The Pershing, IS-2 and Tiger 2

tiger crews were the elite german crews. they were handpicked because the germans felt that the tiger was too special (and right they were) to give it to any crew. then the tigers were assigned to special battalions independent of the regular formations. i think only two formations had their own tigers... grossdeutschland and ... the 21st? and of course the waffen ss.

geman optics were the best in the world during the 40s. we would have copied one if we could especially after capturing 88mm from n. africa. but we just didn't have the know how.

i read somewhere that the tigers can't turn its turret while moving. could any verify this to be true or false?

 

Ground pressure isn't determined by the engine.

 

I don't think the 21st Panzer had any organic Tigers. Panzer Lehr may have had Tigers, but as I recall, it was only about five, and the "heavy" company included remote controlled Goliaths.

 

If divisions had their own Tigers it must have been because of some offensive requirement; these tanks were considered heavy assault weapons or tank destroyers, not MBTs. They were organized into heavy armour units and used as such, with a battallion comprising about 40 Tigers on paper with support vehicles. I don't think any ordinary Wehrmacht units had their own Tigers.

 

I believe the orignal idea was to have a heavy company of Tigers to serve as a spearhead for each panzer division, but htere were never enough Tigers available for this. Only four divisional companies were created, with nine Tigers and 10 Pz MkIII. One company each for the panzer regiments of Gross Deutschland, and SS divisions 1-3.
A Tiger company was attached to Panzer Lehr and was not an organic component (my bad). All four of the divisional companies were quickly removed and assigned to heavy battalions.

 

I see. Thanks for clearing that up. How does this make 1500 Tigers by the way?

 

The nine Tiger + 10 MkIII was a temporary organization. The Heavy battalions had 40-45 Tigers. By my count there were nine Heer battalions and 3 SS battalions. I don't think there ever many more than 250 Tiger I's operational at any one time. We need to hear from our Tiger I expert.

 

Not that there weren't enough to spearhead attacks, they were too slow to lead tanks into battle.

 

The Wehrmacht Tiger Battalions were numbered 501 through to 510. Grossdeutschland had it's own organic Tiger company then Battalion. These Tiger units were moved about all over the place depending on the situation and attached to whatever......!!! The Waffen SS Panzer Divs(Leibstandarte, Das Reich and Totenkopf) had organic Tiger companies which were later expanded into Battalions.

Additionally there were other much smaller companies and other units especially late in the war that had a few Tigers and even individual Tigers. The were usually 'named' such as Schwere Panzerkompanie 'Hummel', 'Meyer', group Fehrmann, (Flk) 301 and (Flk) 316. Typically, these had anything between 1 and 20 Tigers.

The Tiger Battalions were supposed to have 45 Tigers, organised into 3 companies, each with 14 Tigers plus the 3 BefehlsTigers(command Tigers). This was usually reached when the Battalions had new complements of vehicles but in battle this full strength was not usually attainable due to maintainence work etc. The Tigers were put under great strain due to all the road marches etc and being rushed from sector to sector, especially on the Eastern Front.

If anybody would like to know which unit was where and when then I'd be happy to help. It's possible to trace the movements and actions of practically every Tiger unit.

 

This is true. The Tiger I's 'design' was most definately obsolete by the time it entered production with it's box like structure and no sloping armour. Having said that however ,it's powerful gun and thick all round armour made it the superior tank on the battlefield through all of 1943 and most of 1944, especially in the good tank country on the Eastern Front. Indeed, even right up until the end of the war the Tiger I was able to handle itself pretty well even when it met the latest enemy tanks.

 

It was certainly able to cope with its enemies, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't completely outclassed by newer vehicles. The Germans themselves designed tanks that were better in every respect, so even though the tank could still kill, it wasn't the best in anything anymorefrom the appearance of the Panther.

 

Reputation.

