Super Pershing vs King Tiger Duel 1945

[Music] the t26e3 Pershing was sent to Europe in December 1944 following American experiences in the Battle of the Bulge and elsewhere the way there was a serious mismatch between US armor in the form of the m4 Sherman and various tank destroyer models and the heavier German Panther Tiger one and tiger two tanks however due to delays only 20 persons reached Europe in January 1945 they were parceled out between the 3rd and 9th armored divisions during their advance to the River Rhine at its combat debut at the town of Elle's Dorf on the 25th of February 1945 the t26 was knocked out by a tiger one although another t26 knocked out two Panzer fours and a tiger during the battle I've made a film about this so check the description box for a link most famously on the 6th of March 1945 a t26e3 of the 3rd Armored Division had a jewel with a panther tank outside Cologne Cathedral and one please also see my film on this in the description below however on the same day t26e3 was knocked out by anna's horn tank destroyer at Neil near Cologne the subject of another of my films linked below the Americans experimented with the notion of increasing the Pershing's gun caliber and armour thickness and a single up gun version of the t26e3 the super pershing saw action in Europe in the last weeks of World War two some mystery surrounds its combat record but it definitely scored two important 10 kills in combat so a single example of a super Pershing was shipped to Europe very late in the war on arrival its armor was augmented by engineers with the addition of extra plates to the gun mantlet and the front hull the vehicle now the largest and most powerful tank in the allied inventory was assigned to the third Armored Division the tanks hitting power was immense the 90 millimeter m3 gun was similar to the tiger ones AZ 8 millimeter kwk 36 and it could penetrate a Panthers front armor up to 2600 yards or 2,400 meters the boiler plates where each 38 millimeters thick that were affixed to the front of the super Pershing so couple would the tanks own armor the front hull was protected to a depth of a hundred and seventy eight millimeters the turret was improved with the addition of an 80 millimeter thick section of rolled homogeneous Armour from the upper glacis of a captured Panther tank so how did the Pershing do in action serving with company I 33rd armored regiment part of the 3rd armored divisions task force well born confusion reigns over the identification of the super Pershing 's opponents on the 7th of April 1945 the super Pershing became engaged with a large German armored fighting vehicle that had knocked out several Sherman tanks that was firing across the river Vaser near bad cows - the German vehicle was from sheer panzer ab tile on 507 and initial reports suggested the german tank was a tiger - the super Pershing joined the battle and engaged the German vehicle at a range of 1,500 yards there followed a violent ammunition explosion and the German vehicle was destroyed the German tank has been identified as a Yad Panther tank destroyer and several were attached to Sofia Panzer Upsilon 507 on the 21st of April the super Pershing took part in the capture of Dessau during the operation the Pershing engaged in a brief duel with a German tank variously described as a tiger one or even the tiger 2 the problem has been identification of the enemy vehicle u.s. tank crews often labeled any late war German tank a tiger moving into DES out the super Pershing rounded a corner and straight into the sights of a lurking German tank before we go further the remaining German units in the area were out of tigers by this stage fear Panzer AB Thailand 507 had lost its last tiger 2 in oscoda on the 11th of April Shriya hepanza ab tiling fkl 301 had blown up its last tiger 1 on the 17th of April the young tiger equipped via panzerjäger up thailand v 1 2 had surrendered its last vehicles at ease alone on the 15th of April no other German units reported active tiger ones or twos at this time however post battle interviews of Germans found that several were from a unit called Panzer transport West the suggestion made by several historians is that this unit had been moving alone tiger that this tank had been thrown into the defense of daesil the main witness to the action was the super Pershing x' gunner corporal Jack Irwin who identified the enemy tank as a tiger and not a king tiger this really is a problem because American tank crewman very often identified more mundane German tanks such as the panzer 4 as a tiger we can certainly discount the tiger ii or king tiger from the equation the nearest king tiger at that time was 70 miles to the east engaged against the red army around Berlin as for Owens tiger being an actual tiger tank this also seems rather unlikely probably according to many historians it was simply a Panza for anyway back to the action in Dessau so the super pershing rounds the corner and is confronted by a german tank the crew were expecting action against german infantry buildings or anti-tank guns and the round inside the chamber of their gun was a high-explosive shell the German tank fired first missing the American tank as it's shot was high the super Pershing returned fire using its high-explosive round which naturally ricocheted off the front of the German tanks armor at this point the German tank starts to move forward and begins climbing up over some rubble exposing its belly to the American tank which by any stretch of imagination seems an incredibly stupid thing to have done the super Pershing now slams an armor-piercing round into the belly of the German tank setting off an ammunition fire that blows the turret clean off quite how a Panzer 4 or even a tiger one became inflated into a king tiger is interesting perhaps because the super Pershing taking out a Panzer 4 is not very sexy but having the Allies and the Germans super tanks facing each other in a kind of duel to the death is much more attractive to documentary filmmakers unfortunately this story has been hyped into an armoured fairy tale in the decades since the end of world war ii as for the only super Pershing to see combat in Europe in world war ii it ended up in a vehicle dumped in Kassel Germany where it was eventually scrapped thanks for watching please subscribe and share and also help support my channel at PayPal and patreon details in the description box [Music]

Channel: Mark Felton Productions

Views: 1,383,304

Rating: 4.9232216 out of 5

Keywords: Super Pershing vs King Tiger, M26 Pershing, Tiger II, Tiger I, Panzer IV, Mark Felton Productions

Id: hCpylkCpRZo

Length: 7min 45sec (465 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 05 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/D1omidis]

Step #1: Shoot a tank, any tank.

Step #2: Report it as a Tiger, any Tiger.

[u/OverHousing]

Isn't that why we call them the "fascist Box Tanks"?

[u/benveng123]

I love my super p. It was my first T8 premium.