Tell me about the Tiger, /k/. Some people call it a meme tank

>>29685236
First generation tiger was dogeshit however the second generation is better as they simplifed everything.

It's like the panzer.

>>29685236
>Some people call it a meme tank

that would be panther

>others call it an advancement

uhh it was as generic as heavy tank gets

>an accidental pre-MBT.

that would be t-34

>what is the true value of the Tiger as a tank?

~ $1,282,051 in todays money

>>29685236
It would have been better off with more angles engineered into its armor

>>29685236
well it was basically meant to put all soviet armore at the time to shame with its gun and armor, which it did for a while, but ultimatley not enough as too few were produced

there isnt actually a great deal of innovation in the design, its just a bag standard heavy thank with the only notable feature being the advanced optic system that gave it long engagement ranges for the time

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>>29685236

The Tiger II is the meme tank, which performed poorly despite its appearance and powerful armament.

The Tiger I was a superb fighting vehicle on every front up until the very end of the war. Single battalions of Tigers could determine strategic outcomes of entire operations, in fact, whole operations were planned around the Tiger I and their crews.

The Tiger I had approx. the same mobility and reliability of the ubiquitous Panzer IV, and the Tiger battalions had their own field workshops accompany them, so they could recover, repair and field the tanks rapidly.

The only shortcoming of the Tiger I was their small number, 1300, because they weren't designed with mass production in mind.

>>29685292
>Generic as a heavy tank gets

Not with all the other Heavy Tanks of WWII. The Tiger was heavily armed and armoured, but it had almost the same road speed and better off-road capability than the Panzer IV as >>29685318 said.

>That would be T-34
Just the first pre-MBT. The Tiger became an accidental pre-MBT as well (Thick armour, powerful gun, medium-tank mobility).

It's a pretty good tank with solid performance on all fronts
it's just that it was outdated by late 44 and the mechanical issues that plagued it

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>>29685292
>uhh it was as generic as heavy tank gets

Really?

Compare the Tiger I to immobile, primitive monsters of the same vintage like the KV-1, Neubaufahrzeug (pic related), stupid land battleships like the T-35 and others, or the retarded French monsters like the Char 2C.

Compared to those, the Tiger I was exceptional, especially if you consider that it was relevant to the end of the war.

>>29685236
read info any about the Tiger, and you be the judge

also, pre-MBTs are basically the medium tanks

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>>29685318
>whole operations were planned around the Tiger I and their crews.
this

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>>29686000

Also the 508th did relatively poorly on paper but reports 59% of their losses were crews blowing up their own tanks.

This was in Italy where the terrain was the hardest for the Tiger and they could not make full use of their stand-off advantage.

Same goes for other units, self-demolished vehicles are counted as losses. Combat losses were even more in favour of the Tiger.

A true killing machine, best overall tank of WW2 without a doubt.

>>29685318
>The Tiger I had approx. the same mobility and reliability of the ubiquitous Panzer IV,
>reliability

No. Tiger battalions had comparabe reliability and operaitonal mobility to Panzer IV regiments - which can quite heavily be attributed to single heavy panzer battalions getting almost as much organic maintenance and recovery assets as entire normal tank regiments. For fucks sake, the TOE for a heavy tank battalion in 1944 had as many recovery tanks as an entire contemporary Panzer DIVISION.

>>29686102

Good points, but the Germans deemed that their performance justified the higher logistical footprint. And they were right.

>>29686000
>taking kill reports of propaganda darling units at face value
>ever

Kek.

>>29686110
>And they were right

...only if you actually take their massively inflated kill claims at face value. And even then it'd be questionable.

>>29686099
>A true killing machine
this honestly sums up the Tiger 1 quite effectively. After doing my share of reading, looking at numbers, memoirs of crews and those generally involved in the combat; it's just fucking incredible trying to visualize it all.

Fuck, Wiking, Das Reich(?), and one other SS panzer division held off two soviet tank armies on the Mius front, destroying over 800 soviet tanks, with no more than 50 functional panzers between them.

