US Sherman tanks v.s. German Tiger tanks

i found this on wiki (yes i know wiki can be very bad!)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panther_tank

"The engine was generally considered reliable and had a fatigue life of up to 2000 kilometers. In order to minimize engine failures the Panther engines were fitted with a governor in late 1943 that limited the engine revolutions to 2500 rpm. The installation of the governor also dropped the tank's top speed from 55 km/h to 46 km/h."

which was more reliable the tiger or panther?

 

The Tigers had an equal or larger availability rate than the Panthers.

 

how many people/time was spent on each service and how often?

 

I'll just pop in to say interesting debate guys. It's a bit over my head at this point, so I won't venture too far in... :lol:

Could we agree that...?

- All tanks are "unreliable" if not serviced properly, i.e: a unserviced subcomponent will fail

- One cannot cannot generalize over a tanks reliability, because each tank is unique - some will get their maintanence, some won't, some will get stressed more than others, some wil have inexperienced drivers/mechanics making mistakes etc etc... and thus we cannot say that a tank, or any subcomponents, will last a given amount of time

- The Tiger was more sensitive than other tanks when it came to proper servicing, and if neglected had a higher chance of failing

 

sure, i think it was tigers in the mud? that made the point that servicing of the tiger was prohibitivly difficult in alot of situations, especialy with regards to the tracks.

but of course yes, lack of spare parts reduced the average break down range of british tanks i.e cruiser in late 42- early 43 went from about 600-1000 miles per break down to 2000-2600 mile sper break down however there were improvements to the tank made also.

 

Unknown.

 

In the Osprey book on the Churchill tank, there is mention that the men servicing the tanks before operations could be at their task all night while the crews got some sleep if possible...for one thing, there were a great number of very small wheels to grease; a disadvantage of the design that allowed such good mobility (compared to other tanks) over trenches or mud.

 

according to the russian battlefield site the russians thought the churchill required excessive maintanence.

 

17pdr firing APCBC penetrated 120-150mm at 1500m, Tiger II front turret armor was 180mm, front hull was 150mm. Tiger I frontal armor was 100mm. 17pdr APDS ammo was considerably better, 175-210mm at 1500m. penetration is defined as at 50% of projectiles completely through the armor.

So a 17pdr at 1500m would have trouble with a Tiger II if not using APDS (less common ammo I believe). A Tiger I would be vulnerable right out to 2000m.

The Shermans tracks had rubber shoe pads, although these were removed (not sure if this was on all models) after Japan seized the sources of natural rubber.

Regardless of you measure the reliability of the Tigers, the Sherman's were far more reliable. Reading thorugh the Tiger unti histoires in Schneider, almost all units go form full strength to a fraction (1/4 - 1/3) in days, mostly attributed to mechanical problems, and remain at those levels until they have time for heavy maintenance. During the June 1944 retreat in Italy, both Tiger battalions lost all their tanks, almost all due to breakdown.
In most books I have read, it is not the Tiger's (or Panther's) engines that appeared to be the cause of most of the problems, it seems that the transmissions were far more delicate (and to lesser extent, the suspensions). Many British crusier tanks seemed to have this problem as well