Tigers - were they worth it?

Their machine guns were the only thing listed the Allies didnt best
The Tiger is cool, I have a 1/72 model of a Tiger and crew on top of my computer desk because I like the way they look.
A war winning armor design it was not.

 

Exactly!

 

Carl at least its a healthy addiction.

 

Thanks but.....expensive tooooooo, and glad of it

 

Talley :

As at least two dozen former Luftwaffe pilots have told me more than once, the Allies had the better aircraft, we had the better guns. The 2cm and the 3cm weapons/ ammo could not be topped for their destructive power !

E

 

Hey Erich--you topped 700--your catching up bud.

 

Way Kühl ! As to catching up to you sir.....well, ah.......I have a long way to travel.

Just looking through some Deutsche Wochenschau film footage of W-SS Panzer Grenadier's inspecting some 6/7 knocked out T-34/85's what a mess. Two soliders putting their hands into the holes in the turret of one smouldering wreck, geez, you can see how the 8.8cm easily blew through the turret armor like a hot knife through butter. i can only assume that one Tiger or maybe two took care of this small element of soviet tanks. Two of the T-34's have their turrets cleanly blown right off......arg ! Was the Tiger worth it ? / for instances like this, a reply isn't necessary....

E

 

I say it was no contest. about both things but especially having Tiger Tanks. Darn shame that time and materials were wasted on non-productive projects like the MAUS.

Yer still catchin' up.

 

Throw my 2 cents in on the Tigers...

First off, the Tiger in one of my main interests, so of course they should have produced it!!!
In an ideal situation, the Tiger was undoubtedly one of the best tanksof the war. Problem was, the Tiger crews rarely found themselves in anything like an ideal situation. Tigers were notorius for ripping apart their own gearboxes because of the stress on the transmission. Also, the Tigers got horrible gas mileage. Look at the loss stats for Tigers. From what I have read, over 80 percent of the Tigers lost by the Germans were lost either due to mechanical difficulty or running out of gas. If the Tiger ran out of gas or broke down, more often than not the crew was simply forced to abandon the vehicle.
The T-34, in my opinion, clearly demonstrated the most valuable quality of ww2 tanks- reliability.

 

Hallo, crazy!

I love this tread. My first posts are here, I think. I like the Tiger series a lot. They were simply too effective in a defensive role. And I agree that the T-34 was by far the best tank of WWII, for its armour, reliability, fire-power, manouvrability, speed, cost and way to produce. But this marvelous tank was destroyed in that quantity is because its lack of radio comunication and trained troops. If they would have been well used during 1941 and 1942, "Barbarossa" and "Blau" would have been smashed, because we did not have an adeccuate tank to face them, Marks III and IV had a very thin armour and very little gun. We feared them... But we loved them when we could capture one. Wonderful machine. We tried to copy it in the form of the Pannther. Certainly, the Panther was an awesome machine, much more balanced than the Tiger, thick-armoured, big-gunned, faster and more manouvrable. But it was still too heavy and slow, compared to the T-34. Do not mention its mechanical problems... Thank God the Soviets did not know how to use them, because with that cuality and that quantity... I am trembling...

 

Where Tigers worth it?

To answer this question I won't give you my opinions. I will rather refer to the statements given to me by both allied and German tank crews members that I have met.

Every German tank crew member that I have ever talked to say that they would not want to go into a tank battle in anything else but the Tiger tank!

Every Allied (that is American and British, I have yet to meet a Russian tank crew member yet!) tank crew member that I have ever talked to said that there biggest fear was coming up against a Tiger tank in combat!
One American tank commander once told me that he spotted a Tiger I across an open field about 1,000 yards away on the edge of a small town in France. He knew he couldn't knock it out so he hid behind a large building. Two seconds later, he was bailing out of his burning tank! The Tiger had fired at the Sherman, the went right through the building (the building had at least 6 walls intact!), and penetrated the Sherman tank in engine compartment!

These statements tell me one thing. The Tiger tank was definately worth it!
Did it cost too much?, perhaps. did it suck up gas? sure it did! Did it break down? sometimes. But all this information still doesn't change the facts that the Germans loved the Tiger, and the Allies hated it!

Those are the facts!
Matt

 

Friedrich- can you believe that, that until late in the war the russians didn't outfit T-34s with a radio??? The T-34 could have been operationally one of the best tanks of ww2, but the lack of radio (hence battalion) communication really hurt. Because of that it was really only so impressive in its reliability and quantity.

mp38, I would certainly agree with your points. Here's one thing though- you are correct- many german panzer crew members state that they would have always taken a tiger over another tank. Problem was, there were never enough operational tigers to supply all those crews! That would be what I mean by the reliability factor- Tigers were the best when they worked, but too often 3 out of 4 of them would be in the shop.
But you are correct- no tank ever has achieved the battlefield reputation the Tigers did...

