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The people's tank

The people's tank


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nice quote:
The frontal armor of the Tiger II provided the best protection possible - the front turret was 180 mm inclined at 10 degrees from the vertical, compounded with a special designed mantlet, which was immune to penetration and being jammed. The glacis plate was a 150 mm thick plate inclined at 50 degrees from vertical. There is no proof that this frontal armor was ever penetrated in combat, even tough the British 17 Pounder, when using a special APDS ammunition, could theoretically penetrate the Tiger II front armor (front turret and lower front hull, only - the 17 Pounder could not penetrate the Tiger II glacis plate), but those APDS rounds were terrible inaccurate and had a tendency of ricochet off inclined armor such as was the lower front hull ( 100 mm inclined at 50 degrees from the vertical) of the Tiger II. Even the side and rear armor protection was sufficient to eliminate any serious threat from the American 75 mm or the Russian 76 mm tanks guns. The hull was welded, as was that of the Tiger I, but the armor was better sloped, using the experience of the T-34. Hull layout was similar to that of the Panther, and the large turret was roomy although the gun came right back to the rear wall and made a complete partition longitudinally
 
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nice quote:

The frontal armor of the Tiger II provided the best protection possible - the front turret was 180 mm inclined at 10 degrees from the vertical, compounded with a special designed mantlet, which was immune to penetration and being jammed. The glacis plate was a 150 mm thick plate inclined at 50 degrees from vertical. There is no proof that this frontal armor was ever penetrated in combat, even tough the British 17 Pounder, when using a special APDS ammunition, could theoretically penetrate the Tiger II front armor (front turret and lower front hull, only - the 17 Pounder could not penetrate the Tiger II glacis plate), but those APDS rounds were terrible inaccurate and had a tendency of ricochet off inclined armor such as was the lower front hull ( 100 mm inclined at 50 degrees from the vertical) of the Tiger II. Even the side and rear armor protection was sufficient to eliminate any serious threat from the American 75 mm or the Russian 76 mm tanks guns. The hull was welded, as was that of the Tiger I, but the armor was better sloped, using the experience of the T-34. Hull layout was similar to that of the Panther, and the large turret was roomy although the gun came right back to the rear wall and made a complete partition longitudinally
Eh so the test at Kubinka is bogus then? http://www.battlefield.ru/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=282&Itemid=124
 
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My Tiger II/Tiger I information is taken from Thomas L. Jentz "s "Panzer Tracts" which is one of the best German armor information book series around he has spent years researching German Tanks finding modifications or information that have gone scewed/or unnoticed by most.

Yes, and Wilbeck's work draws upon Jentz to give a more accurate picture of what the Tiger accomplished.

If you do a bit more reasearch than just quoting that same book youll find the Tiger II/Tiger I were not slow tanks (weight is of no consequence*) at all and even reports from Americans whom captured/tested the Tiger II reveal how surpriseingly quick and manuverable they were. When the Tiger II was driven on a non-"parade" surface like mud the Tiger II had very low ground psi pressure if Im not mistaken it was lower than the American Sherman tank meaning it could manuver very well even in thick mud due to its wide tracks and low ground psi. Its funny how you quote its slow speed but do not actually give numbers atesting to its slow behavior just the opinon of the author here are the numbers again this time from my book.
Weight is VERY much of consequence and has everything to do with mobility. The mobility of a tank doesn't simply refer to how fast it can turn or travel cross-country - it also has to do deal with what type of terrain it can negotiate without difficulties. It is a fact the Tiger did not perform well in soft, muddy terrain on the Eastern Front and had trouble traversing bridges which weren't made for such heavy vehicles. In such situations they were greatly confined to the terrain from which they could fight. The Tiger's first use in the East, in the Leningrad sector, is a prime example of this. The last major offensive in Hungary, Fr
 
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Why would the Germans waste limited resources on building almost 500 tanks full of drawbacks? The only drawbacks were its weight (bridges), its poor miles per gallon, and lack of proper maintenence. These drawbacks were more than countered by the benefits.

You make it sound like those things were minor hindrances. Yet, on the Eastern Front,

-there were very few quality roads and heavy-duty bridges
-Germany had a long, drawn-out supply network
-the Germans were faced with far more mobile and rapid T-34s

plus all that, Germany's fuel situation was going from bad to worse after 1943. Now, does that sound like an ideal situation to deploy a heavy, mobility-limited, gas-guzzling machine designed for offensive missions, when your armed forces are ever more on the retreat?
 