>>29686134
>propaganda darling units
you have literally no idea what you're talking about.

>>29686154
>Fuck, Wiking, Das Reich(?), and one other SS panzer division held off two soviet tank armies on the Mius front, destroying over 800 soviet tanks, with no more than 50 functional panzers between them.

I was reading about the exploits of heavy tank battalion 102 in Normandy, fighting off the Brits around Hill 112. Amazing stuff.

Also the memoirs of Willy Fey.

I've yet to read Otto Carius' book. I'm trying to find a first publishing copy.

>>29686431
I wish I payed attention in krautspeak class back in high school, I'd really like to read personal memoirs from the war in their original language.

And Nietzsche.

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>>29686134
>buying into the russian attempt to rewrite history to portraiy soviet army of ww2 as a modern, competent and advanced army
please, kill yourself

>>29686154
>implying the heavy panzer units weren't propaganda darlings all around

No, pal, you have literally no idea if you're actually ignorant of that.

Hell, even if they weren't, triyng to take uncomfirmed kill claims at face value is still retarded. Moreover, they counted any enemy tank hit as a kill, wether it was merely disabled, temporarily knocked out or a catastrophic kill.

FFS even the Wehrmacht's own intelligence service and high command operated under a rule of thumb that at least half the kill claims over any period of time would be either bullshit or damaged tanks that their opponents would bring back into the fight shortly - and it turned out that they were actually vastly underestimating just how much false claims were in play.

According to OKWs own estimate post-Kursk, Kutuzov and Rumiantsev (the soviet counter-offensives) with the 50% reduction for false claims and recovered losses in play, they arrived at having killed an estimated 9150 soviet tanks overall.

The Soviets own internal logistical reporting showed about 6000 tank losses BEFORE RECOVERY AND REPAIR EFFORTS.

And that's how a claimed 12:1 kill/loss ratio ends up being something like 3:1 at best - with the count not only not taking into account german temporary tank losses, but also leaving aside any replacements vehicles recieved by those german formations throughout those weeks - functionally recording any replacement as a negative loss while not doing the same on the Soviet side.

ANd before you go to the typical wehraboo defense of "HURR DURR COMMIE LIES", it's much the same trend of treating all kills as catastrophic and systematic overclaiming over on the western front, too.

>>29686431
And if you really believe kill claims from the fucking Waffen SS, you're beyond retarded. also, newsflash: Das Reich, Wiking? No tigers there. The only division to have organic heavy tanks was Grossdeutschland.

>>29686643
>buying into flat-out nai propaganda that has them regularily killing several times as many soviet/british/american tanks as there were actually present at the battle in question

No, you please kill yourself. But before that, please execute your parents for polluting the genepool with your idiocy.

>>29685236
>an accidental pre-MBT
I hate to be a pedantic, petty areshole....but wasn't every tank built before the MBT a 'pre-MBT'?

>>29686665
>everyone i don't like is using nazi propaganda/is just like hitler
I'm sorry, this is not tumblr

>>29686665
But that is a known, historically accepted phenomenon, one that occured on all fronts with both sides.
It'd be like assuming that B-17 gunners singlehandedly destroyed the Luftwaffe based on their kill claims.

>>29686000
Schwere SS-Panzerabteilung 103(503)s claimed 500 kills always crack me up. That unit was only activaed in January 1945, never fully equipped and what few records survive of it are both incomplete and at times contradicting themselves, doing things like placing the full battalion at two places at the same time and reporting contact with enemy units that other german reports place hundreds of kilometres away at the same time. Also such highlights as two King Tigers fucking off, coming back three hours later and claiming to have killed 64 IS-2s and T-34/85s using 64 shells between them - while the next soviet heavy tank regiment was over a hundred kilometres away.

Anyone who considers that claimed 500 kills anything but complete fiction is just a completely ignorant fool or a deliberate liar.

>>29686774
And yet people still try to use those compeltely unverified claim numbers to argue how much of an invincible wonderweapon the Tiger was, so....

>>29686831
>here's a bunch of shit i made up please don't fact check a single statement of it
wew lad. was your grand daddy in a t34 oven?

