What can you tell me about the Tiger tank?
Was it pretty much invincible?
Yes, if it was lucky enough to get to the front line without breaking transmission, running out of fuel and not getting bombed on a route, if enemy used only medium tanks, shot only at its frontal armor from at least 1km and had no numerical superiority, then yes, it was pretty much invincible.
>>585375
Looked cool though
>>585377
>1942
>No slope armor
>>585375
shoot its tracks out and flank it lel
>>585402
Like I said. Looked.
>>585340
haha
>>585375
this nigga is correct
>>585427
They didn't fight in the front lines, m8. To flank it you had to ride through T-34-85 and IS-2 waiting to shoot you in the rear.
>>585443
That an Easy Eight? Fine machine and my personal favorite variant of the shermans. Right up there with the firefly.
Allied industry simply won out. The German heavy tank program filled a small scale, specialized role in the Panzerwaffe
The fact that Shermans and T34 were forced to fight Panthers, Tigers, and King Tigers was not part of any grand strategy. The Western Allies simply didn't have anything capable of matching them.
>>585375
nice
>>585375
Butthurt Soviet.
The frontal armour was not unusaually strong, no stronger than a Panther tank, although that is enough to withstand enemy tank shells. The side armour was still strong enough to withstand shells from virtually any tank it would go up against.
>>585512
Pershing, IS-2. The allies had heavy tanks as well.
>>585553
>The side armour was still strong enough to withstand shells from virtually any tank it would go up against.
at the time of its first deployments, yes, most of them unless at extremely close ranges, and with the exception of the 6pdr
with the introduction of the 76mm gun in the west and the 85mm gun in the east? no
>>585571
Flanking maneuvers used against the Tiger to attempt a shot at the thinner side and rear armor, gives the tactical advantage to the Tiger Moreover, the main armament of the Tiger II was capable of knocking out any Allied tank frontally at ranges exceeding 2.5 kilometres (1.6 mi), beyond the effective range of Allied tank gun.
>>585449
I was talking about fighting vs. Tigers
>>585553
>The side armour was still strong enough to withstand shells from virtually any tank it would go up against
u wot
>>585603
actually both guns were capable of penetrating the tiger hull frontally at common combat ranges, the 85 moreso than the 76 excluding uncommon ammunition for the 76
but yes the tiger ii had a vastly more powerful gun i dont think anyone is denying that
>>585627
the tiger had about 80mm of side armor on most of its hull and the same on the turret
that is more than enough to protect from penetrating hits from like 90%+ of the guns it faced in its early years of service
>>585627
You heard me.
>>585648
seeing the "bathtub" of the tank proper minus the tracks is always so weird to me
"it looks nothing like the tiger" when you look at the hull instead of taking it in "as a whole" so to speak
>>585340
Worse than Panther.
Too few made to make an impact.
Iconic that´s for sure.
>>585624
Tigers had rotating turret though.
>>585340
In Africa essentially yes. It's big, heavily armoured and the biggest advantange was the 88mm. It didn't even need the armour it had in the desert as it could knock out British tanks from so far away.
It always had a reputation as the God of all armour in Africa when I was a kid but the Matilda is actually round about it's equal there. Shame about the peashooter.
The Tiger had all sorts of mechanical weakness as auties will always point out but the reputation it gained in the desert made it THE tank. As long as history talks about tanks they'll talk about the Tiger 1. Allied soldiers were obsessed with them.
I went to Bovington this summer and had a blast finally seeing Tiger 131. I wasn't prepared for the size of the thing. Or certainly the height. I'm 5'9 and the hull alone is taller than me.
>>585679
>too few
They produced the amount they wanted to.
The tiger was supposed to be used in independent heavy tank battalions only.
>>585553
Like the KV-1 at its time, and then Mr. IS tank took over.
>>585340
No it was shit
I wish it wasn't so popular.
Its reputation is such a disgusting clusterfuck because of its popularity.
It's just such a clean, sexy tank, even if its performance was only above-average for about a year, and relatively mediocre for the rest of the war.
Why couldn't the Churchill have been the meme tank.
At least the Firefly is pretty much the new Tiger in terms of memeness about how amazingly good it was.
>>585821
Because naziboos cling to everything they can even of its bullshit
>>585836
So do slavboos and burgers desu.
Nazibooism has just been the most popular force because of how easy it is to market the wehrmacht in various media. What 12 year old wouldn't be attracted to shit like the 'unkillable bigcats' or 'hitler's buzzsaw'.
>>585848
War Thunder wiki editor here. You are right as balls.
>>585793
Dumb post m8.
I'm not a Naziboo and the Nazis being idiots doesn't mean German tanks are crap.
Tiger tank got its rep from fighting Sherman, BT and T34 tanks early in the war, to which it was vastly superior. Later the allies made tanks that competed with the tiger´.
>>585340
It took five Sherman tanks to destroy it, and usually four of those would be destroyed in the attempt. The Sherman's main gun was too weak so they had to try and hit it from behind to have a chance.
