Snippet on the Tiger tank

[CINDERS]

In reading a recent acquisition to my collection of books I brought another tiger book and found out some info which was new to me.
Originally they were looking at the KwK42/7.5cm gun for the Tiger which had pretty good all round ballistics the gun barrel being 70 calibers in length.
Its Pzgr39 7.5cm 15lb (6.8kg) round could penetrate 4.4" (110mm) armour at 30 degree slope at 1000m, the Pzgr.40 7.5cm 4.75kg (10.5lb) Tungsten cored could penetrate 5.9" (150mm) at a 1000m. The KwK36 8.8cm could penetrate 4" (100mm) and 5.45"(138mm) respectively at a 1000m.
The difference being in the MV the 7.5cm were 3035fps for the Pzgr.39 and the Pzgr.40 4265fps the KwK 36 8.8cm was slower at 2536fps for the 8.8cm Pzgr.39 and 3015fps for the Pzgr.40 rounds.
If the 7.5cm had been installed instead of the 8.8cm the Tiger may have been nearly 20 tonne +- lighter in the vicinity of 40-45 tonnes making it a bit more maneuverable and faster which was an issue for the heavy tank. Here we had Herr H*tler intervene wanting the 8.8cm which cast the die for the size of the turret and subsequent beefing up of the whole tank.
Another fact the tanks armour was all welded yep that's ok but it was not until 1944 the Germans started to use oxy acetalyne to cut the plates all previous construction was milling the armoured plate with tungsten bits so intensive labour made the cost of each tank 250,000RM.
As an example the belly plate made of homogeneous armour was milled from a single plate of steel 16ft (5m) x 6ft (1.6m) x 1in (25.4mm).

In the end the Tiger was best suited to entrenched positions on a battle field as allot of the doctrine by the engineers clearing mine fields was not followed and allot of Tigers were disabled by A/T mines and being stationary a swarm of T-34's could eliminate the threat.
Right to the end of the war the Tiger presented a problem anytime it was encountered and a Tiger under Michael Wittman at Villiers Bocage proved beyond a doubt what a well handled Tiger tank could do.
And there were Fireflys in there as well which were taken out in fact the author mentions Pat Dyas's encounter with Wittmanns Tiger the former in a M-4 with its 75mm popgun.
Pat reversed into a building when he saw Wittmanns Tiger coming and waited till Wittmann tracked by which then Pat would come out from hiding and stove pipe the Tiger in the flank.
Plan was well conceived & executed Pat came out to attack the Tiger only to find Wittmann had seen the ruse and turned his Tiger around as soon as he past Pats hiding spot.
In Pats words we came out and turned left expecting to see the rear of the Tiger "We did not see its flank, we came head to head with the Tiger at 200yds which was not nice for ones constitution."
"We fired twice and the shots just bounced of his armour."
"He fired once which did not bounce off it penetrated the hull killing 3 of my crew and blowing me out of the turret....."

Thats the way it was send 4 Shermans to get a Tiger and maybe lose 3 it was that simple or call the Tiffies.
In fact Woll Wittmanns long time gunner had earned the knights cross not a bad feat for a private Woll had command of his own Tiger but rejoined Wittmann for some reason which is history now as not long afterwards they were all dead after being stove piped by a hidden Sherman Firefly.
There were only approximately 1300 Tigers made all told, in Russia the Tigers kill ratio was sometimes up to 36/1, also 35 times more Shermans were made than the Tigers.
What would the result have been if they did not have a few idiots leading the lot and 30,000 Tiger tanks............

As a footnote in WWII A trained gunner in a Tiger was expected to hit on the first round a stationary target at 1200m, at 2000m he was expected to hit it on the 4th round, against a target doing 20mph across his front at a range of 800-1200m the gunner was expected to hit on the 3rd round, and within 30 seconds for each round no ballistic computers for these guys he would be either in manual tracking the target or firing off the stadia in the sight.

My books on the Tiger there is one I did not picture and that was Tigers in the mud By Otto Carius.

Information

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[Gil Boyd]

That certainly became quite evident in the film FURY with Brad Pitt. Seeing the speed their turret could engage the 4 Shermans that attacked a lone Tiger, and it was only a rear ended HE round that could stop the beast!!

