Was the Tiger I really as slow and unreliable as we think? Mythbusting with Bruce Newsome 

Outstanding! Side note: Otto Carius was asked in his opinion what were the Tiger’s shortcomings his response was “I can’t think of any”!

There is one tiny little detail, I would like to mention here as well: One fact the crews loved the tiger for was the user friendlyness. You could drive this tank with one finger. It had a steering weel and a drive that set the speed for each track to the perfect speed so the tank was able to drive a curve smoothly. You can see that in Bovington. While other tanks are literally jumping around curves the tiger 1 drives like a car and it could be driven like a car. It had a semiautomatic transmission and could easily be shifted while you sometimes needed a hammer and a crow bar to shift gears in WW2 tanks. I had a lengthy conversation with an old tiger 1 crew man and the most impressive fact he told me: The tiger 1 was not only a tank, it was their home during WW2. I have read all tiger 1 book I could get (well all English, French and German ones :D) and would agree to Bruce Newsome. The tiger was a reasonably reliable tank. One of the reasons, the myth was brought up that the tiger 1 is unreliable is that most of the tanks were not destroyed by the enemy but abandoned or (some) broke down. The other evidence for the good reliability is, that in one over 6 hour engagement one tiger was hit 227 times and despite damage to his tracks, transmission and weels this tank could drive another 40 miles to safety and could be fully recovered. Here some notes which I took during the conversation with the crewman: 1.) There have been some cooling problems 2.) It was very user friendly and good to drive 3.) Missing of spare parts led to failures and abandoning 4.) The crews of all tigers were very well trained as only over 1500 were built. This is one reason, the tiger lasted reasonably long as the crews knew the weaknesses of that tank 5.) It had a very good documentation which made repairs on the battlefielt possible 6.) It could carry over 90 88mm shells! 7.) The space in the tank was quite big and made operations 8.) There have been engines with 1100 hp (fuel injection and turbocharger/compressor) 9.) The tracks were very wide due to its 48 weels! This made the tank amazingly capable to drive cross - country. Once damages it was hard to repair and sometimes you had to take off a lot of weels to replace one of them 10.) Some tiger 1 were capable to drive through 4 meter deep water 11.) The tracks had to be changed for transport (slimmer) on trains and lorrys. 12.) It had a 2*6 speed manual shift with electrical supported clutch. This was a great achivement for the driver. 13.) Fun fact: When the tiger was released it was called a lame duck and because of the shape of the turret a "tin can". The crews felt bad beeing assigned to this tank but after 1 year the clear conclusion was: Many crew men were convinced, that this tank was the only viable tank on the battlefield.

I very much appreciate that Dr. Newsome is a former “Tread Head”. Being a tank crewman gives one a unique perspective concerning a Tanks performance in the field and comparitive study with other tanks.

Now, if we can only get the Russians to un-nerf the Tiger I and stop being jealous little buggers.

This is a superb myth busting video. Please make MANY MORE @Sofilein! This needs more airtime on mainstream networks - anyone into history would like this. Would love to see more myth busting content for the Tiger 2 and Panther please!

1) He makes very good observations on lack of evidence , I’ve read tiger in the mudd, panzer ace and panzer commander, none mentioned reliability issues and from memory all saw combat in the east 2) the t34 76 was only rated for 100miles on the engine , as a result 840 of the 900 had never been driven from delivery, hence the units operating them in the early years had little experience in them, they were forbidden to use them, due in part down to bad air filters not being able to filter out dust getting into the engine damaging the bores resulting in major power losses. Thanks for this video 👍

Good to hear from a real expert not some internet pretender. On reliability the German figures I've seen put the Tiger on the East Front as having a similar service record to the other German tanks. There are also their battle records where on occasions eg Kursk, some would get damaged during a day's fighting and then repaired over night ready for battle the next day. Of course they became ground down over time by sheer Soviet numbers until there were hardly any fit for service.

Check out the one Tiger tank that managed to limp back after fighting in the battle of Kursk. Over 250 hits from various caliber guns and AT rounds yet the beast still managed to return to it's lair. Simply put, an incredible piece of machinery.

Very interesting and refreshing angle Sofilien! I can see why you wanted to interview this bloke! I may well need to invest in his published books as part of my life-long study of armoured vehicles. I kid you not when I say life-long!

