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Re: The Tiger Tank was...(Score: 1) by mortis on Mon Aug 04, 2008 10:04 am (User Info | Send a Message)
Well, I voted distinguished as well, based on the fact that there is a story of a tiger in an assault (can't remember where, but in Russia), that took over 260+ hits from at weapons of various sizes, took extensive roadwheel damage, engine damage and gun damage, still managed to crawl forward another 20 miles or so all the while killing russian tanks and vehicles, emplacements and the like.
The Tiger was a handmade vehicle, not assembly lined like other countires, so the total production numbers reflect that. On the western front only 90 Tigers were deployed to that theater, thank God more were not there. The Anglo-American forces learned that the best way to kill Tigers were with Typhoons.
The Germans had a simple philosophy when it came to armor design. The vehicle should be able to withstand a frontal shot from the very same type of gun that it mounted. The Tiger had a 100mm thick frontal armor, which theoritically an 88mm could not penetrate. Where the Tiger excelled in combat was in its ability to work in a combined arms aspect, hence the reason it gained a fearsome reputation, and justly so.
The German Armys overall tactical philosophy was to use heavy tanks to break the defensive lines, the mediums to exploint the gap, and the light armor for the pursuit.
Here again, the Tiger excelled at its given task. One of the blunders of the field commanders during the Battle of the Bulge was because of this philosophy. The King Tigers were up front, then the Tigers, Panthers, PzIV's so on and so forth. Had the Mediums been up front, had Hitler not insisted on pushing towards Antwerp, and allowed his generals to head south once they had broken thru the allied lines, the Western Front would have had a very different outcome. For more information on this check out the books, Panzer Battles by MajGen VonMellenthin (Erwin Rommels chief of staff) and Panzer Commander by Otto vonLuck (Rommels Recon Regiment commander in Africa and 21PzReg commander in Europe).
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