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One Reason Why Tiger isn't a Favorite

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#61
Felix Ostheim said:
I second this...


This is just wrong, new players are forgetting/ignoring/unaware of what angling is all about and don't know where to aim at enemy tanks...I often feel like a match against an IS-2 because I hang back at a safe distance where my armor has some effectiveness and I can angle just right. If you just learn angling correctly you can easily bounce shell after shell off of your Tiger whether it be from an IS-2 (yes, IS-2) or a T-34. Now in my opinion there are possibly some kinks in the calculations the game like they said they will look at it but for now you have to realize you can't just hop into a tank like any generic game and shoot wildly without considering how you are positioned. You have to learn about range, ballistics, armor etc and get some experience under your belt before you are going to take on people who can angle perfectly and have had many kills.
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What angling? Unless the T-34 got really, REALLY lucky, the KwK 36 cut through it from any angle at any range without any problems. Ingame I have yet to see the T-34 killed by less than two shots.
 
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#64
A lot of people here want good/reliable information on the Tiger I, so here is some:

"Armor-piercing rounds usually accounted for half of a Tiger's ammunition supply, the rest taken up with Sprgr. High-explosive rounds for use against enemy soft-skinned vehicles and infantry. The hollow-charge Gr.39HL round, which was less productive at short range, was sometimes exchanged for some of the HE load despite being less accurate. The Pzgr.39 APCBC (Armor Piercing Composite Ballistic Cap) round was capable of piercing 100mm of armour at an angle of 30 degrees within a range of 1000m. The tungsten-cored Pzgr.40 round could easily pierce 171mm of armour at short range and 110mm at 2000m, while the Gr.39HL round could penetrate 90mm of armour up to 2000m. "

"Tiger I was armed with powerful 88mm gun (originally developed from 88mm Flak 36 L/56 gun) that made it a very dangerous opponent for any Allied tank, and its thick (but not shot deflecting) armor made it virtually indestructible. Both Sherman with 76mm gun and T-34/85 stood a chance against Tiger only at close range. It is reported that in July of 1944, commander of 3rd company of schwere Panzer Abteilung 506, Captain Wakker, destroyed Soviet T-34 at the range of 3900 meters. The rule applied by the British concerning the engagement of Tigers was that five Shermans were needed to destroy a single Tiger, but only one Sherman was to return from the engagement. Tiger's only weak spot was its rear armor plate and its engine, which required continuous maintenance. During their combat service, Tigers destroyed large numbers of enemy tanks and other equipment, creating the myth of their invincibility and fearsome power - "Tiger-phobia". Tiger also had tremendous effect on morale of both German and Allied soldiers, German felt secure, while Allies thought that every German tank, especially late model PzKpfw IV was a Tiger ! "...and the T-34s and KVs eliminated hundreds of Tigers...", Russian Newspaper Article about Battle of Kursk, Novosti Press Agency, 1943."

While the second paragraph deals mostly with Tiger VS. American and British tanks there is quite a bit about Tiger VS. Soviet tanks. These two paragraphs seem very pertinent to me with regards to whether the Tiger I was weak or not.

Also, here are some numbers that prove the Tiger was a powerful beast and that the superiority of German tanks to Soviet tanks decreased greatly in 1944 and 45, although this could be attributed to the lack of experienced crews in Germany.

1943:
German Tank Losses: 6,362
Soviet Tank Losses: 22,400

1944:
German Tank Losses: 6,434
Soviet Tank Losses: 16,900

1945:
German Tank Lossses: 7,382
Soviet Tank Losses: 8,700


Total Tiger Losses (includes ALL Tigers): 1,715
Total Tiger Kills (includes ALL Allies): 9,850

For the entire war the Tiger Tanks managed to achieve a 5 to 1 tank kill/loss ratio. Even though this includes Shermans and other "Tiger fodder" this is still an incredible achievement.

Check the 1st of my sources for far more detailed kill/loss ratios for Tigers.

Sources:
http://www.alanhamby.com/losses.html
http://pedg.org/panzer/public/website/tiger.htm
 
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#65
The reason that the Tiger is so crazy-lame in the mod is because even when your angled perfectly your big slab of a turret is still 90* pointed straight at the enemy. Not that i think the Tiger was an uber tank, but the T34-85 can easily go through the front of a Tiger's turret 100% of the time at 800 meters in RO, which feels a little off, but feel free to correct me.
 
