Talk:Tiger I/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

I remember reading somewhere (can't remember where) that Guderian preferred the Panther over the Tiger because the Tiger was too slow. If anyone can confirm this, I think it would provide some balance to the entry on the Tiger. Armor and the main gun aren't the only main variables in a tank's performance. Speed is also a weapon.

Article (1) has Guderian more neutral on the topic, specifying Tigers and Panthers for different types of regiments.

(1) http://www.warlinks.com/equipment/tank_research/section_a.html

INVESTIGATIONS IN GERMANY BY TANK ARMAMENT RESEARCH, MINISTRY OF SUPPLY

SECTION A POLICY REGARDING THE FIGHTING EQUIPMENT OF TANKS AND SP GUNS Interrogation of General Guderian

(2) http://www.monarch.net/users/miller/ww2/history/Panther_Lost_the_War.htm

The Tiger, well this got silly. It was like a great grizzly bear fighting off wolves. If it could back into a tree or rock to cover its tail, it was near invulnerable. In open terrain the German guns were far more deadly than ours. The Tiger was an excellent tank to defend with, but like the PzIV, too slow to fight ?maneuvering battles? with the T-34s. The Panther changed all this. Although it wasn?t quite as fast as the T-34, it was fast enough to negate the T-34 advantages. It had a new 75/70 gun that was even more deadly than the old Tiger 88/56. The Panther could not only defend as well as the Tiger, but gave the Germans an offensive tank again.

(3) http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/GERmanteuffel.htm

Hasso Manteuffel, commander of the 7th Panzer Division, had strong views on tank design.

Tanks must be fast. That, I would say, is the most important lesson of the war in regard to tank design. The Panther was on the right lines, as a prototype. We used to call the Tiger a 'furniture van' - though it was a good machine in the initial breakthrough. Its slowness was a worse handicap in Russia than in France, because the distances were greater.

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Could this be moved, either to the German name for the tank, or to Tiger I Tank? When I saw the article title, I thought it was an article about some monarch called Tiger the first. RickK 02:38, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)

"Tiger I" is by far the most familiar name, so I think it's in the best place now. As far as I know, the only "King Tiger" is - wait for it - another German tank :-), aka the Tiger II. Stan 04:38, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)

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"German agents embedded within the U.S. government and military working against this"

I dont believe there were any significant German agents in U.S. government and military. Much less i believe, they were able to influence such a decision. Or to put it in this way: Never suspect a conspiracy, when the same result can be achieved by incompetency.

Chris

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Gun Barrel

Please, what is the attachment on the end of the barrel? Gillean666 5 July 2005 10:53 (UTC)

That's a muzzle brake, to reduce recoil. --Carnildo 6 July 2005 20:20 (UTC)

FYI, most modern tanks have a fume extractor in the middle of, or sometimes on the end of the gun barrel. You can recognize a muzzle brake because it has one or more set of perforations. —Michael Z. 2005-07-6 21:12 Z

Thanks guys! Your info is much appreciated. Gillean666 20:42, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Combat History.

The section on combat history is more of a history of the T-34 and other allied tanks. And I am dumbfounded by the assertion that the Tiger was not a good offensive weapon, that simply isnt true. If you look at its role in many eastern front offensives, including Kursk, you will see it was a very strong offensive machine.

True. Furthermore, it was less than effective at Leningrad due to the terrible weather and intense artillery fire encountered when the Germans tried to unload their new tanks off of the train.

Yeah, I agree. This article makes it seem as if Tigers couldn't do anything without breaking down. While it is true that the Tiger did break down more than other tanks, they could still get the job done(If the weather had let up in Leningrad). Aaron L.

The penetration range of T-34-85 against Pz VI is misleading, since at 1,000 meters 85mm gun's accuracy is very low. A shot's theoretic ability to penetrate does not neatly translate to lethality under field conditions either. More enlightened wiki editors may know this better than I do, but my reading of after action reports from Wehrmacht Heavy Armor Battalions suggest that Tiger's side armor has good resistantance against 85mm at medium to long range. -Chin, Cheng-chuan

Without some actual data on dispersion for all major gun types there is no way to factor that in. I.e., was the dispersion of 85mm ammo much worse that some other type of gun/ammo combination? Until we know that we have to rely on penetration data. DMorpheus 14:48, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

