Rare film from the "German war files" pack Uploaded only for research and informational purposes only. legal: I do not own any right on this film, nor I will keep it public if any copyright claim will be raised.
Well said! While the Tiger did have some mechanical reliability issues, it was far more ahead than any other tank of its time from an engineering standpoint. The Transmission and steering system alone was a work of art, pedals and a steering wheel just like a car or truck with basic controls made driving the tank very easy for 1 person.
Well, it did have serious problems. Reliability was terrible. It was too complex for the time. More than a few broke down just a short time after leaving the factory. Reliability wasn’t considered to be a problem with the design or manufacture, due to the intent of use. It was intended to lead as a breakthrough tank that would be quickly withdrawn to rear lines, taken out of service and refurbished, then used in the next breakthrough. Unfortunately for them, by the time it came out, they couldn’t use it for that purpose as the were retreating, not moving forward, other than in a few, small areas, and so the tank had to be used as a standard tank. But it used far too much fuel for that, about a gallon per half mile, and reliability and lack of parts resulted in large numbers being abandoned, or being knocked out.
Definitely better than any American or Russian tank (T-34 was not bad) and American and Russian tanks had reliability issues also especially being mass produced and German thanks being taken more time to produce each one.
@zoricatasic5952 huh nice, I'm gonna read into that, that is definitely interesting. With you saying tank engines are lowest quality. So wired to think that, since you know war time has to be the best idea to put a new piece of combat equipment out test. You think the engines would be super high quality instead of the lower ones lol
Heavy tanks have unique roles and even todays heavies need lot's of maintenance. I served as a crewman (driver) in Chieftains during the 70's in W. Germany and the breakdown rate was horrendous and whenever possible we moved them by rail or road transporters - unless bugging out to our pre determined defensive positions.
In my opinion, this is the tank most WW2 tankers wished they had got when the AP shot began to fly. Its somewhat problematic shatchtellaufwerk made it such a stable gun platform that fire on the move (albeit slowly) was a viable tactic (cf Wittman et al). The KwK36 was a fine, flat trajectory, weapon capable of a fairly high rate of fire, which, coupled with optics that were acknowledged as the standard to which all others ascribed, gave Tiger legendary lethality, especially at long range.
Thanks for posting this video. Really interesting footage. I am not sure about Tiger 131 (Tiger I), but somewhere near the movie end you can see Tiger 233 (Tiger II), and I think it is the one that now is in France (Saumur Museum), and was/is restored to running conditions.
Chieftain explains the tiger development a bit better and differently. I don’t think the design commission said the gun would be the 88, rather, they wanted a high velocity gun and originally planned on the 76 later used in the panther. That gun needed more tungsten for its rounds than was thought was available and so the design team changed over to the 88 for the tiger
The tiger was the best tank germany ever produced in ww2 especially when it was piloted by a well trained crew. I can see why the tiger was so dangerous and very lethal in world war 2.
Even when the Soviets employed the JS-2 and T-34/85's they still had issues with even the Panthers and Tiger I's. Battlefield reports show over and over just how incompetent the Russian tankers were. Lucky for them, they had plenty to waste. Attrition defeated the Germans on all fronts.
That's right, the Russians belt-fed their tanks into combat never expecting one to make it more than week. They could care less about crew training, tactics, or anything like that, just drowned out the enemy with sheer numbers. Must be terrible to be in that army.
Yes they were. All 90 of the preproduction Porsche Tigers were so converted and used quite a lot, both in the East and in Italy. Their chasses were overloaded with the excess weight of all that armor, so automotive performance was terrible, but, applied to a defensive war of attrition in a land of many mountains, deep gorges, of wild rivers and very few roads suitable for strategic mobility, they proved extraordinarily effective.
Just to see these Heavy Tanks 70+ years after their use in anger still conveys their awesome might and I have to raise my hat to the men who had to withstand them at the time. Brave men I'm sure.
When folks get together to discuss the "best tanks" of WW2, the conversation commonly goes right to the larger German tanks...but seldom do we hear how the road life of the Panther was a measly 100 miles before break down or overhaul. Plus, the Panther with it's overlapping road wheels meant the entire wheel sets had to be removed by the crew just to change a single wheel. The Tiger was always vastly under powered for it's weight and had to have all of it's wide road wheels and tracks removed to transport them on the trains to get them anywhere as they were too darned wide for the trains!. (No way to run an army, lol) These tanks were eventually defeated by the much lighter Sherman M4's, and T34's not because of their numbers...but because of their reliability...the fact that unless knocked out...ALL Shermans sent to the front STAYED at the front.
