Tiger II. aka, (King Tiger)

Yes it didn't

Yes it did

Glad you agree.

That's why they won the war right?

>how did the "King Tiger" preform in battle?
In battle it was borderline useless. Most ended up running out of gas or breaking down and abandoned. Certainly it would be fearsome in a tank duel... if it ever got the chance to actually be in one. It's weakness was being ridiculously overweight. It couldn't even cross most bridges.

By anti tank guns and mines. It spanked Herman tanks when it fought them.

Based stugs

they never started "mass producing" Tiger Bs

it was a heavy tank and it was organized into heavy tank companies used individually, attached to army corps

positive
>exceptional protection
>exceptional firepower
>exceptional accuracy

negative
>prone to mechanical failure
due to crews being hastly trained, gearbox issues and overall production problems
>very heavy
an entire engineer company HAD to be assigned to them, since the regular army engineers were unfamiliar for its need

it happened quite a few times they couldnt cros s a bridge because their engineers were lagging behind or the bridge elements were not present and the regular support couldnt fullfill its needs, prone to getting stuck on soft terrain

they performed exceptional in battle, they packed a punch but you have to understand thats due its low numbers
they were always used to punch a whole into defenses or hold key locations, where the enemy expected regular resistance

it is controversial a bit
it did happen they wiped out (2 Tiger Bs) almost an entire soviet guard T-34 column (24 vehicles), because the red army wanted to hastly reinforce a town currently contested
the enemy crossing a railroad were wiped out 1 by 1 since they didnt scout the area previously

on the other hand they could almost never fight in their full number since mechanical breakdowns were frequent, about half of the heavy batallion was always undergoing repairs

their main advantage was its effective firing range
while a t-34 could accurately fire and penetrate at around 400m-s, german panzers could do that 800+, tigers of both kinds even further

great advantage on the eastern front

I am wondering, what was the Germans' rationale behind the big cats? Especially the later ones, Tiger as a breakthrough tank makes sense and the Panther is not that bad (or big).

Were they genuinely convinced that building big, expensive tanks is militarily sound? That the resources would not be better dedicated to a [higher number] of reliable and battle-worthy models like the IV or the spgs?

Was it perhaps that they realized at that point they were fighting a losing/defensive war and thought these heavier models are better suited to that purpose?

Or was it that their military-industrial complex was at least to a degree not connected to the realities of the war, not pragmatic enough -- and by that I mean various rivalries, crazy ideas, Hitler's personal preferences etc. -- that they had built them?

Like, in the US a committee would say "no can't do, your models are too expensive, too big, can't ship them easily, different calibre..." but in Germany they would go "Ja! Your magnificent vehicle is so powerful it can take on ten enemy tanks! Let's built it immediately!"

I find it really interesting because their approach seems to go against common sense. To build as many reasonably good tanks as you can.

Or was precisely because they did not have the industry or resources to do the above that they decided on these heavier vehicles?

the tanks did well in stopping mechanized pushes by the soviets IIRC.

Their MIC was pretty up to date other than the parts with hitler fucking it up.

Honestly, a lot of bullshit the krauts came up with can be justified by saying that it was literally hitler.

Their tank designers were batshit insane

If I was Hitler I'd have whoever thought up the Ratte tank shot.

T-34 wasn't even the best soviet tank, all the cool kids used IS-2

Yea that's why later Tank development stemmed from their model... oh wait actually that's not true at all.

For the most part it was due to how German tank development had been planned before the War. The Panzer Divisions were never expected to leave Western Europe and the tank designs were ideal for fighting in those conditions.

It's easy to say More is Better with weapons development when you're dominating logistically in a war. 3 tanks is better than 1 but they take 2 more full crews, Fuel and ammunition and the Big cats usually had no problem meeting that 3 to 1 in the field.

Why it's fucking awesome and it was shelved in 1942 when things were still looking good.

A Battalion in Normandy could have changed the game.

