model was considered for production and the construction of turrets by Wegmann of Kassel for this vehicle began, but due to the shortage of copper required for the parts in the electrical transmission this tank project was cancelled. The Waffenamt also rejected the electric drive as unreliable and too sophisticated for service conditions.

The second design from Henschel (VK 4503H) was powered conventionally like their Tiger I and was accepted. The project was put in hand as a top priority effort and the first prototype was delivered in November 1943. By that time the Panther II had been designed, and under the new rationalisation policy it was decided that as many parts of the Panther II as possible had to be incorporated to standardise design features between the two vehicles. Production of the Tiger Ausf. "B" began

in December 1943 on the Henschel production line, parallel to that which was building the Tiger Ausf. E. The first production models began to reach the Army late in February 1944.

Henschel remained the sole builders of the Tiger II during its whole production life. By September 1944 Tiger Ausf. E production ceased completely in favour of the new vehicle. Production was scheduled to reach a rate of approximately 145 per month, but disruption by enemy bombing and shortage of materials reduced the best ever monthly output to 84 in August 1944. By the end of the war 487 Tiger IIs had been produced. The first 50 Tiger IIs to be completed were fitted with the spare

turrets originally intended for the Porsche Tiger. This turret had a curved front mantlet and a bulged commander's cupola on the left side. The remaining vehicles had a Henschel-designed turret, having thicker armour and eliminating the re-entrant angle under the mantlet.

The Tiger II was derived from the Tiger Ausf. E and both tanks had many features in common. At the same time it bore a much closer resemblance to the late model Panther. Common fittings included cupolas, engines, engine covers and road wheels. Compared with the other vehicles the Tiger II had thicker armor and was dimensionally larger. It incorporated various features which experience had shown were desirable; notably the front glacis plate, which was now sloped as on the Panther and T-34 tanks

instead of squarely vertical as on the original Tiger. The armor protection, particularly that carried on the front of the vehicle, was the thickest to be employed on a tank that was due for large scale production. The front plate was 150mm set at a 40o angle, the turret face 180mm thick, and the side and tail plates, including the turret wall, were 80mm thick. Frontal attack of this tank, by any weapon available to the Allies, was out of question.

The extremely wide tracks gave the Tiger II good cross-country performance despite its excessive weight. The Tiger II incorporated all the good points of the Panther tank and armed with a new main armament, the 88mm KwK 43 L/71 which was almost 21ft

long. This gun represented the largest calibre length to be employed operationally by the Germans in a tank mounting during the war. There was a small, conical Saukopf (pig's head) mantlet, and a well- sloped turret and sloped morticed armor plates making up the hull. The tanks were often covered with Zimmerit to prevent the attachments of

magnetic mines.

Internally the vehicle followed the usual German layout with front sprocket drive and crew positions as for the Panther. The big turret had several interesting features; it lacked the usual basket and was built out very wide over an immense 73inch diameter turret ring. To assist in loading the big ammunition rounds carried, 22 rounds were mounted in the rear turret bulge, thus giving the loader a minimum handling movement. Power traverse was as for the Panther and Tiger.

Suspension was by torsion bars and it followed the same type of arrangement as in the Tiger Ausf. E. However, the wheels were overlapped rather than interleaved as on the Tiger. This change was adapted to simplify the maintenance problems which had been inherent with interleaved road wheels. Similarly, the tendency for the wheels to

freeze solid with packed snow was obviated to some extent. Steel-tyred resiliently sprung wheels (which featured a layer of rubber between two steel tyres) were standard on the Tiger II as on the late models Tiger Ausf. E and Panthers.

A few of the Tiger II vehicles were adapted to the role of command tanks

(Befehlspanzer Tiger B). The command version was equipped with an additional mast aerial at the rear of the hull, and the loader acted as second radio operator. The ammunition stowage in the rear of the turret was reduced to make installation of the appropriate radio equipment possible. A limited traverse tank destroyer version of the Tiger II was also produced. This vehicle, the heaviest armoured fighting vehicle to go

into service, was designated Jagdtiger. Only 80 vehicles were built due to shortages of components and disruption by bombing. The Jagdtiger consisted of the normal Tiger II hull with a lengthened suspension and a built-up superstructure to form a fixed turret.

( Source: http://www.wargamer.com/Hosted/Panzer/ktiger.htm )