Most of the Anglo-American offensive in France resorted to wave attacks with massive numbers to get anywhere due to German superiority in weapons.
>>586235
6/10 there is potential
>>586235
You dumb shit attacking wastes much more tanks than defending.
That 5 Shermans/Tiger shitty meme has no fucking base, if you count Shermans lost vs. Tigers lost then that's pretty obvious since there were 50000 Shermans and not much more than 1200 Tiger tanks. Back to WoT you go.
Also, there's literally no reason why one of the better-gunned Shermans would have trouble penetrating a Tiger.
>>586260
back to wot
>>586235
> Anglo-American
Way to show your /pol/levels
opinion discarded naziboo
>>585512
American Sherman's fought Tigers 3 times in Northern Europe, and won outright in two of those occasions. It was hardly some supertanker; and by the time HVAP was developed, Sherman's could kill them just fine, even shooting at the front.
>>585695
In Africa, the first combat deployment of a Tiger tank was stopped by puny 57 mm guns that didn't even penetrate the armor. The thing was hardly invincible even then.
>>586469
>ur uh nazee!1!1!1!!
Anon, if you're gonna be blindly anti-German then fine but don't force others to tow that narrative.
>>586235
http://i.imgur.com/bxwWdOS.png
From this book.
http://www.amazon.com/Data-World-War-Tank-Engagements/dp/1470079062
Please note how the Shermans are killing roughly 3 and a half Panthers for every tank they're losing. American tank losses were overwhelmingly from mines and fixed anti-tank guns, not tanks, which they tended to shitstomp.
>>586521
this nigga right here
>>585340
That's a big Tank
>>586511
I love how you didn't defend using that word (considering the Allied Force was mostly American and British that would've been somewhat justified) and instead just spouted some stuff that really made you look like /pol/
>>585340
IT needed lots of maintenance and good care to prevent most malfunctions.
The engines were prone to malfunctions due prolong stress in their employment.
Huge waste of resources and man hours to build those machines.
The heavy tank battalions of the German army used them to great effect to stop sudden soviet army breakthoughts but this had no effect on the strategic level.
In short an expensive, delicate, powerful tactical weapon.
also this Documentary is quite good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1_hifqjmP4
>>586438
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNjp_4jY8pY
>>585375
kek. Soviet is so based.
>>585402
>implying long distance shell shots go in a straight line
Much like the Wehrmacht, it was terrifying in the field (everybody talks a ton about muh invincible armor, but the real draw was that beautiful 88 and optic) but strategically inefficient and a mess to maintain. Its weight was also a pain in the ass.
The thing a lot of people don't get about the war is that the significant number is how many tanks you have, not their millimeters in thickness.
For this next example I'm going to shorthand the resources needed to make a tank into its weight. Obviously a lot more things are important when it comes to strategic efficiency, such as making the production tools for factories and parts commonality for vehicles (the sherman chassis having so many variants made logistics that much easier. The Germans made an attempt at standardization with the E series but that was never completed) but we'll just theorize based on weight here.
The resources used to produce the about 1,3247 Tigers made, judging by weight cost, could have been used to make around 2909 Panzer 4 H. That's almost a third of how many 4s in all variants were made total. Would that have made a strategic difference? Probably.
For a more dramatic example, the theoretical weight material from all the tigers could have been used to make almost 7,384 of the humble 38t tank. That's not a very realistic example, though, since the only factories tooled to make 38ts were czech.
Now obviously sheer numbers aren't the only thing that matters in a war. You need fuel as well, something the Germans never had quite enough of. There's obviously a lot of flaws in this "what else could have been made" but its fun to think about.
>>586786
>There's obviously a lot of flaws in this "what else could have been made"
Most of them assume some type of competent management of national resources, something the Germans seemed incapable of.
Until Speer at least.
Based Speer.
>>586481
Now you're just making things up.
I love how autistic people get when comparing tanks. Its like comparing the power levels of mythical beasts.
As an asside, I recently saw a webm of some online ww2 sea warfare game. There was two teams and the guy in the webm was playing as a submarine, does anyone know what game it might be? Id post the webm but im on my phone.
>>587773
If getting crews is a problem you've already lost, because it means you don't have any reserves, making offensive operations impossible anyway.
"Everybody is fucking dead" is usually a condition that is assumed to not be the case in these discussions.
>>586915
It's literally been posted in this very thread.
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNjp_4jY8pY
cut to 29 minutes in.
>>587786
This is true, but people act like you could just throw infantry in a tank and call it good, when crew experience is one of the largest determinants in success.
>>585927
>bt
>tigers
>>587786
Not him, and I'm more familiar with the Luftwaffe's pilot situation, but not everyone is cut out to be a pilot, nor I suspect to be in every role in a tank. It's not just raw manpower, it's manpower that is capable of being trained for the role and isn't snapped up by another branch of service, which makes it rarer than you might think.