This "get job done" thing is annoying. It didn't do jobs. It didn't carpet floors nor did it do accounting. It was a weapon. It was used for fighting. And it wasn't a good offensive weapon. It was slow, especially cross-country -not good for breakthrough as the enemy has ample time to react. It was in very few numbers -again: once it appears, the enemy knows where the main trust is, even BEFORE the breakthrough. It could not cross many of the billions of bridges of the eastern front -again: it's options for attack were limited. (Snorkeling took some time to prepare and perform. It'd kind of inconvenient doing it in a battle.) All in all: it was great for a mobile defensive pillbox, and also a great technological accomplishment. Which broke down after 50 km-s of roadmarch, and consumed more fuel than Los Angeles in a workday. adonaszi

Breakthough vehicles need not be very fast, as the push against enemy positions were usually done at pace with infantry. It would have been silly to advance on enemy contact without infantry covering the tanks. Low speed is problematic in getting the vehicles to battle and in exploitation breaches in enemy lines, but breaktroughs are generally attemted only after careful preparations, in example when the tigers and other stuff were where they would be needed. Note that most vehicles designed to make breakthroughs were fairly slow compared to vehicles that were supposed to exploit them.--UDoWs 17:16, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

King Tiger

Contrary to what the article claims, the Tiger I was hardly related to the Tiger II at all. Aside from a few shared parts and the same caliber cannon (not the same cannon, though) they were two very different tank. In truth, the Tiger II is much closer in overall design philosophy to the Panzer V Panther.

The Tiger II only superficially resembles the Panther. The Panther was a balanced design with good firepower, armor and mobility. Both Tiger designs deliberately favored firepower and armor with much less mobility. The Tiger I and II shared the same engine and road wheels, but most importantly they shared the same doctrine and role. DMorpheus 20:27, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Cost

It would be great if the article could include a definitive, or at least sourced example of how much a Tiger I cost to buy. I have included a link to a page at "Achtung Panzer" which has a table of unit prices, but other sources on the internet [1] give a much higher figure (800,000 RM to 299,000 RM). This page [2] has some handwaving which suggests that a Tiger tank cost fifteen times that of a Sherman, although I don't trust it at all. I remember a website called "", now sadly defunct, which I think had a fairly extensive breakdown of a Tiger's requirements in terms of raw materials.

Also, this is essentially an article about a piece of industrial equipment, but like other articles about tanks, guns, cars, aeroplanes and so forth I imagine it must attract a lot of unsourced speculation, hyperbole, rumours and stories. I understand that there is an impulse to praise the Tiger as an over-engineered but lovable brave knight, a noble and doomed giant brought low by hordes of cut-price, low quality imitations etc, and so I have cut out the paragraph about the Tiger's "enduring brilliance".

Although it might be hard to source, there should be mention of the Tiger's glamour and reputation, and also of the "Tiger fever" whereby rattled Allied soldiers would often mistake up-armoured Panzer IV's for Tigers, and would indeed ascribe any half-glimpsed angular metal vehicle for a Tiger. -Ashley Pomeroy 12:58, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

you may be able to find some info from the AFV Interiors by searching in the http://archive.org/ "Wayback Machine", if you know the site's URL. Regarding "Tiger fever", be bold! —Michael Z. 2005-10-20 14:37 Z

Tigers I only vs Soviet tanks?

It is misleading to compare the number of Tiger Is to the numbers of all T-34+KVs+IS-s. It leaves the impression that the Tiger I s were the only German AFVs engaged in stopping the Soviet tanks. Panthers, Tiger IIs and up-gunned Pz3s and Pz4s should be added to the German list to produce a more accurate ratio (but even that would be incomplete as SP artillery should be counted for both opponents). Or T-34 should be excluded from the Soviet total if you wanted to compare the numbers of heavy tanks only.

Veljko Stevanovich 30. 11. 2005. 10:15 UTC+1

Agreed, incomplete comparisons without any context are not useful, or even misleading. Some information about total number of tanks/AFVs produced, the cost or rate of Tiger production, the proportion of Tigers built could help paint a picture of this tank's importance in production terms. —Michael Z. 2005-12-9 20:12 Z

Speed?

The article now says the Tiger was faster than an M4 Sherman, which is hard to believe and contradicts the Sherman page. DMorpheus 18:54, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Oh yeah, that's totally inaccurate. Shermans were known for outflanking Tigers with their superior speed and moneuverability. Aaron L.