Soldier of two armies. Have you met my friend Larry Thorne? ; ) Ok, kidding aside. I've served in both the US Navy (avionics tech: 89-93) and USANG (19 K tank crewman: 01-07) myself. So, I've been in two armed services, which for many people don't know is actually fairly common. I'd say about 1/2 of my OH Guard unit were previous active duty from the Army or one of the other branches. Heck, my squad leader in Iraq was a former Navy guy and one of our medics was Coast Guard. I did a paper years ago when I was pursuing my history degree, where the premise was that the US could have won the Vietnam War if one of the things they could have done was a partial mobilization of the armed forces, which would have included more Guard and Reserve units. Why that would have been a factor is that most of the Reserve force is comprised of seasoned veterans. Some of those vets maybe served in Korea and even WWII. We're talking years of experienced servicemen with good leadership skills they could have brought to the battlefield, which the active components was lacking due to the draft. I got an A...and I was going to Kent State. Yeah. THAT Kent State.

Great idea Sofi + Bruce -very entertaining and informative -thank you

AWESOME! love this! Keep it going!

Thanks Sofi, discovered your channel recently and really enjoy the topics, interviews, and in depth coverage on tanks.

Great interview. Love the focus on evidence and facts.

That was fascinating! So much of what I have read about this tank over the years has been untrue. Thank you, as always, for your high-quality content!

Thus is great. I hope there are more parts to this interview.

People forget how unreliable tanks were in general back then, by that standard and comparing it to tans of similar weight it was absolutely amazing. It also did very well offroad whereas the defective suspension on the 'reliable' sherman would fail in less than a mile offroad.

Fantastic discussion. Should be required viewing for everyone !

Great Stuff ! I have to watch more of your videos Sofi!

I really liked this! :) Thank you so much Sofilein & Bruce. Would like to see more if possible.

Category - education 10/10 Thank you for sharing your online class !!! I like it, more information than my online classes . Edit : I need da books used !

the engines of a t-34 were only required to last for 50 hours, according to what is written in the big book about the _t-34

That was fun. The long time to overhaul was surprising. I would have guessed 400 hours. Well Done Mr. Newsome and Sofilein.😎

Fantastic video! Thank you and thanks to Dr. Newsome for this insightful content. I'd love to hear some thoughts on Tiger II if possible. I feel like the 'extremes' to the positive and negative are amplified for this vehicle in most discussions. While Tiger II of course had a lower power-to-weight ratio than its predecessor, there were numerous improvements made on components such as the final drives (making use of helical gears rather than straight cut) and from what I've been able to find, Tiger II had quite good reliability compared to other late-war tanks like Panther. Additionally, factors like gear ratios and the Olvar-B gearbox itself give me the impression that Tiger II was far more agile than most give it credit for. While the Panther seems to be regularly-praised for its mobility, the gearing for its AK-7-200 was done in such a way as to indicate poor performance in turns relative to its straight-line speed. Mechanically, Tiger II was limited to a speed of about 34km/h due to the limited RPM of the motor with a governor installed*, but was this a major factor when looking at mobility in practice? Did factors like the driver controls, gearing, and transmission give the Tiger II an advantage in reliability and tactical mobility? I'm extremely curious as to your thoughts on this and on Tiger II in general. Thank you for your time! *Regarding governors, I've not been able to find much information on how these were used in the field. My understanding is that American crews were known to remove their engine governors in the field, but was this a common practice (or even possibility) for German crews?

This is such a fascinating post! It has turned some of my misconceptions on their head! I know it was touched upon, but it still begs the question as to why a number of these misconceptions remain so widley as being 'facts'?

Wow awsome vid the Tiger 1 has been historically misunderstood and this needs to be told. Well done now all you need to do is an inside the hatch with Chieftian to fix this in a Tiger 1.

Great interview! Very interesting myth busters!

Well, we need more of this, that's for sure!

You are doing a wonderful job because you look so confident and well spoken on screen.

A lot of "truths" about previous wars today is English internet populism. So few German accounts are shown. Germans are depicted in movies as either idiots or fanatics, and I am really disappointed that modern movies like Saving Stg. Ryan do not develop from this old style.

Being an armature war historian, I enjoy learning from your channel... it’s awesome and very unique. Keep the content coming.

