Villers-Bocage, France, D-Day plus 7.

The invasion of Normandy was a success, and American and British troops had successfully established a beachhead. But now was the time for exploitation, to turn the beachhead from a tenuous foothold into a baseplate from which to liberate all of France. To do that, the cities lying just south of the beaches needed to be captured. These cities, St. lo, Carentan, Bayeux, and Caen were all vital to this plan of exploitation. Each one served as an important crossroads, doors to the roads of France, and as a staging point for a potential German counterattack from the high ground above the beaches. They were to be captured on D-day, but a tenacious defense had slowed the Allies’ plans.

The main concern of the British was the capture of the city of Caen. Like most of the cities in question, Caen had a series of roads into France emanating from it, occupied high ground over Sword Beach, and most importantly was the only thing between the British and open country. The bocages that the Americans would have such trouble with were not present south of Caen, and a breakthrough here would allow the British to advance rapidly without the issues of terrain. Further, the land south of Caen was ideal for airfields, and capturing that would be a boon for CAS operations. Caen was critical, and on D-day + 7 the British had an opportunity to take the city.

The western flank of German defenses was held by the Panzer Lehr division, holding off the British 7th Armored and 50th infantry divisions. But west of that, the US 1st infantry division (the famed ‘Big Red 1’) had just rolled up the German 352nd infantry and left a gap in the German lines. If the British could get a sufficient force through the gap into Villers-Bocage the German position would be untenable. Either they would have to split their forces to attack both the British behind them while holding them off from the front, retreat to Caen and open up an even larger gap in the front that the British and Americans could pour through, or give up the city altogether in order to maintain a cohesive defense. If the British could take and hold Villers-Bocage, Caen would likely fall.

So on D-Day + 7, a British brigade group pushed into the town through the gap. They had 60 assorted armored vehicles, artillery, and roughly 5000 infantry. Opposing them was the 2nd company of SS-Panzer Abteilung 101, commanded by a man named Michael Wittmann, and consisting of 6 tanks.

They were Tigers.

Wittmann was a war hero, the most celebrated German tank ace of the day, with 117 tank kills on the eastern front to his name. He was known throughout Germany, but in a matter of minutes, he would be known throughout the world.

Faced with the British pouring into the town, and with no time to come up with a suitable plan, he mounted his Tiger, and told the other commanders to hold their ground before heading off. At around 9:00, his tank drove onto the road between the village and point 213, a position on the road between Caen and Villers-Bocage. Aiming toward point 213, he destroyed a Cromwell, then a Firefly. The other tigers under his command quickly knocked out 3 more tanks. Wittmann turned to Villers-Bocage, driving directly down the road and destroying 15 trucks and a 6 pounder cannon that tried in vain to stop his advance. Just before entering town, his tiger ran into a trio of Stuarts. It was no contest. Now in town, the Cromwell’s of 4th County of London Yeomanry were trying desperately to reverse away, but their painfully slow reverse speed made them sitting ducks. One shot the Tiger twice from near point blank range, to no effect. The Tiger destroyed it, then another, then a third. On the main street, it destroyed two artillery command Sherman’s and a few more support vehicles. Content with the results, Wittmann pulled out of the city only to be surprised by a Cromwell that had been stalking his tank. The Cromwell fired a round into the back of the Tiger, but even this did nothing. The Tiger in return knocked the Cromwell out. Only after the Tiger had left town did a 6 pounder gun disable it, Wittmann and the crew abandoning the tank and retreating. But their work was done, with the reinforcements in town thoroughly thrown off and bloodied by Wittmann’s attack, Point 213 was cut off and fell to Panzer Lehr just after noon. British plans were now no longer about offensive action, but surviving the inevitable German counterstroke.

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This is the first time that I have opened Paper Tigers with an anecdote, but in this case I feel it important that I do. No story tells of the Tigers supremacy as much as the tale of Michael Wittmann and the battle of Villers-Bocage. And for Paper Tigers, knowing this sort of context is paramount. This series is supposed to be about evaluating tanks compared to how highly they are rated in popular culture, and no other tank, ever, has the legendary stories that surround the Tiger. Sure, people talk about how great the T-34 is, but the T-34 doesn’t have a single story that compares to Michael Wittmann’s charge on Villers-Bocage. The only other tank that even has tales like this that I know of is the Kliment Voroshilov, but even those tales don’t have the widespread knowledge of the tales of the Tiger.

This is it. The time has finally come. It is just far too important not to cover on Paper Tigers. It is the most iconic tank of the German army, WWII, and perhaps even all time. It is, of course, the Sonderkraftfahrzeug 181 Panzerkampfwagen VI ‘Tiger’.

Its reputation precedes it in a way that it does for maybe no other tank ever. If you know anything about tanks, you know about the Tiger. If you know anything about WWII, you probably know about the Tiger. Even if you don’t know about WWII, you MIGHT still know about the tiger from movies, books, T.V.  Especially the movies though.

The amount of times that the Tiger has been the final boss in a movie is nearly shocking. In Fury, it was one, and it killed 3 of the 4 tanks that it ran up against. In Saving Private Ryan, there were two. In Kelly's Heroes, there were 3. But the strangest thing is the reverence that they get. In Fury, they call it out “It’s a goddamn Tiger!” Same for “Saving Private Ryan,” before the final battle, Jackson hand signals to Miller the enemy composition. “He sees… Tiger tanks, two of ‘em. Panzer tanks, two of ‘em.” The Tigers are singled out. And in Kelly’s Heroes, holy shit, that one takes the cake. When Kelly tells Oddball that his Sherman has to fight three Tigers, Oddball’s response is simple.. “It’s a wasted trip baby, nobody said nothing’ about locking horns with no Tigers.”

The difference between this and other tanks mentioned in movies is the reverence that the Tiger gets. Innately, without knowing a thing about tanks, the audience can understand that the Tiger is a force to be reckoned with. And if they look into it, usually what they see is that it was. The stories that surround this tank are the stuff of awful legend. 3 battalions of Tigers with K:D ratios in excess of 10:1. A single Tiger facing 50 T-34’s and winning. Wittmann’s aforementioned charge. 5 Sherman’s for a Tiger.

