Tigers vs Shermans
 

Great reason to use good use of terrain to attack them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3slnEXOoSo

Re: Tigers vs Shermans
 

Thanks for the interesting video clip.

For those of you who might be interested about the development of the Sherman tank, Steven Zaloga's book "Armored Thunderbolt" has plenty of data for you to ponder. A very even handed ( IMO ) account of the development of the Sherman and why it turned out the way it did. There's also some good info about other tanks as well and how they compared to the Sherman.

Re: Tigers vs Shermans
 

Interesting clip mostly for the veteran interviews and "tank porn" (despite the T-55 based "Tiger" on action shots). Some sloppiness typical to documentaries for general audience such as the Tiger's "gun sight", which didn't look anything like real WW2 German tank gun sight picture. Only some Soviet pre-war tanks had such oversimple sights. Also the implication that the Tiger I was designed primarily as a tank killer is wrong; the specs called for a breakthrough tank rather than a defensive tank killer vehicle, which also explains why the Tiger had so thick side armor for its time (1942).

Re: Tigers vs Shermans
 

I always thought the Tiger was the first tank designed specifically as a tank killer, not defensive mind. Added bonus of the 88 was it could also better defend itself vs infantry & ATGs as tank formations in WWII quite often acted independently as in outrunning their infantry support.

Re: Tigers vs Shermans
 

Yes, of course tank killing was a major part of the breakthrough tank role, but it was not the sole purpose of the Tiger as designed. Conceptually the Tiger had many fairly close predecessors, the KV-1 one being the closest one, but the French B1bis was not very far, either. All of them had a quite respectable tank killing ability for their time (the Soviets in fact would have wanted to put a bigger gun on the KV-1, but no such gun was ready for production in 1941).

Re: Tigers vs Shermans
 

Okay the first tank designed that came to fruition with the role of tank killing in mind, & yes breakthrough as in blitzkrieg. Other German tanks were like all designs then infantry support based.
Many people state it was designed as a tank killer in response to the T-34 & that is indeed wrong because it was conceived before the start of the war, the Panther was born from the T-34.
Char B1bis & KV were infantry support tanks / breakthrough tanks with slightly improved guns to help deal with armour. Char B after all carried as its main gun what was basically a howitzer not a high velocity tank gun, it didn't even have an APC round to start with because its an infantry support tank. Both it & the KV were I think designed originally to take out heavy targets like bunkers

Re: Tigers vs Shermans
 

Both the B1bis and KV-1 had good enough guns to destroy any German Panzer in service frontally, the B1bis of course with the 47mm SA35 gun in the turret, while being completely impervious to German tank and AT guns frontally (except the 88mm AA gun of course). The 75mm gun of the KV-1 even had a wide margin in summer 1941. I fail to see how that was much different from the Tiger in 1942. The armament choices of the B1bis and KV-1 came to be specifically in order to improve their anti-tank capability over previous generation tanks (the original B1 and the T-28/T-35, respectively). In case of the KV tanks there might have been more emphasis on bunker busting, but really, armor is armor whether it is reinforced concrete or steel. In any case, the actual bunker-busting version was the KV-2 (the 152mm gun fired Semi-AP ammunition ideal for bunker busting due to its devastating after-armor effects).

So, in my opinion there was at best quantitative difference between the Tiger I and the earlier heavy breakthrough tanks.

Re: Tigers vs Shermans
 

Speaking of the Tiger's initial concept as a Breakthrough tank: were the S-mine dischargers fitted to early versions effective? Were they ever actually used?

Re: Tigers vs Shermans
 

Okay & last we will say on it, Tiger was designed from the start for the role of taking on armour.
The others were upgraded to do so, it was not in their original design criteria. Made sense due to the fact they had good armour. Not even sure first models even had radios, needed tactically if you are going to take on armour.
This is what happened to most early tanks, they were upgraded to take on armour not designed that way at the outset. German MkIII & MkVI for example.

The Germans were the only ones that envisioned tank battles, I think it dawned on the French just before war started but everybody else was stuck in there ways.
Infantry support & break through just like in WWI which is what the tank was originally conceived to do.

Re: Tigers vs Shermans
 

I would say that in late 30's tank design, capability to take on enemy armour seems to have been well considered, since a lot of the tanks were armed with a weapon that was used as the main anti-tank gun in the respective armies. These certainly were quite capable of tackling most enemy armour of their era (though less capable once the armour levels started to go up during the war), while their HE content was rather restricted.

For example:
- British 2 pounder gun was used as ATG and to arm early cruiser and infantry tanks
- Soviet 45 mm gun was used as ATG and to arm later T-26 and BT tanks (and on smaller gun turrets on T-35)
- German 37 mm gun was used as ATG and to arm early Panzer III (though these were designed with upgunning to 50 mm gun in mind)
- US 37 mm gun was used as ATG and turret gun on Stuarts and M3 medium tanks

There were also numerous tank designs that were armed with big, low-velocity weapons (usually around 75 mm caliber) mainly for the purpose of attacking enemy infantry.

That said, many of the tank designs from Japan, Italy, Poland and France were designed less with tank combat in mind, being armed with lower velocity guns.