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You make it sound like those things were minor hindrances. Yet, on the Eastern Front,

-there were very few quality roads and heavy-duty bridges
-Germany had a long, drawn-out supply network
-the Germans were faced with far more mobile and rapid T-34s

plus all that, Germany's fuel situation was going from bad to worse after 1943. Now, does that sound like an ideal situation to deploy a heavy, mobility-limited, gas-guzzling machine designed for offensive missions, when your armed forces are ever more on the retreat?
hehehe:p its still a Great tank, also if i took you back to world war 2 and i told you, you have to pick 2 tanks to fight in a tank battle and one was a king tiger and one was js2, and you had to fight in one of them, what tank would you pick to fight that might save your life:p i rather be in a king tiger with a fast fire super gun and very good protection good optics then a slow 2 part ammo Js2:D
 
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hehehe:p its still a Great tank, also if i took you back to world war 2 and i told you, you have to pick 2 tanks to fight in a tank battle and one was a king tiger and one was js2, and you had to fight in one of them, what tank would you pick to fight that might save your life:p i rather be in a king tiger with a fast fire super gun and very good protection good optics then a slow 2 part ammo Js2:D

I'll take the IS-2, sincehthey RARELY engaged in tank combat, the chances of me dying are rather low. I was reading a book about Joe Beyrle, an American paratrooper of the 101st who served in a Russian armored battalion. Apparently towards the end of the war in 1945 Russian tanks almost never engaged in combat. This probaly changed a bit once they reached Berlin but it would seem that late war armored encounters were relatively rare.
 
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Sherman vs T-34.

1. It had very big mechanical resource.
2. Sherman's gun was much more effective against the armor . It had more modern shells. In all variants.
3. Sherman in areas having the developed road system could move very quickly. More quickly than Pz-3 and Pz-4 during blitzkrieg.
4. Sherman demanded less efforts and time for regular service.
5. Operating conditions of crew were very good.

Sherman was the main argument of the Soviet army during since summer 1943 till the summer 1944.

On the western front Shermans have been doomed to high losses.
They attack in the urbanized district, with high density of building. It is counter-indicative to any tanks. If Americans came with a small amount expensive, hand-made tank , they would not enter into Paris.



Hetzer vs jagdpanther.

1. Them was a plenty .
2. They were cheap and simple.
3. They demanded very little service.
4. They demanded very little gasoline.
5. To crews high qualification was not required. Often it were Beavis and Butthead from GitlerUgend.

The jagdpanther was great and horror . The jagdpanther was divine. But on east front it did not influence a situation in any way. Nothing depend on it .
On a situation on east front depend from Hetzer and Marder . Because them was a plenty . They were effective against T-34.
 
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While a truck doesn't weight that much, the king tiger has 70 tons. Of course, huge bridges that can carry 30 trucks could also endure one kingtiger, but you will not find many bridges like this. Just a smaller river with a small bridge over it, and the king tiger can not pass.

When you drive over smaller bridges over railways or smaller rivers, look out for signs about maximum weight. And those bridges will be newer, not from 1920 or earlier.
 
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>shrug< Me neither. Crossing bridges is a minor thing I'd say. The larger problem would be the supply lines issue. I've heard the quality of armor argument before (IE: about the brittleness of armor), which I'd be inclined to believe somewhat. I suspect that, while the quality of armor under ideal production circumstances would be quite good, as the war waged on and Germany's industrial capabilities were further reduced (along with their territory and access to whatever resources that territory had), armor quality could've suffered.

Likewise, with the 8th Air Force regularly bombing the hell out of German infrastructure and industry, replacement parts would've been harder to come by for the newer tanks than, say, for various Pz IV, Pz III, and StuG series of vehicles which were far more numerous to begin with.

I don't know the Tiger II's operational history in the field, but I think that any reports written by survivors would be somewhat biased -- after all, the guy who drove the Tiger II that suffered a mechanical breakdown in the field might've ended up dead or captured anyway. Obviously, the guy who survives the war and is never captured was probably driving a tank that was in better shape than those around him.

Now, that doesn't mean that the survivors couldn't have driven tanks that broke down too, but I'm talking more about breakdowns DURING a fight.


Regardless, I still think the Tiger II is unnecessary to add and doesn't really add anything to the game. It's just another german ubertank. We've already got the Panther for late war maps (which is basically unkillable from the front), we've got the Tiger I for early and mid-war maps, so why add another tank that'll just play the same as all the current ones?

Early war tank combat, as I've said, will require considerably different tactics to be successful -- for both sides, mind you -- and because tank designs were varied at that point, differences in design philosophies would be really interesting to explore.

I mean, imagine a matchup between German tankers fielding two Pz IIs, three Pz 38(t)s and two tag-teams of Pz III and Pz IVDs going up against a Russian force of T-26s, T-28s, T-60s, and BT-7s. That'd be WAY different from what we do currently.
 
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