It is a legendary tank. But there is the problem with legends. When the legend becomes fact, people print the legend, and the truth gets lost in the shuffle. With that, let’s begin.

Development history:

Going back to the 37 the Germans had identified a need for a breakthrough vehicle, a ‘Durchbruchswagen’ in the 30-ton range. Slowly as the Germans began to realize what was needed for a sufficient breakthrough tanks the requirement crawled upward, from 30 to 36 tons, but after running up against the Matilda II and Char B1 this requirement was upped to 45 tons, a good bit larger than any other tanks current weight class apart from the Soviet KV. Designs for hulls were submitted by Henschel (based off of their 30 (30.01) and 36 (36.01) ton proposals) and Porsche (based off of a separate 30-ton tank design (30.01 P)), while Krupp built turrets, one type for Henschel and one for Porsche. The Henschel tank was fairly traditional, while the Porsche proposal featured a relatively innovative electric transmission. For the tank two guns were being developed, the 75mm L/70, and the 88mm L/56, both of which were going to be formidable anti-tank guns, and more importantly for the original role give the breakthrough tank the ability to engage AT guns from a range at which they would have issues dealing with the armor. Development continued until the Wehrmacht ran into that traumatic event called the T-34 and the KV.

Again, all of this is rote at this point. The Germans needed an answer against the Soviet tanks, and they needed an acceptable one now as opposed to a perfect one in a year. Thus, the combined the elements that were the most complete into the final design for the breakthrough tank. The more traditional Henschel hull was chosen over the radical Porsche design, the Krupp turret for the Porsche was chosen over the one for the Henschel by virtue of it being nearly complete, and the 8.8 cm cannon chosen over the L/70 for similar reasons. The tank was rushed to the front even in prototype form, but even in spite of its lack of trials, it quickly started making a reputation. So now is the time to see if this reputation is merited.

Armor:

The armor of the Tiger has been discussed ad nauseam, and there shouldn’t be any surprises in the layout. 100 mm at the front, 80 at sides and rear, and a 120-ish mm mantlet depending on where you shoot it. All of this should not be a surprise. But now, we have to address if this armor performed as well as it is stated to have, and unfortunately, this is really hard. And it’s really hard for 2 reasons.

The first is because how armor resists shell penetration is pretty friggin confusing to begin with and depends on a lot of different factors. And the second is damn dirty Wehraboos. Let’s just start with what happens when a shell hits a tank, and go from there.

The really simple version is as follows. You have two main concerns with armor plate. Hardness and ductility. Hardness is the simple one to understand. The harder the armor is, the more likely it will resist being penetrated, which is good. Ductility is how armor deforms; a very ductile plate will give easily but will not fragment, and an unductile plate will shatter. Ideally, you want to have both of these, but you basically can’t, you have to choose one or another. If you are American, you choose soft, but highly ductile plate. Perhaps it can be penetrated easier, but it can be repaired easier as well and the post-penetration effects are not bad. If you are Russian or German, you go for hardness, relying on the tank not being penetrated in the first place, but if it is the results are far worse. But then it gets more difficult.

For example, is the armor sloped? If it is sloped, you really want it to be ductile as opposed to hard because it transfers the energy better without spalling and also is better for normalization. Normalization? That’s how much the round curves into or out of sloped armor when it impacts, either increasing or decreasing the effect of the slope. And curving in or curving out of armor, that depends on the type of round. Armored piercing or Armored Piercing Capped? What's the difference? AP has the traditional bullet shape and is more inclined to deflect off sloped armor, while APC has a more rectangular shape that digs into the slope upon hitting. But there's more!

AP depends on its hardness to defeat armor, and if the penetrator is harder than the armor that it hits it will penetrate better, therefore, AP does better against soft armor than hardened armor. Against hard armor it becomes a question of which is harder, and if the shell isn't hard enough it will simply shatter. But APC uses a soft steel cap on the front to negate the shattering effect of hardened armor, and does better against hardened armor than against soft armor. Against soft armor, the soft steel cap only serves to increase the amount of material it needs to penetrate.  So how well a shot or shell penetrates depends on a lot more than just the muzzle velocity, the range, and the angle.

So how does this all relate to the Tiger?

First, we need to know the quality of the armor and how it was treated. We know from the Panther that Nazi Germany had produced poor quality armor before, but the question is now if this affected the Tiger. Second, we need to know what is shooting at it and if that will have any unexpected effects.

And immediately we run into our next issue, that being of Wehraboos and conflicting information on the effectiveness and even the treatment of the armor plate. among my sources I have run into claims that German armor plate had never declined in in quality throughout the war (Thomas Jentz, who knows something about German tanks), that the armor plate varied from tank to tank (the panther firing trials at Shoeburyness, where 2 of 3 plates were deemed inferior ) to that German armor was actually never particularly good to begin with (which in a way corresponds with what Jentz says, but comes at it from the perspective that didn't decrease in quality because it never had any). That’s just armor effectiveness.

Trying to figure out how it was treated has turned out to be a total nightmare. I now know that the Panthers armor was hardened until August 1944, and that the Pz IVs was face hardened until June of 1944, but for the tiger I can't get a solid answer on if it ever was. One source says that the armor had a Brinell hardness of 255-280, in the same zone as the Sherman’s 260, and we all know that the Sherman is soft. But on the other hand, we have reports from both the British and the Soviets that imply that the armor is actually quite hard. From the British report on one of the first tigers captured in Tunisia (not 131 it seems)"The side plating shows surface hardness and brittleness, with a strong tendency to crack and flake. The side plate of the turret also flakes badly on the inside." this lives in direct contradiction with the soft armor thought.

But wait, there’s more, because there are a whole crapton of reports from the soviet union that give credence to the idea of the armor being hardened as opposed to being soft on account of it, you know, shattering when they shoot it. But then come the Wehraboos, saying things like "What was the temperature when they did this trial, if it was x degrees then even soft armor would shatter" and "did the tank burn, that would change the properties of the metal, this trial is flawed, I don't trust any reports that aren't German at this point but I won't reference any German reports."