I have no idea why the Tiger I is commonly thought to have a top speed of 38 km/h. The most detailed and professional technical studies of the Tiger by W.J. Spielberger and T. Jentz (Panzerkampfwagen Tiger und seine Abarten & Germany's Tiger tanks - D.W. to Tiger I) both indicate that the vehicle's top speed was 45 km/h. Also a top speed of 45 km/h is mentioned in a secret German publication 'Datenblätter für Heeres Waffen, -Fahrzeuge und -Gerät' from 1944 giving a top speed of 45 km/h. So if nobody has more reliable sources, I think that we're going to have to put things back in order and put correct performance data in the article. Sad but true: Tiger I was faster than many allied tanks.

LV 20:31, 26 April 2006 (UTC)LV

Early Tigers did have a top speed in eighth gear at 3000rpm of 45kph, however from November 1943 engine governors were fitted that lowered the max rpms to 2500 and the top speed to 38kph. Just because a Tiger tank could go this fast doesn't mean they often did, to even get into eighth gear in the first place would require a long flat surface and running the tank this hard shortened its engine and transmission life considerably. All of this is explained in Jentz's book on the Tiger I.

The "Sledgehammers" kind of contradicts these lightning speeds... and it's in the references. Did anyone read it? That 38mph value stated a bit further down is very dubious. 38mph for that hulk of metal is actually pretty good. It's strange, that everyone talks about the Tiger being "underpowered", but when it comes to the speed they quote some really good data. According to Wiki, it had a 12 hp/ton Power/weight ratio. The T-34 had 16.2 hp/ton, the Sherman 14 hp / ton. Don't you think it's kind of close? Either the Tiger wasn't really underpowered (at least not significantly for a tank... it's not a race car), or the data is biased. The quoted book (Sledgehammers) actually disputes the 38mph speed; and it also takes the top speed of Tiger II significantly lower than the usual "German Tanks Kick Ass" data does. There are millions of reports where Tigers could not accomplish their missions because of their poor cross-country performance, and because of their poor "march" speed. The German values -as far as I was able to see from books- were never certified by the Allies on captured vehicles. I'd like to add, however that I'm not an expert... adonaszi

I've read many sources showing that Tiger units had maintenance problems. It seems rather rare for any Tiger unit to have its full strength actually operational for any length of time. OTOH I don't recall reading much about low speed being an issue. We should get it right but we needn't belabor the point. DMorpheus 18:59, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

i just wacthed a documentry that said the top speed was 23 for the thing to actualy work. it said if it went any faster it would literaly break down(Esskater11 02:36, 21 May 2007 (UTC))

Not just documentaries. Plain logic. The Tigers were either 1. ubertank by the ubermench 2., massive behemoths, that were the results dreams of megalomaniacs like Hitler and Porsche. You can't have both ways. The tanks were underpowered (which means that they were NOT faster than the medium tanks 1/2 their size), they were overengineered, too heavy, prone to breakdown, with a bad cross-country performance. (Especially the Tiger II.) This is plain stupidity to claim it was speeding with 45 miles per hour. No one has seen them do that. Nowhere in the battle reports can you see even signs of them doing it. Their apparent role, as "breakthrough tanks" was problematic at best, precisely because of their slow speed. They simply could not use the break in the front they created to rush in, and spread out in the lines behind. They had great guns, great sights, and good armor protection. They could hardly move in return, which made them close to being useless in attack role. And I'd be careful about this loss-to-kill ratio. Somehow the recovered German tanks are excluded from the loss. No one knows, how many of the "kills" were recovered by the Russians, and put back into service. I've read actual battle reports by German tankers, where they actually recommend blowing up the knocked-out Russian tanks, because they are recovered by the Russians, and thrown back to battle after a "touch-up". So out of this 9-to-1 ratio 5 easily could have been the same tank. Not to mention the fact that the defender ALWAYS have the advantage, therefore the attacker's loss will be higher. In the Eastern Front the Germans were usually in defense after Kursk -that accounts for this high kill ratio, too. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that. But somehow these tanks will always be "perfect"... People seem to idolize German tanks. My 13 years old cousin talks about her pop-idols this way.

Perhaps you should pay a little closer attention; it's not 45 mph, it's 45 Kph, which is significantly slower. Parsecboy 10:36, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

In addition, tank loss ratios favor the Germans more in 1941-42 than in 1944-45. They always maintained a positive ratio against the Red Army, but the data are less skewed in 1944-45 than in 1941-42. Love the 13-year-old comment however. Very true. DMorpheus 13:13, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Tiger heavy tank (1942) vs. T-34 medium tank (1940)

"The sloped 45 mm front armor of early T-34s gave them enough protection to prevent the earlier German 50mm guns from penetrating, but with the Tiger's 88 mm gun it was a different story. The Tiger could penetrate the T-34's mantlet or glacis plates from over 1,000 meters. As the range dropped as the tanks closed on each other in combat the T-34s were even easier to penetrate. Early T-34s and KV-1s had a weak 76.2mm F-34 gun whose AP shell was unable to penetrate the Tiger's frontal armor, regardless of range."