Furthermore, your ability to recruit puts a constraint on what you can field: it doesn't matter if you're turning out a thousand tanks a month if you can only crew half of them; Speer's rationalizations of the fighter building process did result in a bunch of pilot-less planes because recruitment hadn't gone up with it; you would doubltess face similar problems if you wanted to follow the suggestion mentioned upthread and reallocate all the resources used on Tigers and just churn out PZ4s.
>>586545
For you
Otto Carius wrote a pretty good book about his experience commanding the Tiger.
The only reason why the Germans where so good at using their tigers is because they put the best crews in them and let them operate independently in heavy tank battalions. The kill/death ratios were retarded as a result.
The tank it self was highly problematic. The only time it shined was in combat, the amour was good (both in thickness and quality) and the gun excellent but the thing was just not reliable. I think just about every operation (in his book) had a tank or two broken down which meant another tank or a engineering tank had to come and tow it home.
Honesty by the end of the war allied superiority and lack or resources are what killed the German tank arm.
>>587830
Tanks are simple enough that a child can grasp the basics of controlling them. Given time to practice, yes, any bunch of manlets in decent shape and speaking the same language can learn to operate a ww2 tank effectively.
>>586521
Panthers are a different tank, silly. This thread is about Tigers.
>>588291
Early T-34s were extremely unreliable as well. They were made in large enough numbers, and the projected service life was short enough that they didn't give a shit. Eventually later on in the war reliability did go up though. But consider, you're much more likely to see mechanical failures on a tank that sees much more service and survives many more battles. You can think of mechanical failures like a person dying of old age. It only happens if something doesn't kill them first.
M4s on the other hand, were always pretty reliable, although some compromises were made solely for ease of production and flexibility. In the end, that made them much easier to modify, compared to German prototypes which were constantly trying to use parts that were not strong enough for the newer higher tonnage, because they kept trying to build new tanks with old parts, instead of old tanks with new parts.
>>585340
it was so invincible it won the war singlehandedly
>>587726
>As an asside, I recently saw a webm of some online ww2 sea warfare game. There was two teams and the guy in the webm was playing as a submarine, does anyone know what game it might be? Id post the webm but im on my phone.
Steel Ocean. World of Warships is relatively new as well, but no subs.
>>585402
German industry had troubles welding sloped steel-plates, it was after they've reverse engineered Soviet process of doing it when they were able to implement it. Tiger tank programme was older than that.
OP - like with everything German in WW2 it's incredibly overrated.
The final tests of the tank have proven that both it and the scrapped Porshe proposal can't ride 100 km without breaking. They were supposed to go into production right after it. It also drank lots of gasoline and was ill-fit to Russian logistical conditions so as you can guess strategic mobility of any unit armed with them dropped significantly when they were introduced.
It used well-known AA gun despite 7,5cm AT gun used in Panther later on being proposed(and BETTER than the 8,8) only for propaganda reasons.
The tank was deemed to be disaster from the concept phase as you can see.
One thing that differed them from other German tanks was that they were put into production when Germany still had some resources but after the industry became more state-controlled so finally there was some Q&A so the expertises of captured Tigers never reported "steel ranging from the best alloys we know to something we wouldn't accept" from Soviets, British or Americans(which happened with basically any other German armoured vehicle).
Of course when it came out, neither Soviets nor western allies could show anything comparable - USSR even launched special, AT version of T-34 armed in 57mm AT gun but
but
but
They've produced ~130 of those and decided that it's not worth sacrificing anti-material ability of 76mm shells just to have little better chance against very rare sight on the battlefield.
Overall the whole "tankbusting" tanks Germans fielded later in the war was a completely messed up idea. When Soviets made KV and IS series, they were supposed to be breakthrough tanks. When Brits made Matilda and Churchill - they were infantry tanks which were more or less breakthrough tanks.(cont later).
>>589577
Everyone agrees that the Tiger was overrated, except the poor devils who came up against one in a Sherman
>>589577
cont
When Americans made Pershings, they were really medium tanks which were called heavy for propaganda reasons. They were even used as medium tanks.
Meanwhile Germans built several designs of heavy tanks and tank destroyers designed for tank-hunting.
Tiger was a prelude to this madness as it was still considered to be breakthrough vehicle(at least during concept phase) but you can see where it gone wrong by looking at it.
Then you've had Panther which was wonderful tank but STILL, its sides were susceptible to AT-rifles(not to mention extremely popular light 45mm AT guns) at low ranges, which was huge flaw on the Eastern front and the shurzen for it were adopted by mid 1944 or something like that. It was extremely basic thing - you're proposing new medium(standard) tank, so you better do it in a way that makes older AT weapons your enemy has useless and not worth their weight in steel. But no, they've overlooked it. They've really overlooked such obvious thing everybody else perfectly understood.
Then the madness turned into Fredinand/Elephant with no machineguns but huge gun(too bad majority of them were destroyed by infantry) and other dumbshit designs.