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#68
Gunslinger said:
So, uhhhh, did the devs actually get into a tiger and clock the 360 degree rotation in it or something? How about a panther/pz4/t34/is2?

Just wondering where they got this accurate info from? Id like to take a look at this info myself.

It is common knowledge that the Tiger was one of the most fearsome tanks in WWII, but somehow it has been reduced to utter bull**** in this game. I would rather be in the PZ4 than the tiger when it comes to RO. At least I can fire/rotate turret/move fast in it.

Lets not overlook its record in WWII. While it was mechanically fragile, its armor was some of the best. Not to mention its gun is WAAAAAAAAAAAY underpowered in this game. The tiger could penetrate ANY allied tank up to 2000 meters.

So all of you people defending and such, show me, dont tell me where you get your info.
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I tend to come down on the side of the Tiger on this one. here are some stats taken from "Slaughterhouse: The Handbook of the Eastern Front":

88mm Pak 43 (the Tiger VI used the 88mm L/56, but the Pak43 was equivalent) had a penetration value of 114mm through 30 degree angled armour.

The T-34-85 had between 45 and 89mm of angled frontal armour at anywhere between 30 degrees (highly angled) and 90 degrees (no angle- at the turret front).

The T-34-76 had 46mm of angled frontal armour at 30 degrees.

The KV-1E (Close to but not exactly teh one in the game- the one in the Game is the KV-1S, which stands for "Skorostnij" or 'Speed' in Russian, and was appropriately lightened of as much as 15mm of frontal armour in order to make it faster) had between 42mm and 111mm of frontal armour angled at between 25 degrees and 70 degrees.

The IS-2 had between 91mm and 122mm of frontal armour angled at anywhere between 30 and 60 degrees (highly angled).

(Source Details: Bonn, Keith, "Slaughterhouse: Handbook of the Eastern Front", Bedford, Pa., Aberdjona Press: 2005, 453 & 464.)

Thus, technically, the only tank that would have a chance against the Tiger's gun at least, would have been the IS-2. Any other tank, provided it was hit dead-on, should have, in theory, been taken out immediately. While this obviously didn't happen every time, it almost never happens in the game as it is.

The Tiger has undoubtedly been weakened. The reason for the Tiger's demise in the latter stages of the war did not have so much to do with the Soviets making better tanks per se (although that helped them), nor did it have so much to do with poorly trained crews (which did no doubt- don't get me wrong- have an effect on increased Tiger losses), but rather it was due to Hitler's use of the Tiger in fixed defensive positions.

Paul Adair, in "Hitler's Greatest Defeat: Disaster on the Eastern Front" (London, Rigel Publications, 1994), outlined Hitler's insistence on an inflexible, rigid defense instead of employing what Manstein had used so successfully- that is a flexible, dynamic defense of the Reich. Hitler insisted on making each major city a "Feste Platz" ('Firm Place' in German) to be defended to the last. This not only pinned whatever few remaining Tigers that survived down in cities, but it also made them highly vulnerable to flanking manoeuvres by an increasingly massed volume of Russian Tanks (Russian tactics changed by 1944 to employ massed double and sometimes triple echelon formations in their Guard's Tank Divisions following Kursk).

So, it was a change in tactics that killed the Tiger. In this game, they should be extremely powerful weapons, but evidently they have been 'dumbed down' significantly for reasons of balancing the game so that a Tiger can't sit on a hill and pick off Russians with impunity.
 
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#69
Magnusvermagnussen said:
Paul Adair, in "Hitler's Greatest Defeat: Disaster on the Eastern Front" (London, Rigel Publications, 1994), outlined Hitler's insistence on an inflexible, rigid defense instead of employing what Manstein had used so successfully- that is a flexible, dynamic defense of the Reich. Hitler insisted on making each major city a "Feste Platz" ('Firm Place' in German) to be defended to the last. This not only pinned whatever few remaining Tigers that survived down in cities, but it also made them highly vulnerable to flanking manoeuvres by an increasingly massed volume of Russian Tanks (Russian tactics changed by 1944 to employ massed double and sometimes triple echelon formations in their Guard's Tank Divisions following Kursk).
Click to expand...