If i was Hitler I would have ordered 5 thousand Mouses and a few hundreds of Rats since I'm gonna lose it anyway but at least i can have a giggle doing it.

>Why it's fucking awesome and it was shelved in 1942 when things were still looking good.
The Ratte wouldn't have even been able to go on roads. If it tried to on roads would sink into the ground, it wouldn't be able to lower its guns to fight off smaller tanks, it could be destroyed from the air, and altogether it would just be a brontosaurus surrounded by velociraptors if it ever got into a battle

the 34-75 were terrible and losses were huge compared to the germans only later when they put the 85 in it it became better being able to penetrate panthers

Dude

The Ratte would have been a gigantic fucking target for naval artillery and airstrikes. It would have been literally BTFO before accomplishing a single goddamn thing.

...

I just got trolled, didn't I?

But I'm talking about the Tiger II or the various Jagd-whatevers, you know, the heavy late war stuff. Those aren't prewar concepts, are they? I do get the resource shortage point, that makes sense.

A little but it's not like the designer should be shot. The man was a visionary.

Compared to other Krupp behemoths that actually got made the Ratte is a pretty conservative design. The Bagger 293 is over 14 times it's weight.

No they're not but the designers were the same school. With only a few hectic years to keep up with the newer demands on the front.

It's pretty much the same... or actually probably not quite as bad... as British tank designs sticking to redundant ideas really right up until 1943.

it was a literal meme tank, they built less than 500 in a war where literally millions of tanks were built, it was stupidly heavy, it broke down a lot, it was slow, why they thought these were a good thing to build is still a mystery.

>B-B-BUT ONE ON ONE THEY W-WERE STRONK

oh yeah that thing that happened literally fucking never

...

it's really hard to gauge the effectiveness of the Tiger B, because the ~400 that were made were rushed out when they weren't even ready, and during the final year of the war where Germany's resources were nearly evaporated.

On paper, the Tiger B was a beast, but it contradicted everything about wartime economics, to build as many of something as possible as cheaply as possible, whereas the entire Tiger program was absurdly expensive, putting unnecessary strain on production and resource management.

But if you could get the thing to a tank-on-tank battle, it would be king of the battlefield, as long as it didn't break down, bulk down, or run out of fuel on the way.

>tank
>Pics clearly show a StuG

Also, pretty much every tank could ram another one. Doesn't make it good.

Pedantic really. The original tank that earned their name didn't have a turret either to be fair. It's not unreasonable to use Tank as a blanket term for all tracked armour.

>ea that's why later Tank development stemmed from their model... oh wait actually that's not true at all.
That has nothing to do with whether ot not it was the best tank of WW2.
You don't gauge effectiveness on whether its used effectviely AFTER the war, ya silly.

The Panther was - in theory - the most modern tank of the war. I enjoy calling it my favorite tank of all time. Flawed, definitely, but very much a prototype of western MBT design.

>finnish Tiger II
Nice.

>telling your crazy boss (who's also your genocidal dictator) that his insane idea is bad
>wanting to live

his underlings picked the second one, over and over

The Jagdpanther was debatably the best casemate TD of the war.

You need big, heavily-armed tanks to support a breakthrough, especially when your artililery is subpar.

are you a drunk and angry vatnik or something?

>It's not unreasonable to use Tank as a blanket term for all tracked armour.
No it's completely unreasonable. How fucking retarded are you? German military itself differentiated between Tank (Panzerkampfwagen) and self-propelled assault guns (Gepanzerter Selbstfahrlafette für Sturmgeschütz), which happened to be the same fucking distinction made by every military in the world, because it was obvious as fuck that those two types of vehicles served completely different roles and had completely different capabilities.

Like they had in France and in the opening phases of Barbarossa, right?

Oh wait, no, you need fast tanks for that, not huge enormously well armed ones.

If they had proper time for testing and such, it could have been the best. The new turret with an 88mm would have been alot better too.

...

>You need big, heavily-armed tanks to support a breakthrough
Except that's counter to what literally everyone thought, Germans included.