So, In light of these discrepancies what's a good researcher to do?

well, a good researcher would get more sources buy books on the subject, go to DC and track down American reports on the Tiger, then go to the Bundesarchive in Germany and find those reports too and get a definitive answer. I am not a good researcher, so I just rattled "Knocked out Tiger" into the search engine and drew my own conclusions. And here they are, based off of the following pictures.

The penetration on the beak of 934 implies hardness, with lots of flaking and cracking extending from the initial pen.

The impacts here also imply hardness, with a crack in the driver's visor, and two places where the plate was broken off by impact between the MG port and driver’s vision port. However, the hit on the mantlet looks more like that of soft steel, being just a dent.

This tiger knocked out in North Africa implies hard steel again, with lots of flaking on the turret side and a big old gash instead of a nice neat hole just in front of the smoke grenade dischargers. So far it's looking like it used hardened plate.

But then there's this one, knocked out in France. A clean hole in the turret behind the spare treads, and another to the left of the drivers MG. these look like soft metal penetrations.

And here too. This is a soft steel penetration if I have ever seen one, you can even see in the Zimmerit anti-magnetic coating how the steel deformed as opposed to shattering.

a close shot on some turret penetrations

Followed immediately by soviet tankers laughing at how many cracks there are in a hard turret. Look at that non-pen near the top and see just how much damage it did, it has a crack running nearly two feet from it!

But a look at the rest of this tank tells a more complete story. The pens in the hull imply soft armor, they are nice and neat holes, with no cracks emanating from them. But the turret is clearly hardened.

So what conclusions can we draw here, as relates to the quality of the armor? Put simply, it varied, but at the same time, all of these penetrations that I've seen here are far less catastrophic than what I had seen from the Panther. Clearly, it seems that the Tiger did get preferential treatment. Across the board, the armor holds up better and if the tank was penetrated it seems like you'd have much better odds of surviving in a Tiger than in a Panther.

Of course, that's assuming that the armor was penetrated. At this point, you know the drill.

A T-34/76 couldn't penetrate the Tiger from the side or rear at much more than 500 yards with any round, including its HVAP (no exact numbers, but lots of references to this figure). A Sherman or Cromwell couldn't do so any closer than 600 yards. And from the front, only the T-34/76's HVAP had a chance at all. From introduction until just about mid-1944, close to two years, allied responses were few and far between as far as tank mounted ordinance goes.

The next generation of tanks was better at busting Tigers. For example, the T-34/85 could theoretically pen the front of the tiger at 1000m. The US 76mm, 1250 yards. And the 17 pounder took the cake, being able to penetrate the tiger at 3 km. yes, these tanks don't really start showing up until a year before the war ends, but they appear to be up to the task of taking on the Tiger.

Until it angles.

You may have been thinking that 500 to 600 yards away for the 75mm guns to pen the sides doesn't really mesh with what you had heard, and the reason is that that is up against the flattest of angles. For the 75mm, if the armor is angled 20 degrees in any direction, it can't penetrate from 5 ft. and 20 degrees is not a lot.

The 76mm, which as stated can penetrate from 1250 yards flat on can only do so at 800 if the Tiger is at a 20 degree. If it is angled at a 30, it can't. neither can the 85mm. the 17 pounder can still penetrate 100mm at 30 degrees at 2000m with APCBC but that is a hell of a gun, and if the tiger angles at, say, 40 degrees it seems from a report that the British did on shooting a Tiger that both the front and side are nearly immune to the ABCBC round.

Beyond this, it becomes pointless to continue. Yes, a 122mm really doesn't care about the Tiger's armor. The 152mm, even less. The American 90mm can take out aTtiger at 30 degrees from 2.5 km. but that isn't really the point. The point is that the Tiger's armor is near invulnerable to the majority of tanks that it faces, and not a slouch against a lot of others.

Add to this that the Tiger's armor holds up way better than the Panthers when hit, and the only real summary is the Tiger's armor is just about as good as history makes it out to be. Coming off of the Panther's disastrous armor, this is borderline shocking.

So does the gun hold up as well?

Armament

Yes.

Good god where to begin with this gun. The penetration? Well, that's as good a place as any. We had a lot of guns shoot at the Tiger just a paragraph ago, so how well would a tiger do against itself if it had to? Well, the ballistics are in, and the Tiger could penetrate 100 mm of armor angled at 30 degrees from a range of 1200 yards. Maybe not a better anti-tank weapon than a 17 pounder or an American 90mm, but against the 76 and 85 it blows them out. And it's on a tank a year and some change before those show-up.

Alright, so the gun is better than a few allied guns but worse than a few. Expected. But that doesn't really illustrate how good this gun is. A better way is to list off what tanks this gun can't penetrate from the front.

For America, there are two. The first is the M4A3E2, with armor that can theoretically stand up to the 88mm at any range, but which I also have pictorial evidence of being knocked out by an 88 (although it may have been the L71, so courts out). The second is the Super Pershing with the Panther duct taped to the front, of which there was only one tank of its type. the Pershing almost can (its hull armor is just enough to resist, but the turret is just thin enough for a Tiger to penetrate if it shoots from point-blank range. which one did to a Pershing called Fireball.)

For England, just 1, the Churchill VII.

Now for a shocker. The Soviet Union did not create a tank that could resist the tiger's cannon for the entire war. Not even the IS-2 model 1944. IS-2 has only 100 mm of armor on the turret front, and it also has a shot trap similar to Panther. Nothing else really comes close to resisting it as far as the Soviet Union is concerned.

And it has an APCR round. Only God knows what for, but it still had it. A note on it though, which applies to the Panthers APCR as well. Later in the war (1942-ish), Germany's tungsten shortage caused them to change the round from tungsten to steel. Its armor penetration dropped like a rock (no indication how much because it is not recorded in any firing trials) and everyone hated it.