Someone once said that WW2 from the material aspect was trial between quality (German) and quantity (Allies).. Until someone wiser said: Quantity has a quality all of its own..
Depends what you take as a strength. Tiger tanks did have drawbacks. It ain't like they were perfect tanks. They were far from perfect tanks despite having the most armor, and powerful gun. Tiger tanks had their own weaknesses. They were too expensive, and had poor reliability, or durability to stay in the battlefield without malfunction. The most powerful gun the Tiger tanks had was the L71 88mm. Sure it was powerful, but also very heavy. The turret turned very slowly to acquire new targets, which allowed Shermans in larger numbers to outnumber and out maneuver the gun targeting acquisation and get the weak spot of the Tiger. Acquiring new targets as quickly as you can is very important in today's tank warfare. British Challenger 2 has a unique system of acquiring the next target while the previous target is being fired on. If the Germans used their medium tanks with their 75mm guns, they would of done better. Tiger tanks never really had a significant impact on the war as a whole. Simply not many of them. StuGs were cheaper to build, and did most of the anti tank damage.
lol, German tanks were built by prisoners of war that wanted germany to burn. Many were sabotaged before they left the factory, also the tanks were all over engineered, very hard to fix in the field. and there boggie wheel track system with 21 boggies on each side tended to have mud freeze the wheels solid, and they ended up bieng abandon by the crew. On paper ..Great tanks...in the field they killed pretty much everything they aimed at, if they could get the tank into position to fire......
craig spencer whatever mate, Shermans were defenceless, thats why they had to go around behind to kill a tiger. Even the tank crews DISLIKED the sherman because of the weak "gun" do somemore research mate. My opinion would not change, Tiger is a better tougher tank on paper, the sherman is a more reliable and dependable tank, as for match up against each other.. apples and oranges mate..
The General who inspecting Tiger with Manstein is 4 star Turkish General Cemil Cahit Toydemir. He was special guest of Heer. After that visit and series inspection and observation, he came to a conclusion that Nazi Germany would lose the war.
Lanchester equations described relative losses, based on numerical ratios. It suggests that numbers win unless one side is overwhelmingly more competent. After 2 years of war, the remaining Soviet commanders had learned a lot.
The Sherman was more mechanically sound than the Tiger, needing less maintenance and was more reliable. The Tiger was plagued with all kinds of engine troubles and spent more time in the work shops than on the road. The fact is that the engine could not cope with the 52 tons of the tank and this led to frequent seizures and breakdowns. The tracks on the Tiger and road wheels were also much more difficult to replace than on other tanks. Once 17 pdrs were fitted to Shermans the Allies had a tank that could match the Tiger, the 17 pdr was superior over the Tiger's 88 and when Sabot ammunition appeared on the scene the guns performance was greatly improved. One important advantage the Firefly had over the Tiger, was the fact that the Tiger's turret took to long to rotate, this often allowed regular Shermans with 75 mm to swing round to the flanks of the German tanks as they could move faster than the turret could turn. However the Germans too had an advantage, and that is the fact that they were often defending, all the Tiger had often to do was go into a hull down position and wait for the enemy to come to them. That said I believe in an open field the Firefly would beat the Tiger, simply because the Fireflies turret can turn at twice the speed of the Tiger's and in any such fight the winner would be the tank which got off the first shot and scored a hit. The problem with the Sherman catching fire was solved in 1944 with the invention of a new kind of ammunition storage called Wet Ammunition Storage which was designed to prevent ammo fires, if you google wet ammunition storage you can read all about it. Normal procedure was to attach three Fireflies to an armoured regiment, there were no all Fireflies Regiments in World War Two, instead they were sent to units to give support to the other less well armed tanks.
+likesmilitaryhistory Alan Moore The Tiger I was very maneuverable for its weight and size, and superior to the Sherman in muddy terrain, despite its size and weight, as it had less ground pressure. This capability was provided by the the combat tracks of 755 mm width, which resulted in a ground pressure of 15.0 psi, or 1.05 kg/cmSure you would be correct the Tiger would need more maintenance, and it was a issue.In May, 1943, the Maybach HK 230 P45 engine with two air filters was installed, and the transmission was improved. The new engine, also a V-12 water-cooled gasoline engine, with a capacity of 23.88 liters, had a power output of 700 bhp at 3,000 rpm. With this upgrade the Tiger's performance improved in normal use, but the transmission was still weak for the stress of the power generated by the engine moving the weight of the tank at maximum output, and preventive maintenance continued to be an imperative. Still though, the Tiger if properly maintained was a formidable machine, but like any armored vehicle it needs a lot of logistics and a crew that knows what their doing.
