As someone who is not as familiar with the weapons of WW2 as many of those who post here, I have been searching the net for information on my own. Because so many of you seem knowledgeable about the various incarnations of the Panzers, I searched around to see what I could find. I came across a site dedicated to the development of the Panzer. I apologize in advance if this site is one of common knowledge, but it was new to me. There are hundreds of spectacular pictures in the Panzer walk-around section as well as specs for the various models. I found it quite informative. I expect, if I am wrong about it, I will hear from those in the know. Anyway, check out:

German King Tiger tank - development history and photos

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"Faint heart never won fair maiden", so I say "Go for it!"

Lou

Home of Achtung Panzer - Search for Panzers, Halftracks, Assault Guns, Artillery, Armored Cars, and other vehicles of the Wehrmacht

also, wikipedia.com has a lot of good articles.

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Nice find.......I put it in my favorites

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"Logos, Philos, Arete"

Well, I recommend New Vanguard/Osprey's pamphlets. They have very competent technical books on every tank model of WWII as well as containing analysis of some tactical engagements. I am not very sure I like what I am reading in the link you have provided. A military strategist would have had very different things in mind when commenting the Tiger II's combat service record, for example. Achtungpanzer is generally a good source though.

The have one that is about the Panther tank vs. the T-34/85 in the Ukraine battles that makes a balanced account of both machines.

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I have had Achtung Panzer in my online list forever it seems, and enjoy the site. But that said, in order to balance things out a bit I use these as well, especially the second one since it includes data on armor thickness, and main gun armor penetration by weapon.

TANKS!

and:

World War II Vehicles - Advanced Squad Leader

and:

Tanks

These are the three "online" references I personally enjoy, and by comparing and contrasting between them most ethnocentric bias can be eliminated.

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Happy Trails,
Clint.

Thanks to all for the info. Great, just what I needed, the chance to spend even more hours glued to my monitor reading, now about tanks. My wife says, "Hey, guys, take a leap".

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"Faint heart never won fair maiden", so I say "Go for it!"

Lou

Back in the day if you wanted to take out a Tiger II, your best bet was to aim for the tracks

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you got that right but to finish it you must throw a grenade in the hatch

OR it's side armour. Or pop some phosphorous rounds at it and wait till the crew bails out before they get suffocated by the smoke. Or call a Jabo to throw some rockets into it... So many ways to take down a hulking 68 ton beast...


Cheers...

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Or call artillery. A Tiger II attack would help you to get cleared for Corps artillery. After a barrage of 12+ battalions of 105 and 155, almost everything dies.

or you could just be crazy and try to take it out with a m9a1 rocket launcher or as it is better known a bazooka

I have never read about a company level attack or defense by Tiger IIs...the majority of their missions seemed to be merely at the platoon level at this late stage of the war.

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I have read about several Tiger II company attacks in The Longest Battle by Harry Yeides about the battles of the Ruhr. Actually, whole sPz. regiments committed to counterattack in critical sectors, but in reality they could not put more than a dozen or so to the field. And nothing survives 155 round hits.

thats probably because when you breach in one flank you can surround the enemy and then slowly knock them off until eventually you take over the battlefield and thats what they were trying to do

How did these attacks fare? So generally the Tiger II was stopped by artillery fire?

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well think about it artillery fire was,nt always accurate so tanks did,nt always get destroyed the first time around

Easily one of the best Tiger b related websites:
Tigers in the Ardennes

Cheers,
Adam.

The problem with many German early model panzers such as the Tiger II or the early Panthers was that more of them were lost or put out of action due to maintenance problems or mobility-related kills rather than actually being destroyed.

As for a 155mm hit on the top of a tank.. sure that'll kill it. More often than not it would land nearby and blow the tracks off. Even today a direct hit on the top of an abrams will probably destroy the tank, but its rare to get such a precise hit.