This is a slanted comparison. The "early T-34" medium tank mentioned was in service in 1940, and the better model 1941 started production before Germany invaded the Soviet Union. By the time the Soviets encountered the Tiger heavy tank, the T-34 model 1943 with 70 mm of front armour, sloped at 60° from the perpendicular, had been in production for a year (vs. the Tiger's 100 mm vertical). T-35-85s and Soviet SP guns with 122 and 152mm calibre were soon in service. By the end of 1944 the Germans had sent 1,350 Tigers to two fronts, but the Soviets had 11,100 T-34-85s (85mm gun, 90 mm sloped front armour) and 2,354 IS-2s (122mm gun, 160 mm sloped armour) in service!

"The Tiger was, in truth, more maneuverable and faster than the majority of other tanks in World War Two. The Tiger's top speed of 38 kph was actually nearly twice the top speed of 20 kph of Churchill VII. And it was also faster than some models of M4 Sherman. The Tiger had reliability problems and a poor radius of action but by no means was it slow. It also had a lower ground pressure bearing than most Allied tanks, the most notable exception being the Soviet T-34."

Also a slanted comparison—picking out the outstandingly slow Churchill. Faster than the majority of models, or most tanks?—I suspect either is false. Why not mention that the Soviet heavy tanks were just as fast, and about 65,000 T-34s were much faster?

At least let's try to compare the Tiger to a contemporary heavy tank in armour, armament, and mobility, as well as the production cost. —Michael Z. 2005-12-14 09:46 Z

I agree with Mzajac, let us compare it to IS-2 heavy tank with 122 mm gun or IS-3, if ew agree that tehy have been used in operation August Storm, after all it is still WW2.

Good point. Here are some road speeds (all in KM/hr) of the most common tanks of WW2 compared, just as a start:

• Churchill: 24
• Valentine: 24
• T-26: 28
• KV-1: 35
• IS-2: 37
• Tiger I: 38
• Panzer II: 40
• Panzer III: 40
• Panzer IV: 40
• KV-1S: 43
• Panther: 45
• Sherman: 48
• T-34: 55
• BT-8: 62 (on tracks)
• Cromwell: 64 (wow, that Rolls-Royce Meteor was something)
• BT-8: 86 (on wheels only; tracks stowed)

Conclusion: The Tiger I is not "faster than the majority of other tanks in WW2". In fact it is slower than all its common opponents except the IS-2, and then only by 1 km/hr. The only way you could call it 'fast' is by comparison to British Infantry tanks, which were designed to sacrifice speed for heavy armor. DMorpheus 16:24, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Its speed was not bad for the behemoth that it was—this should be pointed out. As you say, those British tanks were not technically heavy tanks, but infantry tanks, which were designed only to keep up with dismounted infantry—the same applies to the Soviet T-26 light tank. —Michael Z. 2005-12-14 17:22 Z

Thanks for the sort of the list. I edited the main article along the lines you suggest; the Tiger was about as fast (or slow) as the IS-2, for example, and both are slower than most medium tanks. No surprise there. I think the original article may simply have claimed too much. DMorpheus 17:32, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Your edits are a good improvement to the article. Thanks. —Michael Z. 2005-12-14 18:07 Z

Yeah, well as we know, the Sherman was manufactured with several different engines of varying outputs. Therefore I find it a bit inaccurate to say that the Sherman had a top speed of 48km/h. Check onwar.com. Plus the Tiger's ultimate top speed was actually 45km/h @ 3000rpm, but it was not recommended and even if it was used, it was for very short distances, e.g getting from an offensive firing position to another. The speed of 38km/h could be achieved at the 8th gear @ appr. 2500-2600rpm. The Panther's top speed was 46km/h @ appr. 2500-2600rpm and 55km/h @ 3000rpm (Spielberger,W.J, Der Panzer-Kampfwagen Panther und seine Abarten), but again, this was not recommended. The Tiger really was a bit faster than some Shermans and some Shermans were faster than the Tiger. I'm not saying that the Tiger was not particularly fast, but that it was not as cumbersome and slow as commonly believed.