+likesmilitaryhistory Alan Moore If you mention the rather weak powerplant, you should also mention the reason for it, wich is the 24/7 bombing of Germany's industry, destroying the factories producing more powerfull engines in the process, you make it sound like German engineers were not capable of developing a more powerfull engine.On top of that, you mention the track wheels being a nightmare for maintenance, this is true but is also had huge advantages, this construction made the very heavy tank constructions possible by evening out the weight over the tracks, and made the tanks very stable on the move, resulting that they could fire on the move even over rough terrain.
By the way, Churchill's political career lasted 64 years. He was in fact re-elected as Prime Minister for another four years from 1951-1955. He was and is one of the most popular British Prime Ministers in history. Halifax, initially in favour of appeasement, served as British Ambassador In Washington. It was Attlee who was elected in 1945. Britain wanted peace under the Labour Party after war under the Conservatives. Attlee had been a member of the wartime coalition cabinet with Churchill.
I think somebody should use the war footage of the Tiger to make a documentary in the style of a wildlife film (like the ones made about tiger cats); showing how the Tiger tank stalks its prey and or how he socializes with other Tiger tanks and how lesser tanks deal with him and stuff like that.
At around 29 minutes it is said that the Tiger was always welcomed by the infantry when seen in their combat sector which I won't argue with seeing as, thank God, the fact that I wasn't there, but I had always been informed that the infantry loved and relied mostly on their Stug 3's and 4's for support and that the presence of Tigers inferred that the coming battle was going to be one in which no quarter was given or received and that their sector was in the main direction of battle, hence the appearance of the Tigers. Therefore I would think the appearance of these tanks would cause trepidation rather than elation.
Excellent all these German War Files, to see close up details for modeling HO German WWII layout, my father who was a WWII VET often talked that equipment was all the place. I often wonder ? How much better these large tanks would have been with diesel engines and better transmissions. GO ARMY
The Tiger spent more time in the workshops than it did in actiuon or on the road as its engine was unreliable, it is one thing having a big tank with a powerful gun (Though the 88 was inferior to the 17pdr when firing Sabot) it is not much good if you cannot get it from A to B. The Panther was a better tank, more reliable and easier to work on. The Tiger was indeed deadly on the battlefield but the problem was getting it to the battlefield. One major draw back was that the turret moved way to slowly, giving a chance for faster less well armed tanks to work around the flanks of the Tiger by moving faster than the turret could turn. In a stand up fight out in the open against a tank that had a gun that could punch through the frontal armour of the Tiger, the slow turning speed of the turret would have been a major draw back, as a Sherman;s turret could turn at twice the speed of aTigers I would not rate the chance of a Tiger against a Sherman fitted with a 17pdr of the later 76 mm High velocity cannon (Easy Eights). All the nimbler Sherman had to do was keep ahead of the turning turret and then put a shell into the Tiger when the chance was offered. One other thing, the problem of Shermans bursting into flames (Tommy cookers they were sometimes called) had nothing to do with the type of fuel carried but rather to do with the way the ammunition was stored, this was sorted out in 1944 with a new storage system called Wet Ammo storage. Wet stowage consisted of surrounding the ammunition stowage bins with a water/gylcerine mixture held in an outer hollow casing. The idea was that the water mixture would pour out over any penetration of the bins by enemy AP shot/ shell fragments thereby preventing or at least slowing ammunition fires. This modification appeared in Feb 44 on late production M4A3s A US Army study showed that 10 - 15% 0f wet stowage Shermans burned compared with up to 80% of dry stowage vehicles. Albert Speer recounted in his autobiography Inside the Third Reich-----On the southwestern front (Italy) reports on the cross country mobility of the Sherman have been very favorable. The Sherman climbs mountains our tank experts consider inaccessible to tanks. One great advantage is that the Sherman has a very powerful motor in proportion to its weight. Its cross-country mobility on level ground is, as the 26th Panzer Division reports, definitely superior to that of our tanks[97]
+likesmilitaryhistory Alan Moore let me say just this. The traverse speed of Tiger and Tiger's turret was as same or better than on most of the allied tanks. it's around 30 degrees per second. I didn't bother reading rest of your comment...