>>585603
>Tiger II was capable of knocking out any Allied tank frontally at ranges exceeding 2.5 kilometres
Was capable =/= did it.
There was one situation where a tank destroyer(not Tiger II) armed with the same gun pierced T-34 frontal armour from that distance but apart from that I haven't heard of single tank being taken out on such ranges but I've heard of average combat range for tanks being 480m in western Europe.
>>589590
More time than less the only tank destroyed in such fight was Tiger. Tank crews preferred M4's armed with 105mm howitzer instead of M1 AT gun for a good reason(that is - Tigers were hardly ever seen in combat).
Stop using shitty documentaries as your source of historical knowledge, the staff hardly ever considered German heavy tanks to be real threat.
>>589598
Tiger I had a extremely high rate of victories (like 1-8 and even higher)It was a superb platform of fire, extremly accurate because of its optics and firing system. By 1943, it became mechanically reliable and had a very good mobility, almost as fast as medium tank, with a track pressure over the ground only second to T-34.
In short, the Tiger I achieved a balance between movility, firepower and protection. The fact that the Allies started designing heavy tanks to face it proves how good was.
>>589577
>USSR even launched special, AT version of T-34 armed in 57mm AT gun but
i always bought those in Combat Missions cuz dey wuz great AT assets and shiet
>>589616
>The fact that the Allies started designing heavy tanks to face it proves how good was.
not really the allies as a whole but the soviets - western allied heavier/upgunned tank development either predated the tiger (british) or was a result of late war mass deployment of panthers (americans) - they (in)famously pretty much disregarded the tigers in their own development for a year or two because they did not really thought they would meet them (which would sort of bite them, esp. the americans, in the butt late in the war when meeting panthers in large numbers)
>>589598
Now this is not the most awesome source I have ever provided in my life (and I should probably shoot myself for referring to a fictional film), then again testimony from a WW2 Sherman Tank veteran counts as primary evidence so what the heck.
>Fury accurately portrays how superior the German tanks were. A Sherman provided you with protection against most enemy fire but against a Tiger it could easily become your coffin. I remember a very near miss where an eight cm shell from a Tiger tank went within inches of our turret and we decided not to stay around too long after that. In open combat we never had a chance. So, like in Fury, we always had to be one step ahead. It was only because we could call up air strikes and had many more tanks than the Germans that we eventually won.
http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2014/oct/24/fury-movie-tank-veteran-sherman-verdict-realistic
>“One of his Shermans turned the corner of a house and got off three shots at the front of a Panther, all bounced off. The Sherman then backed behind the corner and was disabled by a shot penetrating two sides of the house plus the tank.”[iii]
>Because of their insufficient armor, the insides of Sherman tanks were prone to catching fire during combat. This problem was compounded when fires ignited shells and other munitions inside a tank. Sherman M4’s were jokingly referred to by British soldiers as “Ronsons”, a brand of lighter whose slogan was “Lights up the first time, every time!”[iv] Polish soldiers referred to them simply as “The Burning Grave”.
http://archives.library.illinois.edu/blog/poor-defense-sherman-tanks-ww2/
>>589658
>>Because of their insufficient armor, the insides of Sherman tanks were prone to catching fire during combat. This problem was compounded when fires ignited shells and other munitions inside a tank. Sherman M4’s were jokingly referred to by British soldiers as “Ronsons”, a brand of lighter whose slogan was “Lights up the first time, every time!”[iv] Polish soldiers referred to them simply as “The Burning Grave”.
good lord NO
>>589643
Yeah it's really quite clear that the Panther was perceived as a greater threat due to their widespread application on the Western Front.
Now when things were getting particularly bad in the later parts of 44, the Germans only had so many Panthers they could keep supplied and operational with enormous gaps in between each tank, but based on the American exposure to and testimonies of facing the tanks, it's clear that an operational Panther was nothing to scoff at, regardless of the issues that dogged the tank.
>>589616
>The fact that the Allies started designing heavy tanks to face it proves how good was.
Objectively false.
Sherman was considered to be underguned by the time it rolled out of the factory for the first time as the gun intended for it was 3-inch M1 gun but it was given for TD's instead(which were redundant but it's the other thing), the British were using Fireflies but again that was because they've had really insufficient AT weaponry.
Pershing was a result of development programme that started around mid 1942, way before Americans have met Tigers, it was planned to be all round upgrade from the Sherman but the decision of up-gunning it to M3 90mm gun was a result of Soviet reports on Panthers. Panthers overall were more common than the popular history claims, by the time of Operation Overlord they've formed 50% of German armoured division tank garage. Several previous prototypes included for instance M1 AT gun with drum magazine(T23 or 24) or something that looked like down-sized pershing hull with different turret(T24) and several others, it gradually became pershing(just like Pershing gradually became M46 and M46 gradually became M47).