It’s HE round is also pretty good. nearly a kilogram of explosive (about 1.5 times the Sherman’s good 75mm round) and 11 kg of total mass meaning lots of shrapnel effect. What else can I say?

Finally, a word on the Tiger's legendary accuracy. It’s overhyped. German testing showed that the tiger could put 100% of its shots into a 2x2.5m rectangle at 2000 yards, which is kind of the dimensions of a Sherman’s frontal profile. This is good. However, Soviet testing compared to German testing shows that the gun is just as accurate as the Soviet 122mm, which isn't far off from the F-34 which is in the ballpark of the 152, which isn't far off from the F-34. In fact, by my math, the US 76mm could put all of its rounds into a 1x1 meter box at that range, and the 90mm could put them into a 1x1.5 meter box. Even the 17 pounders with its dispersion problem could put all of its APCBC rounds into a 2x2 meter box. It isn't really more accurate than any other cannons of the day. The difference is in the optics, but that comes later.

In conclusion, the power of the Tiger's cannon is apparent. Like its armor, it never really became irrelevant, it didn't even become obsolescent.

Mobility.

Mobility is where the Tiger starts to suffer, but not exactly on paper. For one, it can neutral steer, which is always a bonus. For two, it can actually drive at a decent clip, outpacing all the Shermans save for the M4A2.

Where it starts looking bad is at its HP to ton. With the best engine that it got (the Maybach HL230), it made 690 HP, which is good, but the tank weighs 57.3 tons. HP to ton works out to be 12, which I think is the worst number that this series has seen so far. But that's for late production. The first 250 used the Maybach HL 210, making 650 HP, just barely making over 11 HP per ton. Things are not much better when we look at flotation.

Here is a rare case where not one but two myths are going to be busted in the same paragraph. It is a common refrain that the heavier Tigers would get stuck in the mud, and that was a chance for the lighter Shermans to be able to outmaneuver it. This is false. But what you will also hear is that the Tiger, with its wider tracks, had better flotation than the Sherman’s and their narrow tracks, so they could attack over terrain considered impassable. And in the case of the Tiger (not the Panther, and not King Tiger mind you) this is also false. The Tiger had a ground pressure of 15 PSI. This is worse than every 75 mm Sherman and only equal to the M4A3 76mm, and that's with the narrow tracks, add on the end connectors, and the Shermans would do much better than Tigers in the mud. Without them though if a group of Sherman's ran into a Tiger in a muddy field they would all get bogged down. And then the Tiger would probably win based off of its massive cannon and good armor. So I guess that's kinda a point for the Tiger?

No, where the tiger really starts suffering is in its weight and all the restrictions that that entails. first the obvious, the number of bridges that the Tiger can successfully cross is very limited, and thusly in order to cross most rivers a Tiger would have to stop and set up its snorkel and all of its wading gear for about 30 minutes, usually a bit more. But this only applies to the first 500 or so, after this, the Tiger loses its wading gear and can only ford to a depth of 2 meters (which is still pretty good). This means that a Tiger commander has to be well aware of the path that his tank will take when required to march from point a to b because there is a chance that his tank simply won't be able to.


And then there is the fact that to be loaded onto a train the Tiger needed to have its narrow tracks installed, which required removing all the outer road wheels and retracing the vehicle, which takes about an hour. Then you drive it on, the train goes, then you drive it off and do it again. Things like this really take the edge off of its strategic mobility.

In all, its mobility is fine, certainly for a heavy breakthrough tank, but things are going to get worse before they get better. But before they do, an intermission.

Villers-Bocage, France, D-Day Plus 7.

The British had been bloodied by the attack of Michael Wittmann's single Tiger, but after the initial assault, they prepared themselves for the inevitable German counter-attack. The Germans attacked the isolated point 213 first, knocking out a Cromwell before shelling the defenders into submission. 9 tanks that the British desperately needed were now denied, being sabotaged by their defenders or captured largely intact by the Germans. The British in Villers Bocage were now truly alone, with a single Firefly and a handful of Cromwells and 6 pounder anti-tank guns to hold off the assault.

The Germans, however, had at their disposal 25 Pz IVs, but more importantly the 5 other Tigers from Whitman's company. With supporting infantry and artillery, they now truly held the numerical advantage.

At around noon a series of piecemeal spoiling attacks were made on Villers-Bocage, with none being successful and the Germans losing 4 of their Pz IVs. But at one, the main attack came.

4 Pz IVs moved up from the south, where a similar attack had already been repulsed for the loss of 2 of them to a 6 pounder, and this attack had the same results. Then came the remaining Tigers. The 6 pounder fired at the lead, but its rounds failed to penetrate, and the Tigers return fire destroyed the AT gun. Encouraged, the Tigers began to advance up the main road into town, slowly, in order to perhaps scare the British into surrender or withdrawal. After all, everyone in Villers Bocage knew what a single Tiger could do. What would they do when faced with 5?

The answer was open fire with the 17 pounder on the Firefly. The first shot fired at the lead Tiger missed, but a concealed 6 pounder fired immediately after and struck true, penetrating the front at close range and taking the Tiger out. The next three Tigers in the column split up into the side streets, to circumnavigate the ambush. One of them ran into another 6 pounder at short range and was knocked out. The other two were engaged by PIAT's, knocking out one, and blowing the tracks off of the other, immobilizing it.

The last Tiger waited just outside of the ambush point, waiting for the British to try and advance so that it could knock them out. The Firefly crew noticed it and reversed their tank to shoot through the windows of the building they were using as cover at the Tiger. They fired, hitting the mantlet and bouncing, but shocking the Tiger's crew into action. The tank began to flee, but one of the waiting Cromwells drove out onto the main street and put a shot into the engine of the Tiger, knocking it out. Shortly after, a final Panzer IV was knocked out on the main street, and then the tank attack ceased. The British still held the ground.

