Tiger Turret Traversion speed

[snakedude24]

So, yeah. To back up above posts - a direct extract from "Tigers in the Mud" by Otto Carius.

"The turret was turned by a hydraulic gearbox. The gunner's feet rested on a tiliting platform. If he pressed the tip of his foot toward the front, the turret turned toward the right; if he pressed with his sole to the rear, it turned to the left. The more he pressed in the corresponding direction, the faster the movement. At its slowest, a 360-degree revolution of the weapon in the turret took sixty minutes. At its quickest, it took sixty seconds. Extreme aiming accuracy was thus ensured. The practiced gunner didn't need to adjust afterwards with his hand."


Straight from a man who racked up over 150 tank kills.

 

[Rameusb5]

Someone over at WWIIOL found a good techical site concerning the Tiger I. Here's the link if you're interested. Hopefully some of our Native German comrads can translate it, as I understand there are some translation errors on the page.

http://www.panzerkampfwagen-tiger-18...56_22_text.htm

 

[Field Marshal Rommel]

Turret speed is irrelivant since the TigerI had excellant mobility (regenerative steering) but sadly it is not modeled in game.

 

[Rameusb5]

Someone on the WWII Online Forum brought up the idea that the Tiger traverse mechanism was changed later in the war. So while the in-game modelled 60 second traverse is accurate for earlier Tigers, it may not be so for the ones on later maps.

It may be possible that the traverse mechanism discussed elsewhere in this thread for the later Panther and King Tiger models may also have been installed on later-built Tiger I's. Or perhaps even retrofitted to earlier model Tiger I's.

Here is the evidence he states:

What makes me think later Tigers go to the revs-dependant system used on the Panther A, G and Tiger II is four things:

- that snippet of film showing a later build Tiger (at least mid-1943) rotating its turret 90 degrees in about 9 seconds

- Jentz's description of the traverse mechanism being changed so as to allow dual pedal control and two gears - both things the variable speed system had, though Jentz doesnt provide any further details

- accounts by real life Tiger drivers from 1943 onwards where they refer to stepping on the gas pedal to increase turret rotation speed

Now we've already seen the video footage he's mentioned in the first point, but I think the general concensus is that it can't be used as a reliable argument for the faster traverse due to the fact that we don't know if the film speed was altered (intentionally or otherwise).

But I think the other two points might be valid. I'd like to revive the discussion of this topic, not as a vehicle for complaints about the game, but rather as a way of determining what it was historically.

 

[Rameusb5]

Here's some more info:

I wondered the same thing, but if the film was sped up by the factor of almost two you would need to get that fast a traverse then the sounds would either be distorted or not in sync and things like falling mud and dirt would look odd.

A good example of the sort of first person accounts by later Tiger drivers that refer to faster traverses is this one from page 94 of the unit history of sPzAbt 507 published by Schiffer and edited by Helmut Schneider:

"For some time I had not been so keen on following the fighting through the driver's vision block. I thought about Ludwig Gsandner, who had his nose shot off when an antitank-rifle round hit his vision port. When things were really hopping, I turned around completely and inched a bit towards my comrades in the fighting compartment. It should be mentioned that I only pulled away far enough so that I could still touch the gas pedal and speed up the rotation of the turret, whenever it was necessary (The turret traversing speed was dependant on the RPM of the engine)."

That refers to combat in Poland in 1944.

Given that the Germans had developed a traverse system by mid-1943 that allowed faster traverses and that they fitted this system to the Panther A (production start Sept 1943) and Tiger II (Jan 1944) it would seem very logical to also fit it to the Tiger I.

As to how fast it allowed the turret to traverse, it certainly couldnt have been slower than the Tiger II traverse speeds.

 

[SheepDip]

As far as I can tell it was never officially changed on the factory line, I can find no record of such a thing in any of my books, or on tinterweb.

"For some time I had not been so keen on following the fighting through the driver's vision block. I thought about Ludwig Gsandner, who had his nose shot off when an antitank-rifle round hit his vision port. When things were really hopping, I turned around completely and inched a bit towards my comrades in the fighting compartment. It should be mentioned that I only pulled away far enough so that I could still touch the gas pedal and speed up the rotation of the turret, whenever it was necessary (The turret traversing speed was dependant on the RPM of the engine)."

This merely shows that the 2 are related, which we know already. But as far as we can tell the maximum traverse is 60 seconds, so that will be with full revs.

I've contacted the curator of the tank museum at Bovington, wonder if he can shed some light on the topic

 

[Sieg]

I've contacted the curator of the tank museum at Bovington, wonder if he can shed some light on the topic

The Bovington Tiger is not a late build by the way, it has the old-style commander's cupola and Feifel tropical air filtering system:

Tigers produced from November 1942 to August 1943 were fitted with full tropical air filter 'Feifel' system.

Source: www.achtungpanzer.com

That is not to say that the curator doesn't know about later Tigers. It'll be interesting to know what he has to say. Here is some footage of the Bovington Tiger rotating it's turret:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRl2fZ8DZtA

 

[Rameusb5]

Bump to keep this discussion going...

For posterity more than anything else.

 

[The_Cook]

This is just a small realism bit I thought of.

From what I understand the Tiger's turret traversion speed could be increased when the engine was revved.

So, how about when you have a driver in his position, the turret speed goes to it's max. When nobody's in the driver position, the turret speed is at it's min.

At the very least this would encourage team tanking.


If any other tanks were effected by engine RPM, I'd like to see this implemented there too.

I like the idea
No driver in tiger minimum handcrank speed
Driver, maxime revved turret speed

Honestly I think it's a good idea and should be implemeted.