[CINDERS]

Its funny Gil the Sherman turret could do a 360 in 10 seconds the Tigers was way slower and not precise enough for a gunner to use it solely so they powered around till close to the aiming point switched to manual lay and then aimed the gun manually no doubt there were gunners in the Tiger that could hydraulic around bang on but manually was infinitely more accurate.

[browningautorifle]

The slow traverse of a turret was no issue unless you're dug in. When I was in Anti Tank pl, we were drilled to turn the vehicle at the lasts second to bring the muzzle of the 106 close to bear. Tanks can do the same, keeping the front armor to protect them, they manipulate to bring the gun on. That's why that whole scene was so full of crap. That Tiger would have ended the movie at 800 yds, not closed to a garden spacing with a simple Sherman. He'd have done a pivot turn and the Sherman would never have run behind him...

[Ovidio]

Dear Cinders, Tigers in The Mud is great reading!
I read it a few years ago, but guess I'll get it in my hands again very soon.

[CINDERS]

Jim mate its tha movies what use would it have been if Tiger 131 took out all the M-4 tanks especially the hero to attack in an extended line like that is like ducks on a wire all nicely spaced & lined up the Tiger just had to stay put but the hero triumphed. I was disappointed in the movie thinking it would be a duel between these two somehow but we saw 131 for @1min besides I wonder how much they insured that tank moving it from Bovington & back it being the only working Tiger in the world and the first one captured intact by the allies after a stoush with some Churchills the crew bailing after a A P round jammed their main gun.

Yes Ovidio that book is a good read along with Von Rosen's book on the 503 Battalion, Sledgehammers now that is a great read for its size and being a soft cover jam packed with the flaws in the Tiger and their tactics but what a tank you cannot deny it where the only real way to deal with it effectively before purpose built tank killers evolved to take it on was to call in the Typhoons.

[browningautorifle]

Jim mate its tha movies

Agreed...but still I had a young man asking me about that whole scene... All that info is available on line. There were many things in there...but over all, it was fine. I watched it about six times right here on forum.

[Flying10uk]

My Grandfather, who served in the Home Guard throughout WW2 claimed that German tanks could be stopped by pushing a shovel into the tracks/sprockets. Presumably this may have had the track off, in theory??? Has anyone ever heard of this being successfully done, having the tracks off a tank by pushing a shovel into the tracks/sprockets? I guess if this worked on a German tank it would work on any tank?

[CINDERS]

I have watched bulldozers mainly D-9's & D-10's in mine sites ripping granite that have had granite rocks caught in their grousers and the rock has gone onto the drive sprocket and just been powdered I would doubt that a shovel would do the deed on a tanks track being of the same principal. I would advise the user to dig a hole to hide in rather that waltz up to a tank with nothing more than a shovel especially a Tiger....
F10 maybe that was to instill confidence in the men but this little black duck would have said that order to attack a tank with a shovel was not indicative of a good outcome for the end user mainly the person on the end of the shovel.

I know there was a British tank that shed tracks like water off a ducks back its name escapes me at the moment it mainly manifested itself in N Africa may have been the Matilda not sure yet....

[Flying10uk]

It must be remembered that when the Home Guard was first formed they had no equipment of any description and possibly a shovel was the only method available to them to stop a tank. If there is any truth in this it may well have been intended to combine the stopping of the tank with the shovel followed by dropping a petrol bomb down the hatch.

There was a documentary program which I watched a while back in which a part size/scaled down recreation of another device was shown. I forget the name of it but it was intended to stop German tanks in the U.K. following a successful invasion, had it occurred. From what I can remember of this device, as explained and demonstrated on the documentary, a piece of road was chosen that had earth banks on each side and the road chosen would be a likely route taken by an invading German army. If I remember correctly pipes were buried into the earth banks pointing towards the road and a supply of petrol, held in a tank, was placed behind the pipe. Finally a small explosive charge was placed behind the tank of petrol. When the scaled down demonstration was shown there was an almighty inferno but exactly in the manner anticipated. It was thought that this device would have stopped German tanks and armoured vehicles.

My Grandfather passed away before things such as what I have described in the above were in the public domain. He did talk briefly about tanks of fuel being at the side of some roads, to be set on fire in order to halt or slow a German advance. He could well have been talking about what I've just described.