For Russians the "tiger problem" certainly WAS a thing but you can see that it wasn't the only thing they were concerned with during the development of IS tanks. Just look at the gun they've picked up - they've also had 100mm gun that later on was used in T54 and offered better AT capabilities than the 122mm boomstick they've picked. The problem is that IS was a breakthrough tank and its fame of "huh Tiger killer" was propaganda, and no officer considered it as a tank-busting heavy tank. It was used and considered as mobile breakthrough tank, same as KV-1S, just more modern.
>>589667
>According to Jentz (JENTZ, Thomas L.; Germany's TIGER Tanks - Tiger I and II: Combat Tactics; op. cit.), "The Tiger's armor was invulnerable to attack from most tank guns firing normal armor-piercing shells or shot at ranges over 800 meters, including the American 75 mm and the Russian 76 mm.
http://www.fprado.com/armorsite/tiger1-02.htm
Are we posting meme tanks?
Pic related.
>>589672
British were catching up with their upgrades slowly for several reasons but you can also see how little did German tanks mean when you consider the fact that they've exchanged 6-pounders for 75mm guns with similar parameters to Sherman's M3(and they've used the same ammo) even though the former having worse anti-tank parameters.
You see, allies didn't consider Tigers or Jagdtigers or Ferdinands to be a threat.
While average tank crew may have feared them, they've rarely even met them in battle.
But then you've had staff reports that were showing the real threatening German tanks/TD's, on a strategic scale that is.
Panther, Hetzer(not an actual name but whatever), Jagdpanzer IV. No Tigers. Nobody cared about them.
When you look at future tank development the concepts that laid a foundation for those vehicles went somewhere. The fundamental ideas and concepts that led to development of Tigers have laid foundation for IS-4, IS-7 and IS-8 Soviet heavy tanks, where units equipped in those were always used as a rearguard in their plans(before 1953) or were mass-exported or placed in some god-forgotten places like Sakhalin(after 1953), then you also have British Conqueror, that was used for propaganda mostly and M103 that was also used for propaganda and by itself was a result of paranoia in American higher command. No other heavy tank was used by any army outside of them. And it's not that the ammunition development phased them out - you have British building their tanks with protection in mind(Chieftain) even though everybody said that it's worthless so it had to be something else.
That else is simple.
War is won either by numerical superiority so big that it negates inferior mobility or by superior mobility that makes it possible to achieve local numerical superiority before the enemy can react. Heavy tanks fit into neither of those methods.
>>589672
i will need source on that 50% because i have some books on the late war german operations and i remember differently, will check them once im close to muh books
plus panzer divisions werent the only ones equiped with armor
>>589704
You can't be memier than the 5 turrets tank.
>>589712
50 % sounds a bit too high, wikipedia has panther numbers in the west peaking in the 400s, surely the germans had more than a thousand tanks
>>589721
from what i remember the idea was to replace pzIVs with panthers but that never happened so it went like
>"prio" division 3/4 panther 1/4 pz
>avarage division 50/50
>anything else, Pz-s and whatever leftover mess just to have tonks in line
add the heavy AT/Tank brigades to under command of the spearhead and you get the idea
>>585340
Not even going to try slogging through all the retardation in this thread.
1.) The Tiger was an early war project sped into production in response to encounters with Soviet T-34s and KVs. As such it had flaws and obsolete ideas in its construction.
2.) The Tiger's armor is not that thick, but the effective range of its gun meant it could engage the enemy from outside of their effective range for a large portion of the war.
3.) The Tiger's reputation comes from fighting incompetents in Africa and the Eastern front. Remember that the Russians were losing T-34s in droves to 37mm armed Pz. 3s. The Americans never recognized the Tiger as a large problem, especially compared to the Panther.
4.) The effectiveness of all tanks is largely decided by the crew inside of it, fighting horribly trained Russians and Brits with zero effective tactical knowledge would make any tank look good.
>>589577
>German industry had troubles welding sloped steel-plates
>>589758
This is clearly some American that has zero idea what they are talking about. Everyone ignore the idiot.
>>589763
You do know that Early war British tank tactics were basically just "Charge at them from the front, or the side" and that the British army had mediocre tanks at best right?
The Brits didn't get their shit together until operation torch really.
>>589758
>The effectiveness of all tanks is largely decided by the crew inside of it
this point cannot be stressed hard enough
i feel tank threads always devolve into waving penetration and armor thicknes around and talking isolated, individual tanks and comparing them and whatnot
but very little is written about things like american tanker crews - who were on the whole surprisingly much better than their german counterparts in the west
>"The attack began on Sunday, the 14th of February, at 04.00. After a brief battle the American Sherman tanks there were destroyed. Rolling onwards, 1./501 reached the assigned area eight kilometers north of Sidi bou Zid. From there the Germans could recognize without binoculars the preparations of about fifty American tanks. When these attacked a short time later, the lead tank was destroyed by the Tigers. The rest of the American tanks pulled back to Sidi bou Zid. The superiority of the Tiger's 8.8 cm cannon was demonstrated in this engagement when Ofw. Augustin succeeded in destroying a retreating Sherman from a range of 2700 meters. On that day the Tigers of 1./501 destroyed fifteen American Sherman tanks."