Later in the afternoon the Germans attacked with infantry and managed to dislodge the British after heavy fighting. The night ended as the morning had begun, with Villers Bocage belonging to the Germans, and the British no closer to taking Caen. However, the British had lost 23 tanks in the attack, but the Germans had lost (to my count) 13, 6 of which were Tigers. There were 36 Tigers in Normandy in the morning, by nightfall, there were 30.

Reliability:

After the Panther, I reasonably expected the worst when it came to the Tiger's reliability. And the worst was basically what I got. Rest assured, this is not '150 km before the final drive breaks' bad. No, this is precisely 1 step up from that.

From what I can tell, there was precisely 1 weak link in the vehicles design, and then one general issue that affects everything.

As far as the design goes, the main concern was with the transmission. The transmission was new for German tank design and arose out of the need for a new steering mechanism for the tank. The current way that German tanks steered was by friction clutches, which was arguably the simplest way of turning a tank. You have two tillers, and when you hit the gas both tracks get power. Pull back a little bit on a tiller and it cuts power to that track, and then the tank turns. if the tiller goes back more you apply the brakes to that side. It’s rough, its crude, and its total murder (US reports described it as 'inhuman harshness') if you are in a heavy tank like KV-1.  starting with the tiger, and based out of a need for the driver to not die of exhaustion trying to turn the tank, the Germans decided that the friction clutches needed to be replaced with something a little more substantial. Using what must have been a parallel development the Germans made a transmission similar to the British Merritt Brown Double Differential, which allows power to both tracks to be moderated, more precision in turning, and easier conditions for the driver.

However, this transmission was designed for a 45-ton vehicle as opposed to a 60, and it was the first that the Germans had ever used. as a result, if you overstressed it by running the engine at 3000 RPM (max HP range) as opposed to a kinder 2600 RPM you increase the chance of the transmission failing. The disappointing thing is that I have been literally unable to find mean life in miles, but I have a few reports that shed some light on what it could be. The transmission gets beefed up starting in May 1943 but was still the weakest link.

Another sticking point is the engine. It’s the same as on the Panther, so that pesky issue of "my engine has arbitrarily lit on fire" is a factor, especially on the first 250 vehicles using the first engine, which was made of aluminum and far more prone to that sort of thing.

The main problem with the Tiger as far as reliability goes is that it was a maintenance whore. Without maintenance, the Tiger simply couldn't last long. The best example that I have for this is from Tiger Abteilung 506. On January 2, 1944, 12 Tigers went into combat without the appropriate logistical support. Within two weeks all had broken down. The two best traveled 350 km, the average was 250km. in perspective, that was at least 2 full tanks of gas, for the best performers this could have been 3! That’s 2 to 3 times better than the Panther's performance! It’s also not good.  Not that any tank would do particularly well without maintenance, but the killer is the amount of maintenance needed. So how hard was it to service a Tiger?

Reparability:

I remember that when I wrote about the reparability of the Panther, my first sentence was "welcome to hell"

Well, if you had to repair the Tiger, welcome back.

Again, this is assuming that you could. As stated before, the number of spare parts that the Germans produced was low. In fact, it was precisely 1 spare engine and 1 spare transmission per 10 tanks. And this was in 1942 before the production of spare parts was curtailed for maximum AFV production. This was what you had to work with in the salad days.

But let's say that you do have spare parts. Guess what. They probably will not work anyway, not without being altered first. The Tiger was basically a handcrafted tank, and this meant that every one was unique, every one was just a little different. Just different enough to make that spare part not quite fit. So you have to hack on it before you can put it in.

But depending on what you had to repair, that could be hard. The engine isn't too bad, just like on panther it can be simply craned out. But what about the transmission? On the Tanther that was basically a total F'n nightmare to repair. On the Tiger, it is worse. In order to remove the transmission, you first have to remove the turret, which weighs 7 tons. Once you have the turret off then you have to take out all the seats, radio, mg-34, steering wheel and pedals, and anything else that their might be. And then you crane the whole thing backward through the tank until you get under the turret ring and can lift it out. And then you do the whole thing in reverse. So it turns out that the Panther is a design improvement comparatively.

The interleaving and overlapping suspension is still an utter pain in the ass to work with. Atop just taking a lot more work and effort to remove and replace them, mud could accumulate in between the wheels, and in the Russian winters could freeze the wheels together. So then it's to your sledgehammers and blow torches and fires. But the Tiger has another issue.

It weighs so much that its supporting units have a damn hard time supporting it.

We are talking about how hard it is to repair, but before it gets repaired, it breaks down, and in between reliability and reparability is a step that I have neglected until now, the phantom factor of recoverability. And the Tiger is not a easy tank to recover.

The Tiger, at combat load, weighs 57 tons. When it breaks down, it has to be moved. What can move a Tiger that has broken down? There are three options.

Option one is the Sd.Kfz 9 Famo half-track. Probably my favorite German vehicle because of its comic proportions (you could fit 5 people in the front row bench comfortably), this was the main recovery vehicle for the German army for basically the whole war. It was very important to all German tanks, but for the Tiger and Panther especially, because the later versions mounted a crane that could remove their turrets without the need of a gantry. More importantly, it was one of the only things in the German arsenal that could tow other tanks sufficiently, being able to haul 28 tons. For Panzer IV's and Panzer III's, it could handle them no problem. but for the Tiger, weighing 57 tons, two Famo’s on paper would not be able to tow it (only having 56 tons of towing power between them. in practice, if the Tiger broke down on a road and it was level, you could get away with 2. more often, i think that you would need 3.

Option two is the Bergepanther ARV. It’s based off a Panther. You get the problem.

And option 3 is another Tiger. It’s not a particularly elegant solution, because you risk overtaxing the most vulnerable part of the tank (the transmission) when asked to tow, and if not careful could end up broken down yourself. But sometimes, this is what you had.