Wow this was extremely informative, keep it up!

Fascinating. I myself believed many of these myths before watching this video. Thank you both for this.

Sofi Sofi Sofi... Absolutely brilliant, great stuff, these are the people we want to hear from, I'm looking for his book now. Great content, keep them coming.

What a cracking, informative video. Please carry on with this standard.

Anyone who has read Tigers in the Mud the last 35+ years, would immediately have realised how different the Tiger was on the field compared to the "myths". Except in very difficult circumstances, even in the Eastern Front, most Tigers abandoned during the day, were collected (aka towed) by another Tiger at night and dragged back to be repaired fully to see another day. If a tank has bad power/weight ratio, especially a 54 tonne one, how's possible to drag 108+ tonnes? And not counting crew, fuel, ammunition etc which add few tonnes.

The Tiger tank's reliability issues can be tied to its failure to operate efficiently when flipped over on it's top due to being heavily carpet bombed with 500 lb. bombs at Normandy.

A good dear family friend was a Tiger 1 driver!! He said it was a joy to drive.

This lady is awesome.

That was a great stream, thanks for posting this segment of it!

Tiger I engine: Maybach HL230 P45 V-12 at 700 PS (690 hp, 515 kW)

There is some German wartime trials footage of the Tiger I kicking around on the web somewhere I saw one time a few years ago. It was doing probably 20mph over rough terrain including trench crossings and firing its gun after slowing, but not completely stopping. Kind of blew any poor impressions of the Tiger as an effective and mobile battle tank right out of the water. It was clear the cross country track footprint was very effective at weight distribution, although I understand they had a separate track for road travel to increase speed so there would have to be a delay between advancement and deployment for combat to swap them out. Or was it a special track for rail transportation. I can't remember now. Another reason its speed may have been traditionally understated is the captured examples intended for museums are never operated in a combat regime to preserve the mechanicals. It's the same with boost restrictions on preserved warbirds in some cases even during dissimilar flight training like the Me109G2 captured by Britain in 43 I think, it was only ever flown at low power settings to preserve the engine which local mechanics had no idea how to work with and it gave completely false impressions of the performance capabilities of Me109G in 1944 which were being flown by the Luftwaffe at significantly higher power settings, thus was reported as an outdated type which was outmatched by late war Allied fighters when in fact it really wasn't and remained dangerous in good hands until the end of the war, with speed capabilities ranging anywhere from 670-710km/h depending on variant equipment and a far cry from the British reported 640km/h or so and a few hundred horsepower less. This inaccurate poor impression tended to stick in popular publications right through to fairly recent years, you had to go to specialty books to hear anything different from about the 90s and that's a long time to poo poo somebody's war materiel. But the British are a bit odd, they're like, Germans stole our invention of the constant speed propeller when no actually, they introduced the aeromechanical screw which is an analogue flight computer and entirely more advanced so quit it with the we won the wizard war trope. We get it, they didn't know you cracked Enigma and it cost them the entire Mediterranean, whilst trying to hold it cost them any kind of orderly retreat on the Eastern Front. When you go and see a Tiger being moved around at a museum or even when borrowed for film use such as in the movie Fury, they basically just idle the things around at slow speed with the main priority on preserving an historical artefact and not showing off its combat capabilities. Thus in films like Fury instead of startling audiences with remarkably agile performance in something unbelievably large and powerful, they have to exaggerate its lumbering weight to provide the dramatic apprehension instead, since they can only idle the thing around. People go away believing the Tiger is a lumbering beast instead of being probably more mobile than the Shermans and entirely more scary for entirely more reasons. Wasn't impervious to enemy fire though, that title goes to the King Tiger which according to one report of three crossing open fields in the face of a combined Soviet artillery and antitank barrage over open sights with only one rendered inoperable, one disabled by a track loss and the third relatively unscathed despite several direct hits, iirc no crew losses.

Outstanding video for us Tiger tank fans. Thank you Sofi for Amazon link. I bought the Tiger Tank and Allied Intelligence.

Very, very interesting stuff. Thank you Sofilein !

Emotions can run rabid on tanks. I like to say, "facts don't care about feelings". Field reports and first hand statistics far out-weigh a "quote of a quote of a quote" which is what we so often get. Mr Newsome's in-depth research is VERY refreshing compared to unverifiable opinions. You know you can trust someone when they say, " I don't know, I couldn't find the answer to that," compared to guess work.