Manstein, in his autobiography, says he felt even up till early 1944, if given the freedom to fight the proper way, could have fought the Soviet to a standstill. When the Germans were allowed to use mobile defense and manuver they slaughtered Soviet units and caused massive losses. They recognized this in 1943 when some of the captured soviet tank crews were factory workers that had built the tanks.
 
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#70
Imo there IS something wrong with the armor and weapon calculations.
Today we did a lot of testing and several strange things happened.

All the test were between PzIV and T34, not moving, Range between 500-600m

PzIV shoot with AP against a T34, hit at the frontplate, but nothing happened. Then he switched to HE and shot again at the frontplate...hit...engine damaged !? :confused:
We tried the same thing angain and a few tries later it happened again...
Frontal hit with HE...engine damaged but everything else was ok (no color change of the T34) Both tanks still at the same position!

Next thing...2-3 frontal hits with AP against T34 killed him (most times if you aim between Hull and Turret).
2-3 hits at the sides (hull/tracks, not turret or between) 90deg couldnt kill the T34 and no color change. Shouldnt there be the ammo? But nothing.

Yes i know...sometimes you hit a PzIV you can kill him with the first shot and sometimes you need 4-5...it all depends on your situation, position, angle and so on...but we tried it out trying always to shoot at the same spot from the same position...and then you should get nearly equal test results but thats not the fact. It seems that it doesnt matter what you do...sometimes you kill him, sometimes not....i feel a little bit like playing lotterie so i think, to come back to topic, its not only the Tiger Tank...its a general problem all tanks have regardless which side you are playing.

no complaining at all...just some results of our tests which we did because yesterday someone called me a cheater. My heavily damaged Panther (red condition) got 12 hits without beeing destroyed (artillery finally killed me)...well, call it luck but i think there is something wrong.

Oh, and by the way...if this damage modell here would be realistic, then it would be possible to kill, lets say, only the driver while the commander survive...did this ever happen to one of you? Well, i didnt ever saw this....
 
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#71
Rameusb5 said:
To be 100% realistic, the Tiger (and some of the other tanks) should have variable turret speeds.

With the engine OFF (IE nobody in position 1), the Tiger's turret had to be manually traversed, which took somewhere between 1.5 and 2 minutes to rotate entirely through 360^.

With the engine ON, the rotation time was based on the engine RPM at the time. At low revs (engine idle), the turret rotation time (to go 360^) was about 1 minute. At max revs, the turret rotation time was about 18 seconds.

So if the devs want to spend a ton of time adding the code that would support this, more power to them.
Click to expand...

I believe one of the devs said in a forum thread which the desire to impliment this was there. So we may see it in the future someday.

But anyways... if you ask me the Tiger is screwed over by many things in RO, but the turret rotation speed isn't really one of them.
 
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#72
Nebfer said:
you can argue all you want that the avrage "westener" has little ww2 knlage but it dosnt change the fact that he even messed up with the sherman

IT HAD A WELL SLOPED FRONT!!! so to say that the sherman had no sloped armor is just plane wrong. now whill the frontal armor was 51mm it was sloped at 34* (wich gave it the equilvent of 91mm) it was the side armor that had no slope and was only 38mm (1.5inch)!

well I still think German tanks are far weeker than there soveit counter parts.

partly due to the fact we are using tanks used in 1942 (Ie Panzer IV AusF F2 (AKA AusF G)) for battles with tanks made in 1944! (Ie T-34/85)
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Stay in school and learn to spell, son
 
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#73
hetzer said:
If we are talking accurate then very many of the Kursk Tigers & Panthers should break down before reaching combat! Then we would have to mount recovery with 3 Famo half tracks for each Tiger!!
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brilliant!:D :p :D


anyways, one time i was in arad with the IS-2

i was turning around and accidentally faced my back to a tiger (where my 7 o clock was facing him)

he shot at me and disabled me from moving (i was like oh crap)

so i turned the turret and just started firing and i killed the tiger and not only that

i began fighting this way and lasted to the end of the game with my back facing them, i must have taken like 25-30 shots and the picture was red of my tank, i took out maybe seven of their guys

sorry for my english
 
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#74
MkH^ said:
This is just wrong, new players are forgetting/ignoring/unaware of what angling is all about and don't know where to aim at enemy tanks...I often feel like a match against an IS-2 because I hang back at a safe distance where my armor has some effectiveness and I can angle just right. If you just learn angling correctly you can easily bounce shell after shell off of your Tiger whether it be from an IS-2 (yes, IS-2) or a T-34. Now in my opinion there are possibly some kinks in the calculations the game like they said they will look at it but for now you have to realize you can't just hop into a tank like any generic game and shoot wildly without considering how you are positioned. You have to learn about range, ballistics, armor etc and get some experience under your belt before you are going to take on people who can angle perfectly and have had many kills..
Click to expand...

i agree completely;)
 
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#75
There's one thing wrong with the Tiger, and it's the armor.