And the final 3 issues with repairing the Tiger are the IL-2 Sturmovik, the Hawker Typhoon, and the P-47 Thunderbolt. a lot has been made about how Close air support would wipe out tons of German tanks and basically beat the will to fight out of them, and as far as actually killing tanks goes it's a very dubious claim that air power knocked out many tanks at all. Rockets were very inaccurate, and .50 cal and 20mm and 23mm cannons stood no chance of beating a Tiger’s armor, even from the top. But .50 cal and 20mm and 23mm could destroy literally every single supporting vehicle in a heavy tank battalion with ease. You can't drag a Tiger if all of your Famos have more holes in them than metal, and you can't repair it if all of your maintenance crews are dead. Now that would be a problem for any other tank, but for the Tiger, after the glory days of 1943, that becomes a pertinent issue.

Whew, hopefully that was the worst of it. Let’s move on to ergonomics.

The radio operator-bow gunner is a content man, but there are a few issues. The mg-34 is just like on the Panther, it doesn't offer a very big field of view (only 18 degrees, and this applies to the Panther to) but you can aim the gun without just guessing where it’ll hit. On the con side is that apart from the hatch periscope that is fixed at 45 degrees to the right (60 degree FOV) he is blind as a bat, and the very narrow FOV of his mg scope is not helping him out. The radios to his left are good, but most importantly he has a lot of room. Headroom, room side to side, even a bit of legroom, it's not as restricted as it is on the Panther. The only other issue that the hatch is offset towards the tracks by a few inches, so riding unbuttoned if you wanted better visibility is an awkward proposition, and getting out isn't as easy as it might be. Due to the low visibility this is a much better radio operators position than a bow gunners position, and again I have to wonder why they didn’t attempt to move the radio to where the commander could use it and cut out the middleman, especially given how relatively roomy the turret is. In all, it’s kind of a rough start. The driver’s position is far better though.

The driver’s position is roomy, yes, just like the bow gunners, but compared to every other drivers position so far this one comes out ahead simply because this is the easiest tank to drive yet. Every other tank covered so far uses tillers to steer, and the Tiger does have tillers just in case, but you steer the Tiger using a steering wheel. And it's an easy steering wheel to turn. The Soviets in trials calculated that you would need 30 kg of force to pull a tiller on a T-34 or a Sherman to get it to turn, nearly 70 pounds. The Tiger requires less than half that despite weighing about twice as much as either. on the right is a selector for direction (forward, neutral, and reverse) and above that is a selector for gear with 8 positions, in forward you could use all 8, in reverse you could only use 4. The only real issue is that visibility is still somewhat limited. He has a vision port in front of him that has a pretty wide field of view when the armored shield is up, and the 45 degree to the left fixed periscope in the hatch, and that is it. Apart from that, this is a very good driver’s position.

The good news extends to the loaders position, because this is the largest loaders area covered yet. So despite the fact that the rounds are the largest that we have dealt with, there is room enough to maneuver them and do your job. Only issue here is that you have to duck out of the turret ring in order get rounds, but it isn't a particularly big deal. Apart from that, he has a fixed periscope... for some reason, and an escape hatch/spent shell hatch at the back right of the turret. Finally, he has a small vision slit on the side of the turret.

The gunner is a mostly happy individual, again with only one or two gripes. he doesn't have quite a lot of room, but isn't all that bad off either, and any issues that he may have with the amount of room that he has are most likely alleviated by his gunsights.

Early Tigers used a 2.5x binocular sight, which was later improved to a 2.5x by 5x telescopic sight that you could switch between as the situation asked. A lot is made about the superior quality of the sights, and that stands true to at least some degree. First off, the optical quality (clearness of image) is the best in the world in 1943 by a decent margin, but by mid-1944 America and the Soviet Union at least have gotten close to matching the German methodologies of vacuum coating their optics, no word on the British optical quality. Further, than this, the German sights, in general, have a superior field of view to the other sights at lower zoom levels. The 2.5x setting had 28 degrees FOV, compared to American and British 3x scopes with 13 degrees field of view and soviet 2.5x scopes with 15 degrees FOV. However, at the 5x level, all scopes have basically the same FOV.

The last major advantage of the Tiger's gunsights (and all of this applies to the Panther as well) is that the layout of the sights is very clean and easy to understand. In the center is a large triangle, with smaller ones for lead extending to the left and right. He guesses the range based off of the size of the target as opposed to the size of the reticule, then sets the range into his gunsight, elevating the cannon to the correct level before firing. Soviet tanks and British tanks had a similar operation, estimating range and setting it into the gun before firing, but the range markings take up way-way more real estate, see.


And the Sherman? You aim above the target if it’s far away and line it up with the corresponding range marking, none of this range adjustment in the sights for you.
ht
In all, it sounds like the Tiger has the best gunner’s seat of any tank so far, and that the Panther needs a little bit of an apology. But let's not get too hasty, because there are a few drawbacks to these sights that bear some mentioning. For one, the low power optic does have a very good field of view, but by the same token, the main point of the low power is identifying targets. 28 degrees at 2.5 is good, but for identifying where a target is something like 42 degrees (Sherman Periscope) or just 40 degrees (T-34) at one is going to be better because FOV is the main consideration. Number two is that the gunner cannot see any enemies in a turret down position. With the allied tanks with periscopes on top, a commander could use a hill or other cover to identify a target without exposing the turret and the gunner would be able to see it as well before the tank is moved into the firing position. With no periscope, there is no ability for the gunner to locate the target before the tank moves into a firing position. And finally, if the sights ranging gear broke there was both no backup sight to use, or a way to use the sight without that ability. Soviet and British tanks still had the range markings in the sight at the edges (or center) of the sight, so if the linkage broke you could use the sight just like the Sherman’s sights always had to. But the tiger, at that point all you had was guesstimation.

In all though, the gunner's position is pretty good.

Finally, the commander has that wonderful cupola, with full 360 degrees of vision, a year before anyone else. Add onto it an azimuth indicator that indicates to the gunner where the commander is facing (something that I overlooked on the Panther, along with a few other things that merit a revision on that subject) and the Tiger's commander position is pretty much excellent.