Heavily armed tanks were meant to spearhead breakthroughs, not support or exploit them-medium tanks did this.

Consider suicide.

>Heavily armed tanks were meant to spearhead breakthroughs,

Hell, it was mostly infantry and artillery that were meant to create breaches in the enemy line; armor usually got called in because there was something noticed after the initial foray and the tanks, tactically, are faster than moving in field guns or similar stuff.

it looked sexy as fuck too

>outgunned Panzer 4
The KwK 40 had no problem with penetrating the T34.
In actuality it was the Panzer IV that outgunned the T34, as its slightly superior gun, superb optics and rangefinder (compared to the trash the Soviet tanks were equipped with), a much better field of vision (commander's cupola), and better trained crews in addition to better coordination among tanks made the Panzer IV superior. Though this was less so by the beginning of 1944 with the introduction of the T34-85.
When will this 'muh T34 sloped armor' meme end.

No it didn't. It didn't fight tanks. The whole point of the Sherman was to trash German infantry. That's why the 75mm was never upgunned as it did it's job well. If German tanks were encountered they'd be engaged by actual tank destroyers or more likely be destroyed by Allied ground attack aircraft.

The role of the Stug changed throughout the war. While initially intended to act in its original role as an assault gun providing close infantry fire support, it was realized that it would serve better armed with a high velocity anti tanks gun in a tank destroyer role. There is a reason many in the Heer wanted to transfer the Stugs from the artillery arm into the panzer arm, as the Stug's role had changed.

>No it didn't.
Except it did. They shit on everything they encountered, meme cats included.
>It didn't fight tanks
Except they did.
>The whole point of the Sherman was to trash German infantry.
Nope.

>That's why the 75mm was
Selected, because it offered excellent performance against most German armor without sacrificing killing power against bunkers, buildings, and infantry.

>never upgunned
Except it was.

>If German tanks were encountered they'd be engaged by actual tank destroyers
No, they'd be engaged with whatever was on hand, which is what was actually done.

Tank destroyers were for containing breakthroughs, which is an entirely different concept, you faggot.

From this book.

amazon.com/Data-World-War-Tank-Engagements/dp/1470079062

Please note the overall 3.6:1 K/D ratio in favor of the Shermans overall. Please note how they consistently would fire first, including a more than 50% fire first rate on tactical offense.

Shermans fought tanks. They fought tanks a fair amount, and tended to win.

lol

>In actuality it was the Panzer IV that outgunned the T34
Yeah maybe by the end of the war with gazillion upgrades.

>Except it did. They shit on everything they encountered, meme cats included.
No. Where are you getting this idea form?
>Nope.
Yes. The Sherman's intended role was to support the infantry.
>Selected, because it offered excellent performance against most German armor without sacrificing killing power against bunkers, buildings, and infantry.
I literally said that why are you trying to argue?
>never upgunned
What I was referring to is that the vast majority of production variants were equipped with the 75mm. The increased effectiveness against armor offered by the 76mm was too offset by the decreased HE capabilities of the gun. Some variants obviously were upgunned but most weren't for the above reason.
>If German tanks were encountered they'd be engaged by actual tank destroyers
Tank destroyers were kept on hand at the front. They were not just wasting around in the rear.

You seem to just want to be a contrarian cunt.

The Panzer IV was definitely outgunned in '41, since they were all Ausf F1s with short '75s.

>No. Where are you getting this idea form?
I don't know, maybe the actual combat performance of the tanks in question?

>Yes. The Sherman's intended role was to support the infantry.
Except nobody who designed or deployed it agrees.

>Tank destroyers were kept on hand at the front.
To prevent breakthroughs. Shermans didn't fucking hide and call for TDs on attacking armor, they engaged and destroyed it.

digitalhistoryarchive.com/uploads/2/5/4/1/25411694/article_by_us_army_tank_battalion_commander_-_tank_versus_tank_1946.pdf

>Americans still think they won the war
>Not realising it was 90% Russia and they only provided a small distraction

it's losses were mostly because the Red Army leaders were fucking retarded. At it's introduction, it blew anything the Germans had out of the water. They made the Panther specifically to counter it.