+likesmilitaryhistory Alan Moore Initially, yes. The Tiger had reliability problems. That is expected from a new weapon. But lets have a look at combat ready rates of tanks after 1 year of service in Germany in WWII. Tiger I- 70-75% depending on the unit using it, Tiger II- 80%, Panther- 65%, Panzer IV- 70-75% (depending on unit). Kind of blows the whole 'Tigers spent more time being repaired than fighting' myth away, doesn't it? You can not report a tank as combat ready if it isn't. Now, lets compare German tanks to their contemporaries. Russian T-34- 50-55%, KV-1- 40%, IS-2 55%, M4 Sherman- 90%. So really, the only tanks in the world during WWII that were more reliable than the Tiger's was the M4 Sherman tank. But you are also making a fundamental comparison flaw here.... Heavy tanks should not be compared to mediums, as their roles are completely different. Compare the Tiger's to other heavies, and the big cats out class other heavies with better armor, mobility and reliability. The only area the Tigers lose out in is gun size to the IS-2, but that 122mm was a poor choice for a tank. the 100mm would have been a better choice there.
you sir, are dumb and missinformed. The Poles did not break the Enigma nor would have they done so. It was broken after the allies captured a machine from a U-boat that surrendered somewhere in 1942 i think. That helped them. Then they found the "secred code" transmited by radio every day by "Weather Information" , giving clues as to how to decode Enigma and what wheels to use. Its impossible to hack, crack or break the Enigma Machine, there are more combinations then planets in the whole universe. Its basically impossible to break without having the machine. The Poles broke the basic early version using 2 wheels. First models. Late Nazi models used 3 and later 4 chipers. Only reason it was dechipered its because the germans did not continue to update the machine and change key signals or dumb operators basically saying the procedure over radio as "Sunny weather over Norway" in mid- December....Obvious. But the poles didnt do much in WWII, thats just Allied pushed propaganda. Really Poland had no chance. Zero. Its the russians who won the war.
The brilliance of Rommel is something of a myth driven by the nazi propaganda machine to maintain support and good feeling about the war at home. Sure, he had a firm grasp on strategy, tactics and how to fight battles, he had some brilliant successes on the field. However, the vast majority of his victories occurred when he held the advantage in quantity and quality of troops and fighting vehicles. As the number of British troops increased and the quality of the tanks they used were improved, Rommel did not fare so well, no different to other under resourced commanders would have fared regardless of nationality. Of course, the genius status bestowed on Rommel suited the British also, it gave them an excuse to explain away their early defeats by the hand of this genius German.
I agree with everything you said except one: "it would be better to build a zillion T34s or M4s". This sounds like a good idea from a purely number point of view, but people forget that there were 3 to 5 men in every one of those tanks. A simpler, cruder version of the Panther and Jagdpanther (same guns and armor with a more reliable transmissions and simpler construction) would have been the way to go imho. Add a faster electric turret and gyro stabilizer and you've really got something!
All us tanks in WWII had stabilized guns, Stabilizer was produced by westinghouse, and permitted a 70% chance of first round hit while moving over moderately rough grounds. by contrast, German tanks by regulation, were not permitted to fire on the move, as they were highly inaccurate. One Panther had a US stabilizer fitted to it as an experiment, but never used it in action.
Interesting and informative excellent photography job making it easier for viewers to better understand what the orator was describing. Historians did a very good job presenting actual facts from fiction. Class A research project!!! Orator presented the documentary very well. Rough combat operations on both sides.
Talking about transportation for the Tiger. In Germany and the rest of Europe it was a problem since most railway equipment wasn't built wide enough to properly transport a very large and wide heavy vehicle like the Tiger. Railways in Europe outside of the Soviet Union had clearance issues due to the vast majority of European countries using Standard gauge. In the Soviet Union this wasn't a problem like elsewhere since they use the broad 5ft Russian gauge which meant that railway equipment could be built bigger, wider and heavier. This help the Germans in their logistics especially when it came to transporting their larger and more powerful tanks.
Treaty of Rapallo- soviets and germans were allies before the war in developing armor equipment and tactics. Soviets were equipped with krupp guns and maxim machine guns.