 

Crazy, it does not surprise me because if you look at the Soviet armed forces, they did not have many technologicly advanced weapons unlike the Germans. The poor Russian sod went into war with even minimal training. In Stalingrad, they went with no rifles. They had to pick up the ones from the dead. Unfortunately, technology does not ensure victory. The Germans were technologicly superior but they lost just like the Americans lost in Vietnam.

 

Very, very, true, Herr PzJgr.

Did our superior tanks, jet aeroplanes, missiles, electric submarines worked? No.

The Soviet tank crews did not know how to read, much less how to calculate distances, angles, not even count the enemy tanks. They had not seen a car ever, but they were appointed to the armoured...

 

Yes, When reading Cornelius Ryan's The Last Battle, I read where the russians who never had electricity were taking the light bulbs back with them thinking that they could use them.

 

Very true, PzJgr. I think one of the most important things the Germans had was good optics! I have read in many sources concerning the T-34 that they (T-34s) had no radio and bad gunsights. So the T-34 crews, no matter how well trained (well-trained would only apply in small numbers later in the war), could not communicate during combat and could not easily sight their enemies or score a hit. Thus, no matter how well built the T-34 was, or even if the crew had some skill and training, they would not be able to hit their target or fight as a unit.
Pretty severe drawbacks...

I would slightly disagree with your estimation of the russian forces, but only when speaking of the last two years of the war. True, the majority of russian forces were ill-trained and ill-educated. One could however find individuals who stood out. The russian 5th guards armored division had developed a reputation by 1944 that even commanded respect from their german foes. And on the technology the russians had, again, early in the war you are 100% accurate. But by later in the war, the russian manufacturing base had begun to catch up to wartime needs. And some of the later russian weapons are very well made- the SVT automatic rifle, the DSchK 12.7mm machine gun...

 

Of course there were not few, but quite a lot of elite units in the huge and mighty Red Army, whether be 1941's Red Army or 1945's. Many of the units which fought in the major battles of the war were elite. Others just were average non-trained Russian troops... And the Soviet scientists and industry did a tremendous job in supplying their nation with weaponry. The Russian technology was always good. In the first 1930s whcih was the country with the best tanks and aeroplanes? And which was the only country which build heavy tanks in 1939? I am not discussing that. I have always admired the Russian technology, even now, when the country is broken still making awesome weapons... I am just saying if the Russians would have had the same academic and military level than we had, and communications, our asses would have been wiped in 1942... And Berlin in 1944... The Soviet Union became the most powerful country on land in 1945 for its HUGE industry, huge human and natural resources, technology, and let's say it, the despotic and bloody, but excellent leadership of the wisest of butchers: Iósif Stalin.

My grandfather told me that he used a captured T-34/85 when he was serving in 26th Panzer division. They put a radio on it and it performed awesomelly...

I admire USSR courage and many, many other things.

 

Very true.... I had forgotten about the russian pioneering of heavy tanks.

Very true again on the comparison. Early in the war especially, the german troops and commanders were generally some of the best the world has seen. One needs only to look at the first three years of the war- Poland, France, and Barbarossa.

And even later in the war- practice is what counts, and the german army had plenty of practice. Some of the most amazing battles to examine are some of the later defensive battles. Instances where german trops held off the russians despite having basically no supplies or equipment.
The Cherkassy pocket in 1944 (correct me if I'm wrong on that one- no books handy!) comes to mind...

 

My understanding was that a division earned the title of 'Guards' because of performance in battle not as a result of training. But I do agree that at the latter part of the war the Russian was better trained because they now had the time to do it unlike the beginning where they were just throwing in bodies to slow down the Germans.

 

We know why the Red Army was nearly destroyed in 1941:

All the experienced officers had been killed by Stalin.
Nearly all the weaponry was from the first years of 1930s.
All the troops were not supplied adecuatelly. There was no lorries or vehicles to transport artillery, no fuel for vehicles, no warnings, no communications and not enough weapons for the reserves.

We had all the opposite:
Very experienced officers.
More modern weaponry. (Comparing a Pz III with a T-70, not a T-34, of course)
All the troops supplied adecuatelly (well, the infantry still march by foot and not half-tracks or even lorries as supossed, but at least they had uniforms, food, helmets, ammunition, rifle, canteen, grenades, etc.)
Excellent communication and coordination. It was the best performed Blitzkrieg ever.

I am talking about June 1941, by December, things were a little bit different...

And in 1945 the tale was extremely different... we had divisions with old men and kids of the size of a regiment and armies with the force of a korps... in the other hand, the Soviets had divisions of the size of a regiment (but that is normal, not for casualties) and three army groups of a million men each...