Tigers vs Shermans

[gila]

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

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

[codman]

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.

[PvtJoker]

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).

[Imp]

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.

[PvtJoker]

Originally Posted by Imp

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.

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).

[Imp]

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

[PvtJoker]

Originally Posted by Imp

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

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.

[scorpio_rocks]

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?

[Imp]

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.

[Griefbringer]

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.