As far as I recall rockets from a Jabo (german word for Jagdbomber or fighter bomber) wouldn't do that much against a heavy armoured beast except cause a mobility kill (unless a direct top hit). More often that not it would make the crew abandon the tank rather than destroy it. More effective would be the guns like the 30+mm on the P39 or the Russian IL2 series to bust em up. The Stuka G's 37mm guns were fairly similar in that regard.

The top armour of tanks has always been very thin even to the modern times. There were even reports of 50 caliber rounds penetrating the tops of Panzer IIs, IIIs and IVs which had less than 10mm of top armour.

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There has been a fair bit of discussion on this subject in this forum recently, try

from post #26 and

form post #68.

Obviously as the rockets are fired from above they tend to hit the upper portion of an armoured vehicle. In NWE about 5% of Tanks and Heavy SPGs could be attributed by destruction by Tactical attack aircraft -fighter-bombers and light bombers, it doesn't sound much but the main effect was to deny German armour movement during the day.

The standard British 3inch rocket had a 60lb 27.5Kg warhead, with 6.4kg of explosive in the SAP (semi-armoured piecing) rocket, the similar GP (General purpose) AP rocket had a slightly smaller 5.8kg content and was capable of piercing 85mm assuming optimum contact angle. The explosive content of the SAP rocket is similar to the 5.5inch shell, so is quite damaging.

The U.S. main rocket was the 5inch FFAR High explosive with a 20kg warhead and 2.9kg content and the later HVAR rockets in HE with 3.5kg content and AP which had no explosive content. They had about twice the range of the British 60lb rocket. But the AP round was capable of only 38mm armour. The HE content of the rocket is slightly more than a 105mm M1 Howitzer.

The accuracy of both types were poor having a 1% hit probaility on a tank size target at normal launch conditions (for the British rocket). However it must be remembered that the Typhoon/Tempest could put down 8 and sometimes on special missions 16 rockets and had standard armament of 4 x 20mm cannon.

the British used Hurricanes with 2 x 40mm S cannon until replaced by 60lb rockets. The 40mm S gun was used in the North African Desert and in Italy, They were incredably accurate, but were replaced for NWE service and that is the most telling thing, rockets despite their inaccuracy had huge destructive power.

The cannon on the P39 was a 37mm cannon M4.

The IL2 had 2 x 23mm VYa-23 cannon which was not a great weapon. It also carried 8 x Rs 82 and 4 x RS132 which were not popular again the accuracy was poor. The Il2 could carry up to 200 PTAB bomblets- a small hollow charge cluster bomb.

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I am unsure of the location where these tanks were destroyed. Tunisia, Sicily, Italy, or So. France.

Of the picured tanks only the Tiger of picture 4 may have been in Tunisia but the roadweels look like a late model. First and third picture are a Jadgtiger so that rules out Italy and Sicily a well, the usage of the handful of JpZ VI produced is well documented so it should not be too hard to track. The Panther cannot be in Sicily as I believe there were none there, also it's a 1944 or later model. The Herman Goering division had some Tigers in Sicily but they would have been early models. Hope this restricts the search a bit.

There is nothing like a schwere panzer regiment, IIRC the biggest organization of the heavies was the batallion, if you exclude the two batallion 656 schwere panzejaeger regiment made up of 653 and 654 Ferdinand equipped batallions at Koursk.
A Britisk OR states that of 223 Panthers destroyed examined in 1944 only 14 were due air attack (11 to rockets an 3 to cannons) that's close to 0.5%, the best way to stop a heavy tank is to hit it's support elements and wait for it to breakdown or run out of fuel.

Regment is a misfired idea in my brain. I meant sPzAbt, but was thinking about the Russian heavy tank Rgt at the same time. Hitting the support element and wait unti the Tigers put themselves out is a fine idea at the big picture, but I'd hate to be the kid in the foxhole who's doing the waiting. Massived indirect artillery fire, when they could be called down tend to be effective, especially if there are 155s or over. The reason for this is that cannon fire could break their tracks.