 

Yes, it DOES mean that otherwise the Tiger wouldn't have presented any problems to these later generations of Allied armour which it still did. Tiger I wasn't 'outclassed' by anything. Outclassed means 'surpassed by wide difference' in the dictionary. Neither the IS 2, Pershing or Comet was so far the superior of the Tiger I, not like the Tiger I was to the T34/76 and the T34/85. Marginal or minimul advantages is not the same as the Tiger I being able to outrange the T34 by three or four times which was exactly what it did when it first appeared on the battlefield. Why else did these Tiger units rack up such enormous scores?

 

You also have to take into account the Tiger's effect on moral. The appearance of just a handful of Tiger's on the battlefield was a great moral booster to German infantrymen. Often this led to the troops becoming instilled with a greater sense of what could be achieved with the Tigers beside them and this led to them putting up a much tougher fight when the odds were stacked against them, particularly in the East where most of the Tigers were in operations and where air power was secondary.

 

I've got to agree with Lyndon about the Tiger I not being outclassed. It was an effective battlefield weapon right up to the last day of the war. Reputation and morale effects, on both German and Allied troops, are very important as well. I do have some skepticism around the 10:1 kill ratio. Is that based on German tank crew claims or after batlle assessments? There were very good reasons fro crews to overestimate their successes, and very good reasons for the higher command not to question them too closely. I also have a problem with "scuttled" Tigers as not being counted as destroyed. If the crew had to abandon and destroy them because they threw a track or if a 37mm round entered through a viewport the result is the same, no more Tiger. The Germans consistently used this kind of argument to oversell their equipment.

 

and the moral on the enemy. i read in "overlord" by hastings that allied soldiers developed "tiger mentality." high command noted this. basically, allied soldiers thought that every german tank they saw were tigers. so even the rumor that tigers were ahead would stop an attack. this really screwed up the tactics. thank goodness for those jabos.

 

Excellent post about the effect of reputation on morale. Especailly the jabos part, considering that it looks like very few tanks were destroyed directly by (western allies) jabos, the postive effect on morale was tremendous.

 

Edited.

 

The KingTiger no doubt about it...

It has allmost everything going for it:

Superior armor, gun, optics, gun accuracy, radio, it could even tackle obstecals better than the Sherman (Not kidding)....

When using APCBC the 88mm L/71 gun could penetrate as much armor at 2000m as the Super pershings 90mm T15E2 gun could at 456m/(500y)....
When the 90mm M3 gun used Overcharged HVAP ammunition it could come close to the 88mm L/71 when it used APCR.

These tests are done against the same type of Steel(RHS) at the same angle:

90mm M3 using APCBC slope at 0*: 456m=164mm / 914m=151mm / 1370m=138mm / 1830m=127mm..

88mm L/71 using APCBC slope at 0*: 500=219mm / 1000m=204mm / 1500m=190mm / 2000m=176mm..

90mm M3 using APCBC slope at 30*: 456m=132mm / 914m=122mm / 1370m=112mm / 1830m=103mm..

88mm L/71 using APCBC slope at 30*: 500m=185mm / 1000m=167mm / 1500m=153mm / 2000m=139mm..

90mm M3 using HVAP slope at 30*: 456m=224mm / 914m=198mm / 1370m=176mm / 1830m=155mm..

88mm L/71 using APCR slope at 30*: 500m=227mm / 1000m=207mm / 1500m=189mm / 2000m=172mm..

Not only is the 88mm L/71 gun more powerfull than the 90mm M3 gun, its also alot more accurate...

Source: Jentz, Thomas L: Panzer Truppen Vol 2; Spielberger, Walter J.: Panzerkampfwagen Tiger und seine Abarten and Hogg, Ian V.: German Artillery of World War Two; Tom jentz, Peter Sarson: KingTiger Heavy tank 1942-45. plus some info from Livingstones and Birds WW2 ballistics and ammunition. and Offcourse the "Onlineconversion" site.

Regards, KBO

 

Fine and good, but two of your points are redundant:

The Pershing did feature a radio. Also, its terrain tackling abilities are not being compared to the Sherman (Though I could easily completely decimate any point you have here by bringing the Easy Eight into the equation.)