I always enjoy most of the stuff Sofilein puts out, I’m surprised she’s only got 44K subs.....

One important thing that is overlooked, during mid-war 1942-1943 German Tiger tank crews were selected veteran tankers. These tankers had a lot of experience in lighter more mauver able tanks which had much weaker armor. Tiger Crews were originally withdrawn from the front and given classes as well as hands on experience in the manufacturing of the tank. They also were given education on the proper functioning of components. Drivers were especially given training. So you had experienced tank crews who were trained. What remained was for the unit once fielded had to learn how to operate as a team. Again the German army had an advantage, the Reichswehr small numbers required that training was infantry centric. So early tank crews and leaders were selected from infantry trained individuals. They understood infantry tactics and thus understood how to support Infantry. There is a myth of the lone tiger tank on the prowl. What I understood from actual German tankers was that the accompanying or supported infantry provided a feedback to the tank crews which enabled them to deploy the tanks with advantage. According to German tankers I Talked to the "lone tiger" myth came about because of a tactic used by tigers in the Attack. In the attack a tiger would expose themselves constantly seeking out the anti tank guns. The majority of AT guns they encountered were 76.2mm or smaller. Unlike the earlier tanks the armor was superior and the Tankers could operate more aggressively. But as far as reliability goes the Tank crews were not green, they were highly trained. As the war ground on however the crew training and quality declined. But I did find one aspect of the reliability issue that did impact performance. German (as all tankers know) tanks on road marches would experience mechanical failures. Thus they might drop out for short periods as crews effect repairs, or the repair echelon provides support. A German unit would arrive from the railhead near the HKL or front line and deploy for action short a few tanks. This accounted for the strange increase in available numbers and the confusion in unit strengths. Plus German commanders knew that if they reported all runners their unit would not receive replacements. So there was a unwritten and unspoken policy of deliberate under reporting. Early tankers had specific flags they could fly which indicated visually the level of repair the tank required. The repair/recovery company personnel took great pride in their ability to recover damaged tanks , if for no other reason than recovering spare parts. Nightly strength reports were reported thru Luftwaffe Flivo enigma encoded transmissions. These were intercepted and decoded. So the western allies had highly reliable tank strength numbers.

This is really interesting! I appreciate the different perspective.

There are two things that make folks think the Tiger I was unreliable: 1) Tiger 131 was abandoned and captured intact. 2) Oddball didn't like it. ;)

I think a lot of bashing of german equipment in the recent time comes from people like Nicholas Moran who is very biased towards anything American made and never actually gives any credible sources for his claims. He often mentions Hilary Doyle as his go to for german tanks and vehicles, but when you actually read Hilary Doyle books and listen to his interviews, he has completely opposite opinion about german tanks. Read books and listen to actual experts, not video game consultants.

That's astonishing. Only after all these years does it get revealed that the Tiger is reliable. That's 180 degrees from what EVERYONE has been saying. I knew about the speed. I saw a specification even as a kid that posted the Tiger was at least as fast as the Panzer IV. But it seems it was about 3 MpH faster still. As for "sinking in muddy ground" due to excess weight, I knew that was rubbish as well. The operating manual for the Tiger says if one man carrying another man can stand on one leg without sinking in, then the Tiger can traverse the same ground perfectly OK. That's not a huge ground pressure at all, and the Tiger has a sophisticated suspension system too which enhances mobility even further.

Love to see this for the Panther! Another vehicle that needs to debunked and brought back to reality. Either it is the best tank or the worst there are so many thoughts on this vehicle

Thank you Miss Sofi, eye opening indeed.

I like the King TIger, do some research on King Tiger bumper number 100. That crew destroyed 47 Russian tanks during the end of the war.

Well done fine Information I think its motor was used in the panther and king tiger and that was much heavier tank. It would be great if you did the same for the panther. I know from reading panzer soldiers stories they all seem to worry about there transmission in there panthers. There was a limit and if you got there it was time to start babysitting it.

Excellent job sofi 😃

Would love to see Bruce do a series on the M4, really get into what the actual G.I.'s wrote and what the Data Trolls are saying generations later. I'm sure he could write for the next 40 years on it.