Hard to say. There are so many aspects of mobility. It seems to me it must have been under-powered for its weight, but the floatation was quite good. On the other hand, are there any good statistics on reliability? Surely the ability to operate for X hours without a breakdown has to be considered an element of mobility. I recall editing Villers-Bocage - maybe the most famous single Tiger engagement of WW2 - and noticing that although Wittman had five Tigers and a Pzkw-IV under his command and on site, he chose to attack a much larger enemy unit using only one tank. Why would anyone do that? How many of those Tigers could move? Did he attack using one vehicle because none of the others were running? Or did the guy just have a death wish? I honestly don't know the answer, but it begs analysis. Likewise, in reading the histories of Tiger battalions, over and over what emerges is "battalions" with one or at most two companies' worth of tanks operational at any given time. You don't find that in US tank battalion records. If they are supposed to have 50-odd tanks, usually most of the tanks they have are acually operational. This is a different question than whether they actually had all the tanks they were supposed to have. What I am getting at is, of the tanks they had on hand, what was their operational proportion? DMorpheus 03:19, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Indeed, the Tiger was underpowered. That was it's main drawback. It just couldn't keep up with the superior speed of Allied tanks. Aaron L.

You're absolutely right, the Tiger was unreliable and prone to breakdowns. But as I have stated above: it was not as cumbersome and slow as commonly believed.

LVLV

I see you several rimes state that the frontal armour of the T-34 was upgraded, when infact, it never was. The armour on the TURRET was upgraded, to the maximum of 90mm, but the frontal armour that was sloped at 60° never changed. The sloped frontal armour was 45mm from the start to the end of the war. --84.208.76.45 15:42, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

You're correct about the hull armor, but the turret front is also encompassed by the term "frontal armor". DMorpheus 16:13, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I know, but I thought I mad my point pretty clear, and I really didn't think anyone would really bother to nitpick that, that's why I didn't write a fuller reply.

the tigers engine was really pushing the limits of german engineering as they couldnt build anything bigger or more powerful (thats why in the tiger mk2 they had a hell of a time with the engine its was so overloaded the tank was just to big for is engine)also i doubt the tiger 1 moved very fast at all dur to the fact it moved with troops and once it was fully loaded with ammo etc i bet 20 to 25 kph max the tiger was best once it dug in it was never built with the idea of blitzkrieg in mind that would be more the panthers role the tiger was more for holding ground. Also Wittman attacked due to the fact all the other tigers in his unit had broken down or had been damaged and the tiger sufferd horrible from breakdown at any one time only 20 percent of tigers were operational

Tiger vs. Panther and Panzer IV

I've heard that if Hitler had kept on producing Panzer IVs and Panthers, he might have had a better shot at winning the war. Maybe because these tanks were lighter? More versatile? What do you guys think? Aaron L.

Thankfully Hitler and his cronies made many, many poor decisions. You are correct that some of the dumbest were in the area of industrial management. Still, it seems to me a nazi victory scanrio is not only difficult to imagine, it is well outside the scope of any article on any one weapon system. By the way, the Germans never stopped producing Panthers and Pzkw-IVs until they collapsed. DMorpheus 22:45, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

I know that. I just meant that instead of trying to mass-produce Tigers, he should have been focusing on Panzers and Panthers.And I'm not saying that the entire war hinged on this decision, I'm just saying that he might have had a better shot if he kept on building Panzers. Aaron L.

Once the United States entered the European land war, Hitler didn't have a chance. Better strategy, better industrial management, and better treatment of counquered populations could have countered the Soviet Union's production advantage, but couldn't have matched the combined industrial and manpower capacity of the United States and the Soviet Union. Remember, US tank forces weren't able to defeat the German tank forces through any superiority of design or tactics: it was because the United States was able to produce three Shermans and the Soviet Union was able to produce four T-34s for every Tiger, Panther, Panzer IV, or Stug III. --Carnildo 00:28, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

We're sort of straying far afield from the Tiger tank, but I think the notion that the only real reason the USA and USSR won the war was simply by out-producing the Germans is a distortion at best. Better industrial management was a necessary but hardly sufficient condition for victory. If I recall, we outproduced the Vietnamese too, but we didn't beat them. In fact I think a good argument can be made (elsewhere) that Allied & Soviet strategy was far superior; allied & soviet operational-level command was generally superior in the second half of the war; and even on the tactical level there were plenty of allied units that were the equal or better than any German unit they faced. But none of that is really relevant to the Tiger page. DMorpheus 00:48, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