Re: Tigers vs Shermans
 

Well, as for Poland, the only produced tank (not counting tankettes) received a state-of-art AT 37mm Bofors. Other designs also were to be armed with newer AT guns. Even the tankettes started to be fitted with 20 mm gun before the war.

Re: Tigers vs Shermans
 

I would say that by 1939 pretty much all major countries (and many smaller ones) had realized that a tank should be able to destroy other tanks, except possibly Japan. For Japanese the Khalkhyn Gol battles seem to have been the wakeup call (in many ways actually, but that's outside the scope of this discussion).

Some countries, most notably France had large numbers of tanks designed in the early and mid-1930, which did not have high velocity guns, but at least the French did their best to upgrade those with new AP ammunition. Plans called for upgrading the guns as well, but they run out of time.

As for Italy; they managed to field only one new tank design* by June 1940 (the M11/39), which in fact did have a sort of high velocity gun (actually more like medium velocity), even if it was very poorly placed in the vehicle. They also realized that the design was obsolescent and production was switched to the more modern M13/40 as soon as possible.

* The previous Italian tank design (not including tankettes) was the FIAT 3000B (later L5/30), which was and upgraded FIAT 3000 (L5/21) designed in 1929. The FIAT 3000 in turn was originally an upgraded FT-17. Some FIAT 3000B tanks were in fact armed with the 37mm L/40 Vickers-Terni gun (as in the M11/39), although the main motivation at that stage seems to have been destroying enemy strong points like machine gun nests and the like. Nevertheless, AP ammunition existed for that gun from the beginning.

Re: Tigers vs Shermans
 

Said I wouldn't comment again but your actually pretty much verifying what I said.

The Tiger was the first tank designed with tank combat in mind as a primary role.

As you stated sure other people realised this & upgraded models to do so.

The key word is upgraded they were not designed that way from the start.

Not going to look it up but the Tigers design brief was from around 1937 if I remember right because the Germans saw the need for it.

Because they were ahead of the game is why the Tiger has been I would say the only tank in history that truly had nothing to touch it for a year or two after its delivery.

Re: Tigers vs Shermans
 

.. and yet the first ones the British met weres taken out by 57mm ATG's in the first engagement

Re: Tigers vs Shermans
 

As the old sherman tanker says:if they see you first you are dead,if you see them first you are still dead.

Re: Tigers vs Shermans
 

Not saying Tigers are invunerable.
Once did a trial a single Tiger against a platoon of M5A1's(hill terrian) with success but heavily damaged.
The major problems in Tigers were the steering,fuel,breakdowns, poor crew training and the allied air supremacity at that time.

Re: Tigers vs Shermans
 

The fundamental problem with this argument is that the Tiger was not designed specifically to fight other tanks :)

If you look at the earliest speculations on the subject of a heavy tank back in 1935, development of a medium velocity 75mm gun for it was actually dropped because the Wehrmacht didn't want that. Instead, the heavy tank project developed as a breakthrough tank (Durchbruchwagen) in the 30-ton class. In 1937 the project envisioned a 30-ton tank armed with the 7,5cm KwK 37 L/24, i.e. the same gun as the Panzer IV.
As it developed into the VK 30.01 Panzerkampfwagen VI in 1940, it retained the 7,5cm L/24 gun. A more powerfull weapon was not considered for this design until October 1941, after the Soviets had exposed the inferiority of German tank and anti-tank weaponry. At that point they were looking at a 7,5cm L/34,5 experimental weapon, the 5cm L/42 and L/60 or a taper-bore 75mm gun. Even the 7,5cm L/43 that were being designed for the Panzer IV was considered in late 1941.

In 1940-41 a 105mm low-velocity gun was considered as well.

The 8,8cm L/56 gun did not emerge in speculations until early 1941 when Krupp offered a turret with that weapon for Porsche, who was working on their experimental heavy tank in the 30-ton class. By the summer of 1941 Porsches design had grown into a 45-ton tank project in competetion with Henschels proposal in the same weight class, also to mount the 8,8cm gun.

So the Tiger was not inititally intended as an anti-tank weapon, but as vehicle for breaking into and through strong enemy defenses. Hence its thick armour and a gun focused on delivering a good HE round.
I think it can be argued, that the change in armament by 1941 was due to a need of combining HE firepower with a solid anti-tank capability. That is, exactly the same development towards a dual-purpose gun that happened for other German tanks in this period:

- Introduction of 20mm and 37mm HE for tanks in 1940 after the fighting in Poland
- 50mm guns with HE for the Panzer III in 1940
- A new dual-purpose 75mm gun for the Panzer IV and StuG in 1941

If you look at the tactical manuals for the Tiger company in the spring of 1943, they still mention four different main jobs for the Tiger

- Attack in the first line against strong enemy defenses
- Destruction at long range of heavy enemy tanks and other armoured targets
- Continued attack against the enemy defenses
- Achieving breakthrough against fortified enemy positions

It is emphasized, though, that if enemy tanks present themselves, they become the main objective of the Tiger. But this is 1943 - not 1937 :)