>The accomplishments of the handful of Tigers operating with Combat Group Reimann--in the space of about six hours--just prior to daybreak until around noon--was remarkable. They assisted in breaking through their opponents forward defenses, destroying a tank company in the process. They continued the attack assisted in defeating two counterattacks, destroying a total of 20 Shermans throughout the day
>
"Although they had achieved several local penatrations, the Americans were beaten off by the Tigers' long-ranging cannon operating in conjunction with the other arms, and suffered heavy casualties. On 24 March 1943, the Wehrmacht bulletin reported the destruction of forty-four enemy tanks in that sector. This success had been achieved by about a dozen Tigers of the 501st and 504th Battalions.
http://www.wehrmachtbericht.com/page11.php
Remember to ignore the Americans waffling away with nonsense.
>The most powerful tank of World War II, a single 67-ton Tiger II could hold up a dozen Sherman tanks, and often did. Known variously as the Tiger B, King Tiger, and Royal Tiger, the Tiger II carried a crew of five, had a 600-horsepower engine and a maximum speed of 21.74 miles an hour, and boasted a cruising range of 105.57 miles.
http://warfarehistorynetwork.com/daily/wwii/sherman-tanks-tiger-tanks-the-battle-of-the-bulge/
>>589784
>veteran crews in heavy tanks fighting from prepared positions at long ranges defeat green medium tanks attacking fortifications
I wonder why?
If I post about Pershings slaughtering norks in the Korean war will that make America great again?
>>589789
>If I post about Pershings slaughtering norks in the Korean war will that make America great again?
I would think so desu
russian tanks were shat on throughout the cold war
>>585340
The crew made the tank "invisible".
Mind you that Wittmann and Carius already performed excellently before crewing Tigers.
>>589787
>Heavy late-war tanks overpowered medium middle-war tanks
You don't say?
>>589793
>Russian tanks were shat on through the entire cold war.
Yes and no.
T-55s and T-62s were shat on by contemporaries with roughly comparable ammunition, but at the same time the training of the NATO armed nations was much more rigorous than the PACT supplied ones.
For a 20 year period, 1965 to 1985, the soviets had superiority in tanks in Europe, In both numbers and quality.
what's up with all these obvious 'big tank with big gun capable of shooting smaller tank with smaller gun' posts
>>589667
This is a pile of debunked cliches.
To start with, the famous Ronson slogan didn't emerge until the 1950s.
>>585512
T-34/85 could deal with Panthers and Tigers, so did the M4s with 76mm guns. KTs and Jagdtigers are just additional weights for the dying logistics the German were left with.
Germans should have just invested with Pz. 4s.
>gib slope armor
>gib decent transmission and tracks
>profit????
>>589805
>This is a pile of debunked cliches
Nope.
>>589516
Panther>Tiger
wins in terms of production, mobility and firepower (Panther 75 has got more pen than 88)
>>589805
>"We sighted two Tiger tanks of the Das Reich division at a range of 600 yards. We fired four shells which all bounced off. The Tigers subsequently turned around and headed straight for us. We pulled back after losing six Shermans. One of our Firefly tanks managed to score a direct hit on the left flank of one of the Tigers before it, too, was destroyed by the surviving Tiger. We saw the crew escape from the crippled Tiger and climb onto its comrade before the tank retreated. There were no survivors from our tanks, which simply burst into flames."
Canadian M4 crewman's report, Normandy 1944
>>589810
the problem with the pziv is that the fact that it was a noticecably aged original model from the 30s was showing in a couple of years into the war - it was pretty much at the breaking point with all its uparmoring and upgunning, especially straining suspension, not going for sloped armor etc., the m4 and t34 were better platforms
>A Tommy cooker was a compact, portable stove, fuelled by something referred to as solidified alcohol[1] which was issued to British troops (Tommies) in World War I.[2]
>The term also came to be applied by the German tank crews as a derogatory nickname for the Sherman tank whose earlier models acquired a reputation for bursting up in flames when hit,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_cooker
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/trail/wars_conflict/weapons/field_gun_to_tank_10.shtml
>>589831
Notice the green text mang. Those are just the things Pz. IV lack to compete with T-34/85s and M4 76s.
>>589810
Pz4 costed ~33k RM to make while Panther costed around 45k. There was a reason why its production was going to be dropped in favour of Jgdpz IV in the future that never came.
>>589846
haha i completely missed it
>>589847
did it? is that the J or H?
one would think a panther is far more costy than a simple pziv
i have no source, only wondering
>>589835
I can't believe quite how much unsourced, unadulterated, imbecilic horseshit the Americans have talked in this thread.
>>589868
not him, but wasn't J waaaay cheaper? It lacked the hydraulics, making the turret be manually turned by the crew.