It's not relevant for the tiger page, true. The allied produce a B-17 for a Tiger and blow german tank factories away. If there would be no industrial superior, the guys in France would be speaking german. 141.69.47.130 11:37, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Nonsense. DMorpheus 01:20, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Carnildo you really are full of it. Tiger was not the uber machine you make it out to be, and by 1944 50% of the British ATG force could knock it out from over 2000m away (ie 17 pounder) and the other half with specialty ammo could do the same at 1000m (ie 6 pounder with APDS, unlike other specilty ammo, the 6 pounder APDS was actually in good supply for Normandy). Not to mention 25% of all British and Canadian and Polish tanks had the 17 pounder. Do some research, 69 of the 163 Tiger tanks in Normandy were lost to enemy action, thats 42%, and that is NOT including those lost to fuel shortages or sabotage by their own crews. God some people have become totally illusioned by the myth of German Uberness. A few tigers get some really good kill ratio and people start to think it was the norm. God knows how many tigers were lost before they even got a single kill but I bet it was not a small minority. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Wokelly (talk • contribs) 04:12, 27 March 2007 (UTC).

And how many of those kills were by aircraft? The #1 cause of Tiger losses was lack of fuel, the #2 was mechanical breakdown, and #3 was airstrikes. --Carnildo 08:46, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

There was nothing superior about German tactics by '44, if not earlier. Are you trying to deny the Soviets their operational victory at Stalingrad? The epic defense of Kursk? Luffwaffe's singular failure at providing the most meagre cover in Normandy? Committing elite panzers into futile counterattacks against the British in Caen while Patton was drawing a noose arround Falaise? Burning their last reserves in the Bulge, and let the Red Army annhiliate Army Group Center in Operation Bagration? At the divisional level, the Germans might very well be the superior combatant over an "average" American or Russian division; but what of the elite allied units? Are you trying to say that the US 4th, 6th, 10th Armored Divisions outfought better-equipped and more numerous Panzer Divisions with inferior tactics? -Chin, Cheng-chuan

Tiger a response to T-34

The article states that the Tiger was built in response to the T-34. I beleive this is incorrect, and is even contradicted further down in the article when it is stated that the design for the Tiger began in 1937. I beleive the Panther tank was the German response to the T-34.

I think so as well. As far as I know the Tiger tank was based on the outdated design of the Panzer IV. The Panter tank however used the superior sloped armor (after encountering the T-34). warpozio 11:27, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I think it is slightly more complex than that. The Germans did various design studies for heavy tanks long before they had ever seen a T-34. So did the French, for example. Some of their pre-war heavy tank designs dwarf the Tiger. But the Germans didn't actually build any or even make serious preparations for building any. Once they saw the T-34, they immediately rushed to design a much bigger, better-armed heavy tank and got it into the field as fast as they could. For instance, the pre-T-34 heavy tank design had a 75mm L/48 gun. After the T-34 showed up they shifted to an 88mm gun, forcing a much larger tank design. The US worked on designs that were similar to, and led directly to, the T-26/M-26 Pershing long before seeing a German Panther, but there's still no doubt that the tank eventually made it to the field primarily due to the Panther.

So, I don't think there is any contradiction between the notion that the Germans worked on heavy tank designs as early as 1937 and that they fielded the Tiger in response to the T-34. Both statements are true. DMorpheus 14:53, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, I can take it a step further than that. The Tiger was based extensively off the VK3001 project, which was a proposed replacement for the PzIII an IV. As originally envisioned they would have been in the 30-35 ton range and probably had a 60-80mm frontal armour base and a 75mm gun, possibly the L43. Obviously, with the Pz III and IV being effectively brand new in 1940, the project was tooling a long with a low priority and was abandoned when the T34 was encountered, but it proved an excellent basis for the VK4501(H) prototype that would eventually become the Tiger. Getztashida 12:06, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Ammunition

I think this article needs to show the types of ammunition(pzgr,pzgr39,pzgr40 etc) on the stats on the right for more information. -Anonymous

Weight of Tiger I

Why does the Tiger I have this massive weight for only 100mm of armour (pretty light for its size) when IS-2's, Churchills and Pershings are somewhat lighter with similar or even heavier armour?? I still don't get what's with the weight, can someone explain?chubbychicken 10:53, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

