A Controversial Opinion on Tiger

Goody's all okay I'm going pure op-ed for this one for no reason other than it's time for me to add my weight to the great Internet debate on tiger I thought me a good time right now for me to make my personal position on the subject clear and this may or may not come as a surprise to those of you who watch my videos but I submit the tiger was actually a pretty good tank there seems to be two predominant schools of thought on Tiger one is that the tank was the greatest weapon in the world and the other was a complete waste of metal well guess what guys if you are one of those two sides you're wrong like many other things the reality is far more nuanced than such simplicity one of the important things to remember about Tiger is that it was developed with a very clear intent in mind and all hop over we'd all again well Germany had up till about 1942 when the political influence started to appear had a very clearly defined system for tank development they had in the Waffen immed they had an Inspectorate whose job it was to draw up the specifications of what was required so they would discuss with the various people involved in the requirements and then they would issue a specification that specification then was sent to a number of companies in the industry to come back with relevant designs meeting those specifications and then completely separately there was a procurement office who looked after the purchasing of this stuff and allocating the money to it so as long as that system held up and wasn't interfered with you had a very clearly defined we need such-and-such a vehicle it has to have the following characteristics and you got a good mixture of armour gone and so forth for the period well the podi tiger one is is part of a program where there was a requirement for that that was basically a requirement that was drawn up in I think about 1938 for a heavy breakthrough tank interesting ken was talking about this coming from the Marine Corps but the German army perceived that they needed a number of different levels the main battle tank would have been the Panzer 3 supported by a plunger for and then they needed a breakthrough tranq a heavily armoured well equipped vehicle and that's the tiger one it just happened to evolve into the vehicle that it it came as in the end but there was a whole series of test vehicles leading up to that this immediately differentiates tiger from a number of other monster tanks such as the char b1 which was developed as something of a pet project but without the French Army's doctrinal team actually laying out an intent for it being one was more of an engineering exercise as to what sort of a tank could be built where his tiger was built with a clear goal in mind and generally speaking it was also being built by professionals so you need to hop back to 1937 and the dirt Burke's wagon translate basically is breaching vehicle or as we were now consider it a breakthrough tank coming in at 30 tonne this was compared to the Panzer 3 and 4 already something of a heavy tank the 5 centimeters of armor to include turret side Armour may not seem like much now but bear in mind that none of the Panzer said anything over 3 centimeters and most had less the gun was to be the short 7.5 as found on panzer 4 by 1940 the basic Henschel tiger hole is already taking shape in the form of the VK 3001 complete with interleaved double wheel torsion bar suspension although with return rollers the turret could not really be upgraded though to take a larger gun turret development came a little bit out of left field and the original idea for what would become the VK 3601 turret what's the mounted ten point five centimeter l28 in late 1939 but by July 1940 was considered the Panzers of over 30 tons will be of limited use given the experience in France and bridge limitations there seemed to be little choice though for a breakthrough tank it would have to have eight centimeters of armor and force a weight of at least 36 tons the weapon was to be the 7 point 5 centimeter table board vehicle was named to the panzerkampfwagen sex house for wrong babe however strategic concerns st. got involved and it turned out that the Germans did not have enough tungsten to put the vehicle into series production basically they couldn't make the ammunition this meant as a result that other options had to be found and there was some consideration given to the high velocity long 7.5 / 70 and the shorter 8.8 56 with the larger AG r and in either case both hood required bigger turret and to make matters worse Hitler insisted in may 41 that now at least 10 centimeters of frontal armour was required the tanks weight was thus beginning to increase the indecision to use the 8.8 was something of an accident the L 70 was actually the preferred choice because it met the armor penetration requirements whilst being a smaller round and so allowing greater ammunition capacity a similar preference philosophy as the US would have later in the war however because Porsches tank wasn't working and eight point 8 centimeter gun turrets for that already existed the Henschel tank started being fitted with the 8 point 8 centimeter guns after those 90 tanks were built the run would then change to the panzer 6s firown' has why with the long 7.5 the 8.8 was not capable of meeting the requirement of penetrating 10 centimeters of armor so at 30 degrees at 1,400 meters however II did turn out that a redesign of the 8.8 ap shell was able to make the requirement and since the 8.8 71 was going to start getting installed it D tigris by the end of 1942 they're seeing the little point in changing the production line to 7 point 5 centimeter turrets after 90 and also the stowage for half of a year so tiger is built was actually something an accident with the unexpected gun combined with the turret intended for another tank that did not mean though that did not meet the requirements but how about all of tigers known fault was it too heavy yeah hence the snorkeling requirement it's not as convenient as being lighter but at least is an option even though it does add complexity was it tough to tow yeah and the Germans were well aware of it they even it started a program recovery vehicles specifically to tow the vehicle although in the end granted it was never implemented did it require a lot of man-hours to repair yes and the Germans added manpower to the maintenance units to compensate though for some reason they never built enough spare parts to put this in practice more modern analogy consider the common complaint about the m1 Abrams the fuel consumption what CH in fairness has been addressed in the last decade or so by the APU many armies cannot afford to field the amount of fuel trucks and fuel that a fleet of M ones would require the US can if the US as it did believe that the capabilities the m1 tank was sufficiently advanced over the competitor designs that it was worth fielding those extra resources it is entirely possible that two different armies could both correctly conclude that the tank was a good tank and the other one that the tank was not a good tank the catch though is in planning and equipping for the known concerns so back to tell you its main faults were operational mobility caused by the weight and reliance a bomb trains and snorkeling and the amount of time it took to maintain but the Germans were well aware of this when they created their doctrine Tiger was not designed to be a main tank it was to be used for the breakthrough role this meant thus that there was normally a modicum of time permitted from movement to wherever it was that the heavy tank battalion was needed so the operational mobility limitations are not much of a concern further since it was only to be used for breakthroughs not many of the tanks needed to be manufactured so the man our time requirements and cost per tank could be considered worth it especially when you consider how many lesser tanks might be lost before me in the same breakthrough role but creating a breakthrough doesn't require a large portion of the overall battle so once the hole has been punched and the medium tanks move forward there should be no further use for the tiger it can then be pulled to the rear and there should be ample time available for the maintenance to be performed it might take three times as long for the target unit to be fully operational again just by the nature the tanks requirements in this design but that isn't the concern of the battalion commander what he is concerned about is that the next time that his heavy battalion is called forward to punched the next breakthrough at the next defensive line his operational readiness rate is such that all his tanks are available now don't get me wrong I can point to a number of flaws in Tigers design from the Kuhlman's perspective going from the eliminate Gunners vision through the lack of already rack still for 1942 is a heck of a tank you know viability is not withstanding and most importantly in the little niche that the tank was designed for as part of the larger army it was perfectly well suited for the job the problem comes when people try to take it out of this niche and try to apply to situations for which was never intended in the first place no piece of equipment is going to be successful if used for something for which it was not designed being used as the fireman of the Eastern Front means that it's being used in a reactive situation instead of moving to a new location in their own time and routing and then maintaining and then fighting and then maintaining again it's about the moves forwards the tanks are instead racing to the next trouble spot men fighting and then maintaining if they can if that's a fallback well then the maintaining is just gonna have to happen even later assuming that the tank actually gets that far and since it's being used everywhere possible the longer amount of time and maintenance required is going to cause even more trouble and decrease the or rating because the battalion Co needs its tanks now not in three times as long this is not the tanks fault nor is it the fault of the tank designers it's the fault of an army High Command which is bitten off more than they can chew and is now using every tooth that has no matter how well suited once the army had to abandon the doctrines for which his equipment was designed and become a matter of desperation and Tiger comes at the worst because of it so there you go as ever I do urge people to look at the larger picture but in this case in my two cents worth what you paid for it two cents may be good tank but overtaken by subsequent events and then to the M inside of the video you will have noticed that the long-awaited significant emotional event t-shirt now exists now I am open to ideas as to what other things and t-shirts you might want by the way so I'm not sure if we can really make a mug out of this but put to put an idea for some merchandise you know in the comments and whatever gets significant up votes I'll take a look at there have been requests for reissues of the previous t-shirts stay tuned some of the patreon and subscribe starters do get t-shirts at cost values if you are one of those shoot me a message on patreon or subscribe star and I will sort you out if you didn't know I have a patreon you do now and while I'm vlogging things can openers is still available on Amazon as well and if you're in Europe Panzer Rex if you're in Canada the Ontario regiment Museum so and that is it for now I will see you on the next one take care