I've said it many times before but it bears repeating. The Tiger 1 was undoubtedly the best heavy tank brought to bear against allied forces due to it's heavy armor plate and it's high velocity 88mm gun. Unfortunately each Tiger lost meant 1 less tank for Germany to field against the allied onslaught. That and no one was bombing American tank factories.
Interesting that the "IS-1" and "IS-2" is referenced as "JS-1" and "JS-2" in the video - they were named after Iosuf Stalin, English name version is "Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin", but the original Georgian is "Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili", in Cyrillic "Сталин, Иосиф Виссарионович", so probably the "IS" is more appropriate, and widely known. Not sure how the red army referred to it, though.
11:06 Cemil Cahit Toydemir and other Turkish generals. They visited to eastern front, before the battle of Kursk. They watched and tested german heavy tanks (tiger, panther etc.) also they visited German Atlantic line, pbs.twimg.com/media/DyeqXnnWkAEcui9.jpg
It is certain that CITADEL failed and in no way were the Germans positioned to even score a partial victory. The Germans did not fail, however, due to a defeat at Prokhorovka. There was no “death ride of the panzers” on July 11 and 12. Nor was there a very big battle on those dates. It’s time to put to rest the fanciful notions of waves of Tiger and Panther tanks riding across the dry, dusty plains to do battle with Soviet tanks at point-blank range. It just didn’t happen. The battle at Prokhorovka was the largest tank battle in history. This is probably the most-repeated claim about CITADEL. It is also misleading and almost certainly wrong. The typical claim is that the battle at Prokhorovka was massive, involving two thousand tanks. While a significant battle, it was nowhere near as large as the myth supposes. One way people arrive at inflated numbers is to assume that all three SS Panzergrenadier divisions participated. In fact, only one, the Liebsstandarte Adolf Hitler (LSSAH) fought this battle. The other two were on the flanks of the LSSAH (Totenkopf on the left, and largely across the Psel River, and Das Reich on the right) and were fighting their own separate battles. At the time of the battle, LSSAH had already been in combat for about a week and was substantially depleted. By July 11th and 12th, the two main days of the battle, LSSAH was down to about 100 tanks, assault guns, and tank destroyers (not including observation tanks). The Soviet units that participated in the battle at Prokhorovka were the 18th and 29th Tank Corps, along with a separate detachment under General Trufanov. These units combined were able to field about 421 tanks, assault guns, and tank destroyers. So, contrary to the popular claims of “thousands” of tanks fighting it out in front of Prokhorovka, we have about 517, of which 455 were actually “tanks”. I have provided data for the number of on-hand (that is, ready to fight) armored fighting vehicles for July 10, 11, and 12. Note that these numbers fluctuate for a variety of reasons: temporary losses due to damage, permanent losses due to destruction, and returns from repair shops. Russian tanks rammed German ones. This fanciful notion has Soviet tanks, knowing that their guns would be ineffective against the tough German armor, close to point-blank range and begin to ram German tanks to knock them out. Hogwash! There is in fact no evidence of this. It never appears in any reports, German or Soviet. The stories of tank ramming typically focus on KV tanks ramming Tigers. Considering there were a grand total of 1 KV tank (most certainly a command tank) and only 4 Tigers, this is incredibly unlikely. Rather, these stories are a product of embellished accounts, and propagandized Soviet versions designed to “play up” the fierceness of the battle so as to justify their losses. Note too that hardly any of the German AFVs present (just the 4 Tigers) had armor that would be able to consistently withstand Russian firepower. The only documented instance of tank-ramming I am aware of is in Normandy, when a British Sherman rammed a German Tiger. Hitler called off CITADEL because the Americans and British landed on Sicily and the Germans needed to shift forces to the western front. This component of the overall myth of Kursk is undoubtedly due to western authors trying to increase the otherwise paltry contributions of the western allies in 1943. In actual fact, the German units on the southern face of the Kursk salient received new orders to renew their attacks several days after the landing on Sicily. Hitler called off CITADEL not because a couple of British and American divisions were attacking a strategically insignificant island in the Mediterranean, but because the Soviets had (1) blunted and stalled the German CITADEL offensive, and (2) launched their own massive offensives on the flanks of the German attack. These attacks soaked up reserves the Germans had planned on using to complete the destruction of the Kursk salient. Without them, the Germans were too weak to continue CITADEL and they began withdrawing their units.