Tiger example: In Italy 16 new Tigers moved to attack. Two broke down at the assembly area. Two other tigers tried to tow them which caused them to break down. During move to line of contact 7 more broke down. 4 tanks returned after 1 broke down during the attack and was abandoned.

Awesome video, can you do the same about the Panther?

Thank you for providing the links to the books. Great interview, thank you very much!

I've watch this long time ago, and today came back to it, to share it in a face page.. their is still so much missinformation going around.. that this are precious videos.. thanks for them sophie

Tank Girl! Great channel

As nearly always, we base our opinions today on second-hand info, because we werent there. And the people who WERE there were of course subject to the propaganda which they were fed. -- The fact that German equipment was over-engineered should be a clue to it's quality. It SHOULD last longer because more thought went into it. Flanges beefier, bearings thicker, filters larger, etc... It takes a bit of doing to make those changes and still keep everything in the same sized package. A nightmare for the poor mechanics who had to do the maintenance. But then they had to do it less often. -- If this over-engineered equipment had a flaw, it was engineered to last for several years instead of being engineered to last it's expected lifetime on the battlefield. The reason T-34s were put together so poorly was they had a life expectancy of only a few months, or even weeks. -- Good interview. I hope there is more to come? It ended quite abruptly!

The Ford GAA Engine, while in development in early 1943, is expected to last 4000 miles which is 6,437.376 km. Which results in term of avg running hours... aprox 360-400 hours running on the GAA engine. 2000 miles is the aprox track life on the M4.

Excellent : He is teaching us how to think about stuff in general.

Only an expert if you have driven one in combat try reading Tigers in the Mud by Otto Carius

Excellent! What a blessed relief it is, for me, to enjoy the reality that BS doesn't Always baffle brains! Thank you ever so much for providing this 'top-drawer' interview. Take care, stay safe.

Awesome video!

MOAR OF THESE please!

Bought Dr. Norbeck's book--can't wait to read it!

Great information if you like a Tiger1. I got a few books on Tank Aces that use Tiger 1 on the Russia Front. Where can we get the books on the specs.

That qipao dress looks really good on you Sofilein.

Great video! I don't really get why people assume the Tigers were unreliable. Even the Tiger II was reliable. If anything the Panther was the most unreliable due to the fact it was designed to be light and angled like the T34-85 it was based on. Turned out much too heavy for the bearings and transmission. If memory serves it only had a maximum service range of 200 miles.

Excellent video, very informative

From my Dad's point of view, a PFC bazookaman in Patton's 318th infantry in 1945, the Tigers were WAY too reliable!

Great stuff from one of the people I'd take the word of on this particular issue. This guy had actually dealt with tanks on a daily basis as well as being in both American and British militaries. People who've never had to deal with a piece of equipment toting about information that they get second hand and know very little about are what sometimes get me wound up. This guy knows what he's talking about and I'm looking into getting the book as well just to get his take on one of my favorite fighting vehicles.

Sophie, why in numerous video games based on historical accuracy are players only able to attain a top speed of 22mph in a Tiger I? Me Driving my Tiger in War Thunder: 41km/h road speed on a paved road. Me driving my War Stories French Tigre (a captured Tiger I) in World of Tanks console: 43km/h Although this is a very controversial topic, the developers of World of Tanks and War Thunder actually did their respective research.

Thnx. Sofilein.. Growing up my favorite models tank build was a Tiger 1. I have a nerfed version on blitz ! The gun should do more damage.. lol

Overall problem across all German production was lack of spare parts delivered to the troops in the field. Any serious problem had to be dealt with inside Germany. Metal Grandpa below was told much the same by a Tiger 1 Crew Member. { 3.) Missing of spare parts led to failures and abandoning}

Great interview, thank you!

I think the biggest issue with Germany's Tiger 1 tank was its lack of sloped armor. It was also originally designed with a smaller gun, so they did modifications to fit the bigger one. I still think it is a cool piece of machinery.

I'd Like to know the definition of 'Overhaul' on both sides. Were the Germans expected to fix a lot of minor issues in the field as they went along and the Allies just sent the tank back when an issue occurred because they had a plethora of tanks?

Very good video! Keep up the work

And since the tiger was so important, of course it was well taken care of.