The armor was thick and of better quality steel than other tanks. Shells shot at Tiger should be bouncing off (even 90 degree hit) or shattering a lot more than they are now.

Shell shatter - I think I've seen it a couple of times but I'm not totally sure it atually exists in the game...but shells should shatter more often with Tiger hits because of the better quality armor.

Of course there's another thing wrong which doesn't have to do with the tank and that's the engagement ranges. Most of the time enemy tanks are within 500 meters of Tiger and T34/85 and IS2 will definitely do damage at that range. Tigers should be held back at 1000-1500 meters where the 88mm shell terminal effects are really devastating. Arad is really the only map where Tigers can be used the way they are supposed to. If I'm in a Tiger and I hang back I can often get one hit kills on T-34's. PZ4's should serve as the "bait" while Tiger's hang back and do the killing long range. That's how it should be.
 
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#76
malice said:
We can all sit here and say the tiger sucks but I am going to say its more the way its being used. The tiger is a heavy tank, best in defence or support. Its not meant to charge off into battle against the russians. The tiger should really find a nice hull down position and be in a supporting roll against the russian tanks. let the pather and Panzer 4 tanks to the rushing attacks. They have the speed for it and with a tiger supporting them they can draw the russian tanks out and let the tiger finish it off.

Now this is a generalization but I cant count how many times I have seen the tiger on Arad rushing across the river into the north field or on berlin attacking russian infantry near there the end where they spawn. You need to use the tanks strong points and that doesnt include rushing off to battle. It means finding a nice position and playing a supporting role.
Like on Arad there are two tigers. If they both drove up to the wall in the spawn and sat in a hull down position there while the panthers and panzer 4 rushed the germans. Two tigers could take out any tank the russians have at any range in this game. If the two worked together they might even be able to destroy the russian tanks before they can see them.

It is hard to use the tiger in this game because the maps are max 900m (I think Ramm or wilson said that) while in WW2 the tiger would have been engaging targets at 1000m while the russians had to be at 500m. This game eliminates that advantage. You just need to play smart in the tiger and use it the way it should be used. Let the fast tanks so the rushing, them move you tiger up to another supporting live and the rest of your tanks advance.
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Now that is the smartest thing I have heard all day!! Put the tigers up behind the walls in spawn (helps to counter poor armour efficiency) - and lay down some good solid long range fire
 
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#78
Sichartshofen said:
From another thread about reload time.

The 88mm KwK 36 used a semi-automatic loading system which ejected the spent shells, allowing it to be reloaded by operating a single handle and inserting a new shell. The result was a 15-20 round a minute rate of fire. Of course conditions vary in a tank. If possible, reloading while stationary should be the quickest, around 4-6 seconds. On the move it should take longer, around 8-10 seconds.
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You know I wondered about that reload time as the 88 Kwk 36 was an AA gun and AT gun with a renowned fast reload and Uber penetration - and as far as I know, this gun was just dropped into the Tiger (and Panther 2) - or did I miss some other factor?
 
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#79
What ppl dont seem to get into their heads is that they need to angle the tank and not just face the enemy straight on.

For example I dominated Arads South Field with a Tiger taking out like 15 russian tanks b4 I finally got blown up.

This way the Tiger can dominate the field very easily and becomes even better than the Panther.
 
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#80
I've read quite a few books about Tiger tank commanders and even the book written by Otto Carius (Tigers in the Mud). He has one of the highest body counts (in regards to tanks) of all Tiger tank commanders and I do not recall hearing anything about angling the tank in his book. I could be wrong but I am quite certain that he always had his tank face the enemy straight on. He has at least 150 tank kills in Tiger tanks and he survived the war so clearly he was doing something right (although this might have been kncoking out tanks from 2000m). I'll read the book again, but I am fairly positive he never angled his tank.
 
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