Way to go, Paul !!! It's been so long since I have seen or heard of the way this Battle Royale really ran. More people should read Paul Carell's two volumes: 1) Hitler Moves East -- 1941-43, and 2) Scorched Earth -- 1943-44. He has always been my go to guy on matters of the Eastern Front. No where else did that great strategic thinker -- Corporal Hitler, show more of his mastery of the interference call.
@@cwcsquared First of all, I appreciate you Reading my Artikel. I’m sorry to disagree. In contrast what is the main believe of this battle, at the day of the battle only four Tigers were involved. Sources may differ, but after the fight, one of them was beyond repair. I would recommend you , if you’re really into this battle, to read this study “ Kursk, the German view’ from Steven H Newton. He did an in-depth study of the German war day reports of all the involved units. He also did research on de deployment of these units in the aftermath of the battle. You should not forget, the Soviet commanders had to come up with a story to explain there losses. These were the days of Stalin. Mistakes good get you in the Gulag easily.
What I see that the main things that made the heavy german losses on their vehicles were maintenance, fuel, and quantity. If they got more of those they probably win (or last longer)
Yep, Mother Russia presented itself as cannon fodder while Mother Nature took out the Germans and their material. Meanwhile, the rest of the allies took advantage of this distraction and consentrated their efforts towards taking out German war infrastructure, gnawing at the ankles like a pack of hyenas. Day and night bombed German industrial cities, faught for oilfields in North Africa, harassed logistics, etc. Then, like hyenas, they moved in for the kill when their prey seemed weakened. Other honorable mentions are British intelligence and Hitler's incompetence. They both played significant roles.
First, what about the Tiger I's? They get to the end of the retreat across France, and then switch to the Tiger II. If I was someone who knew nothing about it, I would surmise that they pulled all of the Tiger I's out of service and replaced them with Tiger II's after the II's came into service. The Tiger I went out of production, but the remaining ones styed and fought on until the end of the war. Also kind of a pain in the ass when he's suddenly like "this rare variant is a command vehicle for remote controlled demolition vehicles, which can be seen in the previous footage of the fighting in Warsaw"...it would have been nice to know what I was looking at WHILE I was watching it. I didn't see any remote controlled mini-tanks; I'm suppose to skip back and find that section again if I want to see them? Wouldn't have killed them to show the footage again; it was only like a few seconds long. Speaking of footage, you can tell a lot of this "combat" footage is actually faked, filmed to look like combat. Usually, if all the soldiers are hugging the ground "taking cover from heavy fire", yet the camera is obviously being held by a man standing up in the open, it's not real. And the ones with guys sticking their heads up out of foxholes, pointing at the enemy...either it's fake, or it was filmed while they weren't in contact, and he's just pointing out geographical features or something. No experienced soldier sticks his head up when he's under fire, especially not for more than a split second. And of course, the footage of the Red Army troops taking the flag into the Reichstag....you can "hear" the "heavy combat" in the background, guns firing, yet they kind of calmly walk up the front steps, carry the flag to the roof, making sure to pose for the cameraman that followed them up....I will bet $20 that that is footage filmed shortly after the battle, a re-enactment for posterity. It also looks nothing like the still photo of the Red Army soldier leaning out over the edge to fix the Soviet flag to the flag pole, and the fact that there is a representative of like every single racial group in Russia present suggests propaganda film. Although, maybe not...there should be at least one woman present as well, in that case.
They brought Churchill back because they were mired in Korea and they knew they needed a strong leader during war. Churchill was one of the few pre-ww2 leaders in Europe who did not see communism as the only answer to fascism (or vise versa). He was exactly what Britain needed in 1940 imho. As for Hitler's offer of peace with Britain - how perfect that would have been for him: wander freely through Europe with Britain watching the seas! Cheers.
Color will never be as good as old school footage :) The only color I would have liked to have seen is zimmerit paste applied to a Tiger upfront , close and personal :D
11 лет назад
I live in a socialist country, not a capitalist one. We have all those things you talk about, but for real. We don't have any Siberia, never had, and no mass graves with people that didn't do anything to deserve to die.I have polish friends who told me about USSR freedoms, how it was all show and if you tried to make some money sawing coats you ended up in prison. German friends who told me about the murders, rapes and looting that happened in the last months of WW2. Yes, plague or cholera...
Except that in Britain these sterilisations never took place, which they did in Nazi germany. Many people of the time believed in eugenics, none more so than those who considered themselves the master race. In Germany by the end of the war 400,000 were sterilised as a result of Hitler's Law for the Prevention of Hereditary Diseased Offspring passed in July 1933. Lots of people were confused about racial purity/inferiority in those days. A few still are.