One contributing factor could be the quality of the crews. The Tiger 1 was only operated by veteran crews and they were expertly trained in its operation and maintenance. Even though all German tank crews were good, these were the best of their branch.

Thanks Sofilein, enjoyed this👍

Very interesting....thank you

There are several accounts of Tiger tanks breaking down even before arriving to the frontline. In particular, one of these accounts concerns a Tiger company that had to reach Arnhem in September of '44 from a town 30 km away. Out of 14 (or 17) tanks, only 2 arrived in Arnhem and where later knocked out by British paratroopers. Now, those Tigers were operated by a training company, it means that the tankers were not experienced and skilled enough. So, this brings an interesting question: does the reliability of Tigers and Panthers strongly depends on the troops operating them? My guess is that American, British and Soviet tanks could be easily operated and maintained by the average tanker with minimal mechanical know-how. On the other hand, German tanks could be kept in full efficiency only by highly skilled, trained and experienced troops. Also, specialized heavy maintenance companies had to be formed and trained. And this came to a cost. It is no surprise that most of the Panthers, Tiger I and II were operated by elite SS units. I have no doubts that over-engineered German tanks perfectly fitted into the logistics of the German army. But this does not mean that that logistics worked well... spare parts for Tigers and Panthers were rare and sparse. Often, German commanders had to fight one against the other to get rare spare parts that could be found in one warehouse only....

Thank you for your insight. Much appreciated 👍

On Over Hauls... Diesels have what is called an "In-Frame" and Complete. The In-Frame was less down time, of course... Complete, is engine pulled and basically strippoed down to to the block and everything replaced....Was that a thing back then?

Magnificent and informative

Great, informative vid, love it.

DUH the Tiger 1 is very good at what it does. ie: long range shooting. Anywhere near Leningrad is marshy, don't expect a Tiger 1 to be good in this area. It's a breakthrough tank

My question is, is the Tiger 131 an early version, or a later version?

I think the problem the Tiger had was “as stated in the video” that it was being used primarily as a defensive weapon and there simply weren’t enough of them. I believe only about 1300 were built against ten of thousands of allied vehicles. It does not matter how good a Tiger is when it is so drastically outnumbered on land and has very little protection from above. It is still a wonderful machine and I have been fortunate to see Tiger 131 in the flesh at Bovington. Another thing that surprised me at Bovington was the difference in build quality between a Panther and the T-34. They had these two tanks next to each other when I was there. The Panther is beautifully made whereas the T-34 is very rough. It is like comparing an Audi to a Lada. Great video.

I've heard that it was reliable aswell,except that it was very complex tank ,and matetience was needed more often ,and overhauls would take at least 5 days to complete.where as the overhauls on a M4 would only take 2.5 days for complete trans and engine change out. Also the speed of a Tiger 1 was 28 mph on roads,and around 18 off road .

When you report the status can have a lot to say about "reliability". If you report in the morning, you tend to have more tanks available than later in the day.

The idea that "German tanks were generally reliable" caught me off guard and Zaloga does a very good job breaking down the maintenance issues of German armored vehicles. As he put it in his book, "Patton vs. The Panzers" about Arracourt, the M4 could be driven through training in England, loaded aboard a ship, landed and then driven long distances with a reasonable chance of getting into the fight. German tanks had to be brought close to the scene of battle via train in order to save wear and tear on the vehicles. That's not a good indicator of reliability. As for complaints-- I understand the lack of data, but honestly, I don't think Nazi Germany was a place where bitching about weapons by their users was a common occurrence. Sure, there are examples of complaints-- Galland wanting Spitfires, I think Bayerlein (sp?) complaining about Panthers in Normandy being not as effective in the bocage, but general, run of the mill troops? Doesn't seem as if it would be welcome. They probably had a dynamic zero tolerance policy on complaints. Interesting perspective though. I guess the way to consider it is that I wouldn't want to fight one, but at the same time, wouldn't want to fight in one either.

That was very informative. A pity about the sound quality in places but otherwise well worth the time spent. Thank you. I have to say that , just watching Tiger 131 ( big thanks to everyone involved in the restoration ) racing around the course on Tiger day, it is very clear that the Tiger was a high mobility machine.

shocking - British tanks unreliable! - who would have thought