>>589868
maybe the pziv being a result of constant upgrades and changes and the production being more expensive and relatively complex (than its original models) could have caused that (or the converse for the pnather)? just guessing though
>>589868
>>589873
>>589876
Pz4 was pre war design. J was cheaper, but we're still talking about tank that's very outdated.
I wouldn't be surprised if Wermacht would pay similar price for pre-war models because of how military-industrial complex works like, but to not delve it and put it shortly - you can say it was over-designed.
Panther on the other hand, was, since the beginning developed with mass production in mind which shortened the man-hours and energy needed to produce one tank which in turn resulted in price being much cheaper than straight "we have a tank that's X tanks heavier, multiply price by X" would led you think.
>>589759
Why was their first tank with heavily sloped armour(10 degrees on earlier panzers doesn't really count as slope) appeared in 1943 while Russians produced those by 1938(T-26 revision)?
>>589905
>appeared
produced*
>>589898
yes thats what i meant, with a panther you got the plans, a machine, set up shop and churn them out
but with the pziv you had a factory making the original models exactly like above... but which then got changed and upgraded and whatnot several times, making the production process clunkier, less streamlined, and more expensive (well thats what i think anyway it might be dead wrong)
perhaps seeing the cost of the original pziv models would clear the issue, anyone got any numbers?
>>589758
haha, I get the joke
>>589921
Checking Wikipedia says the Panzer IV was approximately 103,462 reichsmarks per unit, while the Panther was 117,100 reichmarks per unit.
>>589661
Amusingly enough though, the Germans using it in the Western Front were generally negative about it. Fritz Bayerlain, the commander of Panzer Lehr (first division with Panthers to face off against Americans after Normandy) requested more Pz4s, and to not be sent panther replacements.
>>590071
well which model is the key here
>>590071
Not him, but in a complete command economy, that doesn't really mean anything.
I'd be more interested in things like labor-hours to produce each, as well as the materials necessary for construction.
>>590323
>doesn't really mean anything
It means labor-hours + cost of materials.
>>590341
No it doesn't. Something's cost in Reischmarks was whatever Speer or his predecessors decided its cost in Reischmarks would be. Same with most procurements of the German government, especially when made vis a vis foreign entities: Oil was "bought" from the Romanians at an exchange rate of "Whatever the hell we feel like" at the time.
Prices in a command economy are fictions, not useful economic indicators.
>>590349
Yeah, but steel for PzIV and PzVI cost the same, and wages were the same. Absolute values of prices maybe a fictions, but you can compare them.
>>590372
Raw steel might have cost the same, but you don't make tanks out of raw steel; you have to cast and mold and build specialized equipment, engines, cannons, suspensions, torsion bars, etc; that in turn implies some kind of factory process with its own equipment necessary to build the components before final assembly, which means that you likely have different degrees of worker skill and different costs beyond the proportion of their weights.
>>589787
>The most powerful tank of World War II, a single 67-ton Tiger II could hold up a dozen Sherman tanks, and often did.
>and often did.
Except they rarely even saw shermans so this whole statement is bullshit.
>>590349
>are fictions
So are market prices.
Reichsmark, just like Soviet production prices, or Bond interest rates in the USA, represented the ability of capitalists to mobilise labour power for the extraction of surplus value.
>>585557
Barely
>>586438
Gtfo kid
>>585898
But they was shit
>>589598
>the staff hardly ever considered German heavy tanks to be real threat.
You mean the dumbasses that ignored a growing problem of casualties. Lol, you idiot
>>586819
Speer didn't do anything special. His "armament miracle" was just the result of earlier investments coming on line. The same growth was replicated by the aircraft industry, which was overseen by Milch, not Speer.
>>586481
>Shermans
>in northern Europe
Nigga what
>>585340
It was shit m8 Sherman's all the way
>>592422
>surplus value
Well memed
Way better
>>593176
France, Belgium, Germany. As opposed to Italy.
>>586438
As far as I know that '5 shermans to beat 1 tiger' was an adage from allied tank commanders when it came to how they fought against tiger tanks. They would generally lose one tank at the start of the engagement and send the rest around to try and flank the tiger.
It was never meant as a statistical comparison of losses.
>>593213
the tank that won the war
>>593384
>As far as I know that '5 shermans to beat 1 tiger' was an adage from allied tank commanders when it came to how they fought against tiger tanks.
Either that or the fact that the smallest number of Shermans in a unit was 5.
>>593384
isn't it just that American Tanks were split into squadrons of five, regardless of what they faced
>>593263
>France is northern Europe
Time to stop posting
>>585340
>What can you tell me about the Tiger tank?
It's a big tank.
>>589577
>German industry had troubles welding sloped steel-plates
Im pretty sure the Germans knew about V-groove welding during the second world war since they had the tools to weld thick steel, V-groove is essential if you want to weld thick stuff, it also helps when you weld at angles.
T. Welder
>>594122
They also did good dovetailing.
>>589872
you should probably leave the thread if it's too much for you miss
>>594879
Why would I do that?