And Hitler did not expect as well the efficiency of the Lend-Lease programm. Soviets received a lot of stuff from the USA, while they were supposed to have very bad logistics.
Jabotinsky's quote is from the year AFTER the Nazis began systematic persecution of German Jews so irrelevant. The Common Defence Pact contained a clause specifying Germany as the aggressor. Emnity existed between Poland and Russia following the Russian - Polish War of 1920. The allies correctly judged that Nazism was more of an immediate threat and declared war on Germany, preferring to keep the Soviets on-side in light of the transparently duplicitous Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. That's why.
I think the Germans could have simplified the design of this vehicle so that it could be mass produced easier but I think it makes sense to have an excellent tank as the Germans did not have that much troops and having a tank equal to 4 of the enemy's effectively multiples the power of the limited number of troops.
One could say Poland was an ally, getting a few bits of Czechoslovakia, but not US or GB. Weimar had Treaty of Rapallo with USSR, and Guderian served in USSR developing armored tactics. After Hitler got in in 1933, he didn't like commies, but the von ribbentrop molotov pact was a military cooperation treaty- an alliance with military and trade provisions and coordinated aggressive foreign policy
The US used light tanks for recconnaissance, and usually found paths where there were NO German tanks. 95% of german divisions had no tanks. Panther did have neutral steer, but early Panther suffered low turrent traverse rates (60 seconds for 360 degrees) and later required driver to shift to neutral and rev engine to get high rate vs M-4 (15 seconds for 360 degrees). T-34 had 13 seconds for 360 degree. Sherman was an offensive tank. Panther was an overpriced antitank gun.
Love the Liszt "Les Preludes" opener. Good post, very interesting... yaaaay for the 88's! A big problem for the Germans was the plethora of models in production and the difficulty of field repair and issues with parts interchangeability that plagued the soviets less.. The soviets were able to use the weather and the rasputitsa to their benefit...
WOT is World Of Tanks, an MMO which is based on modeling WW2 Tanks, SPGs, and TDs. It's a lot of fun as far as PvP battles against balanced forces go, but there is no PvE or "campaign" mode outside of the PvP dialectic. (PvP stands for Player versus Player and PvE stands for Player versus Environment). It consists, in the main, of short, sharp fought, battles, followed by "garage" time where you repair, reload, and decide on which AFV you'll try next. Tiger is in that game, too. ;-)
Amazing footage of the German Soldier being decorated with the Iron Cross right on the battlefield . Imagine how he felt at the time . Sad that he probably died in the war.
Curious on how well the Reich would have done if they had started full war economy in 39 or 40. Would probably had led to quite a few thousand more of both tanks and planes.
@Gregory, I don't know and we never will know if the Germans could have defeated the Soviets absent the Brits. Somehow I think the logistics, insecure communications, demographics, the long lines of supply et.al. would have made success fleeting. On the other hand, with success, the Germans would have new friends in Turkey and Spain and of course Japan would then have put the pressure on the far eastern parts of the Soviet Union and perhaps forced its collapse. Oh, but then the masses of China and India and Afrika come to bear.
Think what could have been done had Britain made peace in 1940. No battle of Britain, no Yugoslavia, no Greece, no Crete, no North Africa, no battle of the Atlantic, no blockade, no soviet lend lease from the USA or aid from Britain, no bombings of cities etc. I could go on, but I think you get the picture. The losses that were incurred in these other battles would never had happened not to mention what they could have been used for on a one front war. India was a British colony, China was at war with Japan and not even part of the conflict in Europe, was on the other side of the world, was a country involved in a civil war(temporarily on hold) and not a threat anyway at the time and Africa is a continent, not a country, and the only parts of it involved were attached one way or another to European powers. Turkey and Spain were both on good terms with Germany already and most likely would have joined Germany had Britain made peace. Heck, Germany came close to winning in 41 and 42 without these examples in their favor.
MuppetLord1 ..the only hope for victory would have been to abandon the murder of the jew and no war in the west...the Soviets were the real threat to the world.