Ergonomically, I wouldn't say that the Tiger is the best tank of the war (still think the late Sherman’s edge it out). But I would say that it is really quite good. there are a few quirks, and there are a few things that make the tiger not a newbie friendly tank to command (the turret traverse is still linked to the engine RPM's so traversing is basically a two-man job), but the one advantage that the Tiger has over Tanther is that the crew was far more likely to be experienced enough to make the Tiger work to its fullest. the heavy tank battalions got the cream of the crop, unlike the standard panzer battalions, and when the Tiger 1 was the main heavy tank the cream of the crop wasn't mostly dead yet. All things considered, the Tiger's ergonomics are good enough for a good crew to make it a force on the field, and it usually had a good crew.

Production.

The Tiger's production is not particularly impressive. The number is well known, 1,347 total tanks built. Also well-known is the cost of about 300,000 Reichsmarks per complete tank (the number varied a lot through the war). This is nearly twice as much as for a fully loaded Panther (175,000 Reichsmarks), more than twice as much as a Panzer IV H (125,000) and is more than triple the price of a Stug III G (80,000). if it is in combat worth three times as much as a Stug III or twice as much as a Panzer IV H is up for debate, but them’s the figures. Finally, it took twice as long in man hours to produce a Tiger as is did to produce a Panther. In all, the total production is not impressive, which leads to the number of tanks in the field being even less so. At its peak in July of 1944, there were 671 Tigers spread out between three different fronts. In all, and as expected, the Tiger's low production is a big strike against the vehicle as a whole.

Cintheaux, D-Day Plus 70

A lot had happened since the Battle of Villers-Bocage. For Nazi Germany, none of it was good. The lines that they had held after the Normandy landings had held through June, but starting in July the situation deteriorated rapidly. On July 8 the British launched Operation Charnwood and had taken Caen. The Germans still held the ground to the south of the city, as well as the Bourguebus and Verrieres ridge upon which they based their new defenses. The ground south of Caen had the largest concentration of German forces and the greatest depth of defense. While they may have lost Caen, they still had the British bottled up.

But on July 18, the British launched Operation Goodwood. with the intent to keep German focus on their sector, and to make good the gains that were made in Caen with the minimum of casualties, Operation Goodwood was a massed tank assault, lightly supported by infantry but heavily supported by Lancaster and Halifax bombers, and despite attacking the densest concentration of armor on any front in the war at the time was still able to advance 7 miles. And despite losing between 250 and 500 tanks (the number varies wildly depending on who you ask, but all sources indicate that >50% could be repaired) the British in the sector were still at full combat strength due to having 500 tanks in reserve.

So, on 20 July when Goodwood ended, three important things had happened. The first was that the Germans realized that the allies had enough armor and artillery to make 5-mile penetrations into German defenses at will, and that outside of the sectors around Caen, that could result in a breakthrough. And with the British in force at Caen and having just attacked with over a thousand tanks, spreading the forces across the front was not possible. a breakthrough seemed likely.

The second was that a German staff car had been strafed just before the operation had begun. That staff car contained Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, who was in charge of German defenses in Normandy. He was hospitalized with severe head wounds.

And finally, on the day that Goodwood ended, a bomb went off in the headquarters for the eastern front. Adolph Hitler was the target, and he lived with minor injury. But now he didn't trust any of his generals, or even his field marshals, and he would exert his authority in military matters more than ever before. This would have ramifications for the German army very quickly.

On July 25, the situation managed to get worse. Near St. Lo the Americans launched Operation Cobra, and without the depth of defenses that Caen had they broke through on the 28th. Quickly Patton's third army charged through the gap and started taking ground at a fantastic rate, pushing south, then east under the German concentrations in the Caen sector.  The only good German option was to fall back to the east or face annihilation, but Hitler ordered a counteroffensive west to cut off the third army. On August 6 this counterattack began, but it was defeated within a day, and only served to concentrate troops and armor further west and deeper behind the American penetration.

This brings us neatly to August 8. At this point, Patton's third army has taken ground 40 miles south of Caen and is knocking on the door to Le Mans. The German counterattack against the American first army has failed, and the Germans in Normandy are surrounded on 3 sides. At the start of the 8th, the British and Canadian army's at Caen launch Operation Totalize, with the intent of cutting off the German army's escape route by capturing the high ground near the town of Falaise. The German military is looking at not just a defeat, but a repeat of the soviets destruction of army group center in Minsk on July 4. Germany is on the edge of annihilation.

Michael Wittman, the hero of Villers Bocage, will not live long enough to see it happen.

The initial stage of Operation Totalize is a rousing success for the British and Canadians, with the support of heavy bombers and a creeping barrage a mass of armor and infantry mounted in ad hoc APC's (M7 priests with the cannons and ammo removed) advanced along the Caen-Falaise road and routed German defenses. Before dawn, the Verrieres ridge that had been a strong point for the Germans had been taken. In fact, by noon the attack was paused in order for the forces to regroup, the speed of the attack being too great to keep up coordination. Further, the US 8th air force was to bomb the German positions between them and Falaise, and the Canadians and British had to wait for the bombardment.

However, between them and Falaise was the 2nd company of SS-Panzer Abteilung 101, commanded by Michael Wittmann, and consisting at this time of 7 Tiger tanks. They had already halted one offensive nearly single-handedly, now they just had to do it again.

The German Commanding officer, Kurt Meyer, ordered a counterattack against the opposing forces at St Aignan-de Cramesnil at 12:30. And so, at 12:30, in the face of two divisions, Michael Wittman and his 7 Tigers drove across the open country toward an enemy that occupied the high ground.

Perhaps in 1943, this could have worked. Perhaps in January of 1944, this could have worked. But in August time had caught up to the Tiger, and at 12:40 a Sherman Firefly knocked out one of Whittman's 7 Tigers. The commander of the Firefly was then knocked out by his hatch hitting him in the head (the dangers of commanding unbuttoned), and a new commander for the Firefly was gotten. At 12:47, this firefly fired at the next closest Tiger. It hit the side hull at the ammunition and blew the turret off. This was Wittman's Tiger. At 12:52 a third Tiger was destroyed, and at this point the counter-attack stalled. At 12:55 a fourth Tiger was destroyed, and the final 3 retreated back to their start points. At the end of the ill-fated counter attack, 4 Tigers and 2 Pz IVs were dead in the field, and not a single British tank had been hit once.

it turns out the counter-attack was successful, if only in getting the German forces in the area to move out of the bombing zones of the 8th air force. Operation Totalize floundered, and Falaise was not captured. However, in the following days, Patton's third army started closing the gap from the south, and the follow-up Operation Tractable took Falaise and closed the gap on August 21. Most of German army group b was destroyed.