Millions of tanks were not built in World War 2. The most of any one tank was built was 50k Sherman tanks, and they were fucking spammed. The German Industry was getting the shit bombed out of it. I agree with you, but I'm just correcting some misconceptions you have there.

...

You're retarded. The only thing the T34 did was exist in mass. It was unreliable, early on it broke down at higher rates than the panther, its 76mm gun was not accurate, it was cramped, the 85mm gun was also not spectacular, less accurate than the German pz4s 75mm, yet had lower penetration at range. The t34 was likely inferior to the Sherman in most ways even, the t34 is a very average tank

Only tank of the war to shoot down a plane with its main cannon. No other arguments are valid.

The King Tiger was an excellent tank but by the time it was deployed the Germans couldnt support its production and logistics, not that it mattered because Germany also lacked tank crews. Either way the Tiger II was acceptably reliable, and even was faster than the Sherman on paced roads, and had a better per-square-foot weight on the ground through the tracks.

It was more like 75% percent but okay. I also didn't claim that the "Americans won the war"

>they only provided a small distraction

Even if the western allies only did 25% of the fighting in Europe is still was far from a "small distraction" even if it pales in comparison to the greatest conflict in human history, that being the Eastern Front. The movement of armies that size and all of their equipment across oceans was a monumental feat and has never been repeated in history.

The Pz4 was basically horse shit by 1944, it only performed well in the East where it could be used to pick off tanks on a Russian advance and retreat before they were even in the range of the Russians.
There are some things people don't realize, Germany handled the more expensive Tiger and Panther construction fairly well, and the tanks performed acceptably, only by the time the Russians had overrun the Balkans had it become a serious negative, and by then Germany was finished anyway. Germany's REAL tank struggle was getting the trained manpower. The Germans had Panthers sitting in factories because they didnt have crews to put in them. Ideally, however, Germany should have been more cost effective

>very much a prototype of western MBT design.
nonsense

>The Sherman's intended role was to support the infantry.
the american field manuals of the time literally, explicitly, black-on-white say that (one of) the role of the medium tank is to fight enemy tanks
which they did quite successfuly, as evidenced for example by a better losses caused/taken ratio in tank-on-tank engagements

>What were its weaknesses?
>18-20km/h cross country

It was slower than a frigging bicycle.

73.23% or 34.5*10^6 Wct (Warcontributions)

Its faster than a Sherman on roads though

Whats the conversion factor?

Non linear to imperial units

1 Wct = 1766 + 5.13*JDYh (Yanke Doodle Yeeehaw)

1776 obviously*

But the USSR made 10 T-34's for every IS-2, the T-34 was the more important tank.

I mean how do you solve for Wct's from percent...are there weighted values? Is the percent a direct correlation to Wct's or just a similar measure?

You tally up the Wcts and do a simple division.

For source see: Uncle Joe's guide to memetic wave tactics and the post World War 2 dialectic of memes, p. 9001

>If I was Hitler I'd have whoever thought up the Ratte tank shot.
So...Hitler?

> Tiger II. aka, (King Tiger)

Advantages:
Well laid out, very heavy armor
Powerful gun

Disadvantages:
Too few of them
Too big
Too heavy
Too slow
Too unreliable
Short ranged
Burned too much gas (2.5+ gallons per mile)
Could only cross reinforced bridges
Used a fuck loads of resources that would have been better spent on upgraded Panzer IVs.

They weren't that slow or unreliable.

>upgraded Panzer IVs with sloped armor
I can only dream, would have been sexy as fuck

The turret ring and suspension were bigger issues than lack of sloped armor.

Was there even any vehicle the Germans had capable of towing a Tiger II?

>The turret ring and suspension were bigger issues than lack of sloped armor.