Channel: The_Chieftain

Views: 324,057

Rating: 4.9576154 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: 57oRqB_a-SA

Length: 12min 1sec (721 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 17 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/PuddingInferno]

It's good to see this perspective - I thought this is the general perspective on Tiger I around here (good tank in its assigned role, but not a universal/war winning tank). Wehrbs over-hype the tank, but it doesn't mean it was a bad vehicle.

[u/pnutzgg]

is there a special tag for this stuff? since the chieftain is known not to wehrb and posts on this sub occasionally

[u/angry-mustache]

A reminder to not counterjerk too far, the truth is not as simple as the memes would portray on either end of the spectrum.

[u/Trustpage]

Why did the Germans love making their tanks just squares

[u/KaneIntent]

People often forget about the devastating firepower of the german long 88 guns and how their mere existence significantly affected morale and greatly slowed, and almost prevented, the advance of allied mechanized units into Western Europe.

[u/[deleted]]

Well, in World War II we saw Tiger, Königstiger, M-26 Pershing and the IS Series by Soviets, all of them have technical flaws, and none of them were retained after the war, even M-26 was ditched for upgraded M4, because of mobility and maintenance. IS 1 to 3 always had engine overhead problems in other seasons then winter, T-34 was the way to go here. Germans got tanks form their new peers and allies post war.

[u/SnapshillBot]

Snapshots:

1. The Chieftain's Opnion on the Tiger - archive.org, archive.today

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