The Tiger was quite a large tank - a large box with thick walls is going to be heavier than a small box with thick walls. Catsmeat 16:51, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Right. Compare the volume of the turret on a Tiger I with, say, a Churchill is revealing. The Churchill turret, while thicker, is *much* smaller (and can only carry a much smaller gun). The Tiger also uses huge flat slabs of armor while the IS-2 and M-26 use large castings with compound curves that also cut weight. This is not without cost; the IS-2 stowed only 28 rounds of main gun ammo while the Tiger had more than twice that amount. The IS-2 had only four crew and carried some fuel externally; the Tiger had a five-man crew and no external fuel. The M-26 had a five-man crew and comperable gun power but is a lot smaller. DMorpheus 17:45, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Also, much of the weight can be attributed to the gun and turret, both of which were much heavier than the equipment on the Churchill. Getztashida 12:09, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Engine Governors

Why did engine governors get installed? And why do they reduce the Tiger I's speed?chubbychicken 10:55, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

This is a guess, but I'd bet that the higher speeds (and resulting higher engine loads) likely caused mechanical issues. — ceejayoz ^talk 02:27, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

That's right, revving any engine at high RPM a lot wears it out a lot quicker, and obviously governing it back reduces the output, which directly reduces speed. DMorpheus 17:38, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Many tanks heat up quickly when running at top speed. Dudtz 10/27/06 7:14 PM ET

Porsche's VK 4501(P)

There's little mention of Porsche's VK 4501(P) [aka Tiger (P)], should a subarticle be added under Tiger I, or should Tiger (P) be written as a brand new article (as there isn't one yet).

Should belong to design history where it's already mentioned (very small at the moment but it's there). --Denniss 22:14, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I am not sure the Porsche turret issue is correctly stated in the article. Currently it says the first 50 Tiger Is were fitted with 'Porsche turrets'. Sounds so much like the Tiger II I wonder if it is an error? My understanding is the turrets on the Porsche and Henschel Tiger I prototypes were very similar, if not identical. Could this be a minor mistake in the article? DMorpheus 20:32, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Browsed a copy of "German Tanks of World War II", published by Arms and Armour Press, 2000. On p120 it states that Henschel where the only producer of T1 and mentions no outside supplier of turrets (a significant omission to make). On p137, however, it records the cancellation of the Porsche competitor to the T2, "although some 50 turrets which had been produced were subsequently fitted to the early production Tiger IIs". Is this of use? BTW, the failed Porsche design for the T1 (known as the Leopard) was modified to provide chassis for the Ferdinand SP gun. Folks at 137 19:58, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Exactly, I think this is a mixup between the (mis-named) Porsche Tiger II turrets and the Porsche Tiger I turret. Even the single failed Porsche-designed hull that was used in combat as a turreted tank had what looks to me like the very same early-style turret. I'll put a fact tag on it and if no one comes up with anything we'll pull it. And if someone *does* come up with something - well, we will have learned something. Thanks DMorpheus 20:28, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

This 50 turrets must be wrong and mixed up with Königstiger. Achtungpanzer has the design history of both Henschel and Porsche Tiger and tells nothing about 50 separately designed turrets. They do talk about the turret being very similar for those two, it was originally designed for the Porsche Tiger and somewhat adapted for the Henschel design. --Denniss 22:55, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

As I understand the situation, the turret designed by Henschel for the VK3601 (upon the hull of which the Tiger I was based) ended up being used in modifed on form the Panther and all Tiger I prototypes used the turret designed by Porshe for the VK4501(P) - although in slightly modified form in the production versions. Incidentally, IMHO the VK4501(P) probably deserves a short article of it's own if anyone fancies writing one (might give it a go myself) but it is most certainly only a foot note in the development of the Tiger I proper... Getztashida 13:13, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Tigers and SU-152

The article includes this claim:

>>and an understrength regiment of guns was sent to the battlefield at Kursk in May, where 12 SU-152 howitzers destroyed 12 Tigers and 7 Ferdinands during battle<<

this is quite correctly noted as needing some sort of citation, as given the total numbers of Tigers in action at Kursk and their loss rates its claiming quite an extraordinary kill rate. There has been a tendancy in the past to accept Soviet wartime claims of Tiger kill rates ("hundreds") at Kursk at face value, however more modern research shows that such claims were considerably exaggerated because, among other reasons, there weren't hundreds of Tigers in the battle to start with.