Conclusions.

These German tanks have so far been good at subverting my expectations. I had fully expected the Panther tank to be the best tank of the war, but just about everything that I researched about it was worse than I was expecting, and its horrific reliability and reparability crushed any goodwill I had toward German armored vehicle design. I came out of that thinking that the Panther was the most overrated tank of the war (and I still think that it is an outright bad tank), but also that that would apply to the Tiger.

But the Tiger seems to not have a lot of the Panther's faults. The armor of the tiger is better (at least occasionally). The gun is I would argue better. The mobility is on par. the reliability is (marginally) better. The reparability is worse, but not far worse. The ergonomics are a bit better. And production is admittedly lower. When phrased like that, it sounds like the Tiger should be on the same garbage tier as the Panther. But there is a difference, and that is in the designed role.

The Panther was designed as a medium tank, the backbone of the army, and it was more likely to break down than run out of gas, and it was damn hard to repair or recover. And for these reasons it is a bad medium tank. The Tiger meanwhile was designed as a breakthrough tank. It is not expected to drive hundreds of kilometers to exploit a breakthrough or react to one. it is designed to be moved into position for a major offensive, receive all the care for it to be in top shape, and then fight like hell through a heavily defended sector (that is doubtless less than 300 km deep) to make the breakthrough happen. It does not need particularly good reliability for this, it just needs enough, and I think that it has it. and it may be difficult to repair, but because it is an important  breakthrough tank as opposed to a run of the mill medium it is far more likely to get the support necessary to repair it. And finally, in this role, the low production figures matter less than low production figures for your medium. You don't need nearly as many breakthrough tanks as mediums, so having 1300 Tigers to me is not a bad number. The things that the Tiger is weak at I am willing to let slide due to what it was designed to do.

In fact, because of its role mitigating the weaknesses and highlighting the strengths, I think that the Tiger 1 is the best tank that the Germans built. An argument could be made for the Pz IV or even the Pz III, but while those two become obsolete in the last year or two of the war, the Tiger never did.

However, I wonder if the Tiger ultimately did more to hinder Germany than help it. that is reasoning that I have these historical lessons about Michael Wittman put in. German AFV development after the Panzer IV was leaning towards maximum armor and maximum firepower at the expense of all else, and the Tiger's performance in Africa and on the western front gave that thought Creedence. It said that you could make a tank that was near invincible and able to kill anything from any range and not have to pay for it in one way or another. And when put like that, I am arguing that the Tiger is too good. But consider this.

The Tiger and Panther launch the superior gun and armor school of German tank design. They are introduced at the Battle of Kursk and do not secure the victory, despite the battle being delayed explicitly so they can take part in sufficient numbers. And after that, every battle that they take part in is perhaps a tactical win, but usually a strategic defeat. Compare that to when the mild-mannered Panzer II, III, and IV were the mainstay of the military. They took France in a matter of weeks. They nearly won in Africa, they nearly won in Russia. They got far closer to victory with reliable medium and light tanks that were capable enough than they did with unreliable medium and heavy tanks that were far better gunned and armored. Perhaps if the Tiger was not as successful as it was, German tank doctrine would have skewed back towards reliability and having more tanks that are good enough, as opposed to a few tanks that are "Excellent."

If nothing else, the Tiger 1 killed Michael Wittman. he had become used to his tank being invulnerable on the Eastern front, he had that thought confirmed on the Western front at Villers Bocage, and then because he believed that he could do it he launched an attack across an open field at an entrenched enemy in a superior position. Some look at him as an all-time great tank ace, but after reading the history, I kind of think he was an idiot who was enabled by his vehicle more so than by his actual competence. When he first got it, it was an immortal killing machine. When he died it had become a mortal tank that had to adhere to the same laws as its opponents. But even then, if he had commanded the tank better than he did, it would have given him an advantage over those opponents by virtue of its armor and its cannon. The Tiger was the best tank on the field that Michael Wittman died on, even if it had been designed two years earlier.

So at the end I am left wondering what the Tigers legacy is. On the one hand, I think that it is kind of a great tank that nearly lives up to the hype. But on the other, I wonder if it was a net benefit to the German cause. I think that it wasn't. Then again, that's all the more reason to like it.

In the end, the Tiger 1... It is a paper tiger. Even with its impressive credentials and anecdotes this tanks reputation is probably overblown. The threat of the tank was more substantial than the tank itself. But... when the tank is able to integrate itself into the minds of its enemies to the point that it creates "Tiger Terror" that has to count for something. And unlike with the Panther, there is truth to the "tiger terror" stories to begin with. As far as the killer cats go the tiger is more in line with the American Hellcat than the German Panther because just like the Hellcat, this one gets close to meeting its reputation. And with a reputation as big as what it has, that is a feat to itself.

6402699
Ayy, its the Panzer 6! Thanks for the write-up, it was very fun to read.

On a side note, I think one of the crosshair sight images are broken.

6403050
soon...ish.
and spoilers, I don't think the King tiger is the best tank that the Germans built.

6403769
I don't think that the amount of remaining tanks should be a indicator of quality. otherwise I can say that because every A38 Valiant that was made is preserved that it is the most successful tank ever. and it is not.
also, the King Tiger and Tiger used the same engine.
rest assured, I have my reasoning which will come to light in the near future.

6404313
oh rip. sucks. wonder how many working engines are left. also wonder how hard it would be to make another one.
who knows, with modern metallurgy a new build tiger engine might not catch on fire arbitrarily and last more than 1000km before needing replacement.

6404316
Try this one, I hope this works better.