I've provided multiple properly sourced posts.
>>589672
>Pershing was a result of development programme that started around mid 1942, way before Americans have met Tigers,
Pershing started as structurally better than Sherman with Sherman armor and armament. Then it's gun and armor started to grow... while drivetrain remained same.
>Several previous prototypes included for instance M1 AT gun with drum magazine(T23 or 24) or something that looked like down-sized pershing hull with different turret(T24) and several others,
T23 turret ended up in E8 Sherman as it was. Main differences in T20-series medium tanks were engine and transmission, in T24 they started to increase armor and armament. The gun they tested with autoloader was 75mm.
>it gradually became pershing(just like Pershing gradually became M46 and M46 gradually became M47).
By all means M46 would have been M26A something by modern standards, Pershing just had so rotten reputation that they had to come up with new model number and name.
When it comes to Sherman. It wasn't bad tank, but it wasn't really good either. It had one thing where it was better than most of it's contemporaries, reliability. That is due to three reasons. First thing was the fact that US industry never had to deal with wartime material shortages. Secondly it had well tested drivetrain and suspension, those had remained same since abortions known as M2 medium tank and M3 medium tank, that meant that US Army knew from experience how much spare parts to pack with each tank, how often they had replace some parts and so on. Third factor was the fact that WWI had devastated Europe while US remained practically untouched by loss of life, as result cars and tractors became common in US before WWII, in Europe that happened after WWII due to economic damage inflicted by world wars. As result US soldiers had more prior experience in fixing mechanical things that were broken.
>>596122
continued...
Pershing wasn't Sherman. Good deal of it's reliability issues aside from being overweight for it's drivetrain comes from the fact it wasn't tested design, US army simply didn't know how to stock spares or how to fix it on field conditions. In Korea it got even more shit on it's reputation because US forces in Japan had stored their tanks improperly and just ran with Chaffee light tanks, because those were less problematic in Japan. Once those got taken out of storage, most of Pershings in Korea were already junk when those arrived.
>>596122
>kill roughly 3.5 Psnthrrs to each tank lost in tank to tank combat
>in engagements that would fire first 95% of the time when on the defensive tactically, and about 55% of the time when attacking.
>average
Does not compute.
>>596145
Panthers* stupid phone.
>>596145
There is huge difference between losses and recoverable losses... assuming you control battlefield after the battle and have overwhelming numerical superiority. US army was superior to German army in 1944 and 1945. Panther was still superior tank over Sherman. US army was better mostly due to superior logistics, industry and numbers.
Sherman was reliable, that ensured strategic mobility, offroad Sherman is at best mediocre tank. It was literally worse than fucking Churchill.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmXEly5_u38
>>596474
>conveniently ignore how Shermans would consistently fire first when that is, by far, the single most important factor of any tank engagement.
It's almost like an optical system with good range finding but narrow field of vision, requiring the tank commander to feed info to the gunner, doesn't work well in environments where short engagement ranges are the order of the day.
Why do you think Fritz Bayerlain wanted more Pz4s and not Panthers?
Armor piercing shell from a 17-pdr gun embedded in a section of armor from a Tiger I tank
>>585340
Pretty garbage; not invincible at all. Shermans could penetrate its frontal armor from 700m (Germany's Tiger Tanks D.W. to Tiger I: Design, Production & Modifications. Hentz & Doyle; p 19-20). Don't believe retarded Wehraboos claiming it could survive 18 inch shells or other such bullshit
>>596631
Which gun?
>>596635
76 mm M1 gun, on use on all non-specialty Sherman variants after the M4A1E4. While the most iconic depictions of Shermans tend to have the 75 mm M3 gun, the fact is that the most common variants (Non-Jumbo M4A3 variants) would use the M1 gun.
>>596474
>It was literally worse than fucking Churchill.
You do know that the Churchill had better ground pressure and climbing ability than most light tanks of the period right?
>>596600
No, that's just a 17 pounder shell stuck in the hole left by another 17 pounder shell. You can tell this by the fact that the steel penetrator was not at all deformed by striking steel.
The Tiger was so fearsome that they say Shermans had to face them five to one to win and hit them from behind or their shots would bounce off.
>>597041
Also, tommycookers lmao ronson inorite?
There are reports of Tigers taking hundreds of hits from Allied and Soviet shells, and still being able to fight.
>>597059
There's also reports of Tigers being put out of action from 47 mm anti-tank guns and the crew having to bail out. So?
>>597054
What are you talking about?
It had some of the best armour for a tank in the war.
Let me put it like this: you'd rather be fighting from inside a Tiger than a Sherman.
>>599557
well that is true
at the same time you would rather be the side that built thousands more of good enough tanks than the enemy and won the war
>>599557
The Sherman, clearly. Odds of death are literally orders of magnitude lower.
And the armor wasn't the main selling point, the gun was. 100 mm flat vs 80 mm at a 55 slope meant that the Panther had better frontal protection from most shots than the Tiger did.