The Panzer IV's 75mm L/48 gun was more then sufficient for everything short of super heavy tanks and the same thickness of armor when sloped, provides superior protection without increasing weight.

The Panther and King Tiger were a waste of effort and resources Germany could ill afford at the time, an improved Panzer IV and slightly improved Tiger I (slope the front hull armor) was all that was needed.

Well, the issue with the Panther is its gun wasn't particularly good at shooting at much other than tanks. Its HE charge was anemic in comparison.

There was a recovery tank using a Tiger I chassis. I'm unsure of its usefulness.

>The Panzer IV's 75mm L/48 gun was more then sufficient for everything short of super heavy tanks
The 85mm on the T-34-85 made it capable of being an actual threat to Panthers and Tigers. The 75mm L/48 was sufficient for dealing with T-34s and M4s.

>the same thickness of armor when sloped, provides superior protection without increasing weight.
By your argument, the PzIV's unsloped armor was more than sufficient for it's medium duties and would have been unlikely to make much of a difference versus the Allies' upgunned tanks.

every panzer div had a mechanic/repair company
which used modified tanks to tow in damaged vehicles (from the battlefield, sometimes under fire)
bergepanthers, bergetigers etc

besides, they often towed eachother to save fuel

>PzIV discussion

it had its suspension overloaded by the time it reached its H variant, which is considered the best

its protection was not sufficient by late war

you have to understand how armored combat worked

main threat:
anti tank guns of various calibers, a pzIV couldnt withstand those shots, even from a distance more than 400 meters, even as small caliber of 57mm could stop them

secondary threat:
enemy armor, its off road capabilities were horrid, they could get stuck or flat out break down, not a good thing under fire or manouvering, since allied armor prefered shooting panzers in the real or the side

another reason to replace the PzIV is the manpower shortage
i mean, as young as a 20y old commander could be considered a combat veteran
you cant afford losing them daily, heavier armored tanks were meant to protect them

>hurr sloped armor fixes everything
Sloped side armor limits turret size and internal capacity unless you want the hull hanging out and past the tracks. Sloping in the front interferes with MG depression and drivers port designs, although you can work around that. However it's especially a problem with front transmissions because you have to figure out how to fit the driver in there, have a low profile, and keep visibility, which is why the panther and Tiger II use those periscopes on top of the hull. It also changes where the center of gravity is because you can't offset part of it towards the middle of the tank. Sloped armor might ricochet smaller rounds, but makes the armor more vulnerable to overmatch.

Well, overmatching isn't more of a threat because of sloped armor, it's a threat because sloped armor will be thinner than flat armor assuming the same or similar design.

the germans had bad tanks. the tiger and panther were too complicated to mass produce, afaik the tiger couldnt fire while moving. the panzer mk iv wasnt bad but it was outdated. the t-34 is easily the best tonk of ww2

Somebody should make a
>"with upgrades like these you never stood a chance"
Meme for late war T34s

>What were its weaknesses?
Godawful overengineering. Transmission fires, suspension breakdowns, engine failure. You name it, the Bengal Tiger (That's the proper translation of Koenigstiger) suffered from it. Meme guns and armour do not make a good tank

>very much a prototype of western MBT design.

The Panther is a cute tank for sure but the one that inspired the MBT concept was the Centurion.

Not him, but can you really count the Centurion for a WW2 tank thread? AFAIK they were never used in combat in WW2, their first fight was in Korea.

tiger2 was the only tank(not including tank destroyers) didnt get penetrated from front or so i heard. is this true

As far as I know, there's no photographic evidence of it, and that late in the war, they usually did take photos of tanks they killed for future study purposes; so in all likelihood, no, there were no Tiger 2s frontally penetrated.

Of course, there's a difference between "Can't be frontally penetrated' and "wasn't frontally penetrated". And especially given their low numbers and high rates of mechanical failure and needing to be abandoned in the field, I'm not entirely certain how many tigers were actually destroyed by penetrating shots to begin with.