This claim seems dubious to me for that reason and because it exceeds the loss rates noted by the relevant German units in their unit loss records, so I noted:

>>[this wartime Soviet claim is prima facie doubtful, the German loss records only note one Ferdinand lost to an SU-152 (source: The Combat History of schwere Panzer Abteilung 654, by Karlheinz Munch, pages 67-69) while the Tiger unit deployed with the Elefants, sPzAbt 505, only suffered five total losses to all causes in the entire battle (source: Tigers in Combat I by Wolfgang Schneider, page 263)].<<

that note was deleted on the basis that Germans always understated their own losses. While its true that German propaganda consistently understated their own losses for public consumption, the works I have cited are based on the actual loss records of the German units in question, which were produced for internal German Army purposes. In any event, the onus of proof is on the party making the claim, and to date no proof has been provided

'Loss/Kill Ratio issues'Bold text: I think this topic actually is very much related to a general issue (that no one seems to/or cares to) address. The 1:13 and other kill ratios listed for Tigers and other "uber-tanks" do not make sense. The German losses only consist of the total losses, i.e. the tanks that were damaged beyond repair. The Russian losses, however, are taken from German archives, and consist of EVERY tank hit (and reported knocked out). By type. There are only two things wrong with that: the first is that most of the time during the war the Germans had no way of knowing if the damaged enemy vehicle was recovered or not. (Unless they had a hotline to the Russian High Command.) Usually the front moved Westwards, and every damaged/destroyed vehicle was behind the enemy front. The other problem with this is that a tank can get hit multiple times -and you can't really tell, if it was destroyed by your Tiger, or some other Tiger, or an AT gun, or a Teller mine. An airplane "kill" in a dogfight is pretty straightforward (and there are still debates). But a tank (or a wreckage of a tank, because people usually don't wait around to see if a tank is operational before hitting it) can be hit multiple times, and everybody can claim that hit to be theirs. So up until comparison can be made with Russian records (which are mostly dismissed as propaganda, while the German reports usually taken at face value), the kill ratios do not mean anything. Also, the reported "types" destroyed have to be taken with a grain of salt. Especially during battle, people do not linger around to determine if they see a T-34 or a T-70. Watching a few interviews with veterans also made me realize that they might have not been able to actually tell the difference between a Panther or a Tiger... (And the Germans, for their part, had the "T-34 fever". Even armored cars were reported as T-34 by German soldiers.)

Some people say here that Soviet claims were probably exaggerated, and cites german sources right away. Looks funny to me. Why should we believe German claims and not believe soviet? Especially considering that SU-152 was easily capable of ripping a turret off Tiger with a single shot, there are even photos of that.

"which were produced for internal German Army purposes"

After battle of Stalingrad, german officers were told to lie to their soldiers that Sixth army won the battle. So, I do not think that germans were that honest with themselves.

The German soldier had no incentive to lie about their own unit's losses. If they under-report replacements would not arrive. This is generally reliable information, even if all combatants exaggerate and inflate their kills. Thus the necessity of matching one side's kill records with the other's written-off losses. Another factor to consider: vehicle type identification is a difficult skill. Badly trained soldiers are likely to fail in this task. Both the Red Army and the US Army were guilty of this, as well as late war Germans. As one US TD gunner said; he didn't pay any heed to what type of panzers he was shooting at. If it had a Swaztika, he shot at it.

-Chin, Cheng-chuan

Matching kill records to written-off records is WP:OR. If there's a source that does that for us, then we can include that type of analysis. But as it is, we cannot do that ourselves. Parsecboy 22:06, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Yet German after action reports cleary contradicts that of the Russians; that is a matter of fact. Kill records kept by any side a given conflict is suspect. No historian of caliber that I know of had ever agreed to the fantastic "hundreds" of Tigers lost. John Keegan protrayed the Battle of Porkrovka as the struggle between 900 German panzers, out of which 100 were Tigers, against almost 900 Russian tanks. He states that the Germans lost 300 vehicles, 70 of which were Tigers. A more recent history of the Pz IV tank states that the German strength were actually at 600 tanks, the majority of which were Pz IVs and IIIs. Therefore, it would be false of the Russians to claim that "hundreds" of Tigers were destroyed. It raises the question: why do you take precedence the estimation of an army's losses by an adversary, whose observation is inevitably clouded by the fog of war, over its own reckoning? During Operation Battleaxe the British recorded 100 panzers "destroyed"; but German records showed only 12 permanantly written-off. Without contest historians went with the German records; there is an implicit trust put into the German system, since only they could know how many tanks were recovered. On the other hand, German soldiers reported a grand total of 18,500 Russian tanks destroyed during the Battle of Kursk; but OKH reckon only 9,000 of those were genuine "kills." Rommel thought he faced five divisions in Arras; we knew he was wrong because BEF and French records showed otherwise. American forces in Vietnam would surrepticiously count pieces of the same cadaver to inflate the number of Viet Congs killed. -Chin, Cheng-chuan

name of tiger

where did it giet its name(Esskater11 18:52, 7 June 2007 (UTC))