@@WJack97224 the Germans had 60 divisions away from the eastern front due to the threat of Britain in 1941, so they had well over 1 million men and many Panzers not doing anything, they would have made a huge difference
@William Cox: The Germans did in fact move their armament production under the surface in lieu of the heavy American bombardment and were able to put out quite a decent amount of weaponry; but than again their resources were to scarce and the enemy numbers far too large to hope for a military victory, though the Germans may have still defied their foes politically, had they put commanders like Manstein in charge, as the league of their foes began to fail already.
Mainly bc it used flat gears vs helical cut so it wasnt un common for the tiger to drive it for a short time than the drive gears to strip seeing as field support took so long alot of tigers were left where they broke
I once was talking to an old man at a VA hall, he told me, he jumped into France with the 82nd on D-Day and landed on a Tiger. I then said to him, "You do know that only around 1,400 Tigers were ever produced and the odds of you having actually landed on an actual Tiger is very slim." He then promptly replied, "Son, when you are 18 years old and jump into NAZI occupied France and land on a tank, it's a fucking Tiger." I'll tell you guys...he landed on a Tiger. LOL
Even tho the tiger 1 tank had great armour and a very good 88mm gun it had many issues with transmission ,final.drives , and very heavy on fuel , a very heavy machine ,offentoo heavy for bridges and soft ground Maintaining a tiger was difficult out in the field as any major work most offen needed to remove the complete turret It wasn't the tank that Hitler wanted
US .50 caliber MG had longer range than MG-34 or MG-42. US .30 Browning had better sustained fire, and US BAR was more mobile (lighter and used less ammunition for a unit of supression fire). MG-34 and MG-42 had better sustained fire than BAR, was lighter than .50 Browning, and longer range than US .30 Browning.
50:25 So that's what a Nebelwerfer sounds like? I think that's where George Lucas got the sound effects for the sirens going off in the Death Star in the Star Wars movies.
Shoulda stuck with the high veloc.7.5 cm cannon.or made a 105 smooth bore gun,with the charge put in seperate,with a sabot round with penetrator pf dense metal,
To quote Hitler: "It is not Danzig that is at stake. For us it is a matter of expanding our Lebensraum in the east and making food supplies secure and also solving the problem of the Baltic states". There wasn't a clear majority in favour of re-incorporation in 1933 when the Nazi Party gained control and began supression of democratic opposition in what is now Gdansk. The Nazis didn't wait for a democratic process, instead invading all of Western Poland as planned.
300,000 man hours to build a Tiger means 72 man YEARS working 80 hour weeks. Even the Panther was around half as costly. You can see how Tiger production was a war losing decision.
Martijn Mulder HA HA HA ha ha ahhh.... No, I don't think that only one guy was constructing each tiger 'cuz 72 years of 40 hours per week of overtime would be expensive. One of the oft ignored effects of war is that people are being worked to death. I'm sorry to note the above in this context. This particular vehicle was constructed with slave labor, so some of the "workers" were really worked to death.
Thats true :/ but the allied made even 5000% more tanks... Which took more time to construct. The german factories and alloy smeltery were highly advanced so i dont think that that construction of the Tiger tank would take so long. I could be wrong ofc ;)!
Martijn Mulder You are missing a few details. That 300,000 hour tiger was an extraordinarily high cost compared with allied tanks...I can't recall the T-34 or Sherman cost offhand, but I suppose we can guess under 50,000. Germans were resource efficient. American were labor efficient. I happen to be within walking distance of the B-24 factory that inundated the Luftwaffe. I would even guess that the Allies (east and west) put fewer TOTAL man-hours into tanks for two reasons: slave labor created management problems and the designs were labor intensive. Those designs needed to be more optimal because Germany lacked fuel and their engineering decisions traded overall operational cost for initial cost. Even so, the Iron Law of Logistics won.
I would have to disagree with you. Though the Tiger did have a superb gun and armor, it did have alot of mechanic failure. This was the to the fast speeds that the Germans were trying to get them out of the factory and onto the field of battle. A tank that big is scary to go up against but with an enemy like the Russians, they rushed and overwhelmed them, at that close of their range their turret rotation was their down fall. They should have put out more Panzer 4s and Panthers.
The Luftwaffe began indescriminate bombing of civilian, non-industrial targets in September 1939. Initially the allies resisted bombing civilian targets until May 1940 which saw the first raid by the RAF on Germany's interior. Increasing allied air supremacy facilitated intensified bombing raids intended to cripple Germany's war-waging capacity, culminating in the tragic destruction of many german towns. Both sides used similarly brutal tactics in a desperate struggle to destroy the enemy.