>>29685236
the cult surronding the tiger came about from the armies that came up against it with plenty of justification...was it perfect? no.
was it a war winner? no, but it could have been.
was it a waste of resources? most likely.
I for one would not have wanted to come up against one in combat especially with a well trained crew.
>>29685236
>Some people call it a meme tank
quit trying to cuck everything people, damn.

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>>29686648
Other anon here. You are partially right and the topic is interesting but sadly you behave like a raging autist. When you look at kill claims of all sides you have huge inaccruacies, these are mostly caused by double countings. You also need to understand that the loss and kill reporting was not done to cause kill ratios. Your claim that the germans claimed 9150 tanks for the battle of Kursk and the after battles is also plainly wrong. They claimed 8125 tanks from 5.7-31.8 for the whole eastern front. For the whole year of 1943 we have a raw claim number of 34.648 which was corrected by FHO to 17.330, while Krivosheev gives 21.529 losses he assembled from archival data. Interesting enough usually the propaganda reports are somewhat in between the raw claims and the adjusted FHO numbers. Only in 1941 the propaganda even understated the real soviet losses by about 2000.

>newsflash: Das Reich, Wiking? No tigers there. The only division to have organic heavy tanks was Grossdeutschland.

For the Wiking you are right. The rest is bullshit. For Citadel the 1st to 3rd SS-Panzergrenadier-Divisionen were equipped with a company of Tigers and this guy even mentioned the Mius battles during which they still had them. Give it a go and read into the real numbers before you call others "wehraboo" or "beyond retarded" or at least do it with your own kind on the War Thunder forums.

>>29686844

The Germans were known for diligent accounting of losses and enemies destroyed. I have little reason to not believe most of those claims. Their numbers against Western Allies were vaguely correct, so I assume it's the Soviets who would be lying through their teeth.

And Stalinist USSR did lie about practically everything, that is a FACT.

>>29685388
>KV-1
> immobile
>primitive
are you kidding m8
Tiger is literally a German made KV-1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVWUSUKkyG8

>>29688085
found the slav

i mean i like the KV tanks but lets be honest, they were bad

>>29688049
>For the Wiking you are right.
Wiking had the 5. Panzer Regiment (PzIvs)
They also had Marders and StuGs. Theirs were the last armored vehicles standing during the retreat from Hungary. They killed tons of Soviet vehicles.

>>29688485
oh, and i just found out they were the first division to get panther tank groups in the dnieper withdrawal and had them up until the battle of warsaw in 44
not just a motorised division you see

>>29688085

The KV tanks were crude chunks of steal set in motion by a tractor engine.

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>>29685236
Insanely sexy.

>>29685303
It didn't have significantly more armor than the T-34 when you realize it wasn't sloped.

I seriously didn't know there were still this many delusional wehraboos on /k/

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>>29688915
At least they partly balance out the sheer stupidity of our resident slavaboos.

>>29686648
>Moreover, they counted any enemy tank hit as a kill, wether it was merely disabled, temporarily knocked out or a catastrophic kill
There is nothing wrong with this.

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>>29688887

Yeah but

>russian """""quality control"""""

>>29685236
Probably the greatest Tank that ever graced the battlefield, now days we much much better shit but take something like Abrams for example, it never saw actual combat, its either sitting in warehouse in states or steamrolling sandmen who try to take it out with RPG's and IDie's

>>29689047
>the greatest Tank that ever graced the battlefield
The Tiger was a great weapon by many aspects but come on.

>>29689066
This.

>>29686967
>Let me just dismiss all the facts without even trying to form any kind of actual arguent.

Wew, kid. Was your grandmom raped by some victorious Soviets?

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>>29689041
>spent all day in autismal rage because my welds weren't as perfect as they could've been
>see this

>>29686431
>Carius describing an ambush on a t34 column and the effect the 88 had on its conscript spaced armored.

>>29689041

I'm normally a Wehracunt, but that just plain doesn't make any difference.

As long as the weld holds, it doesn't have to be pretty. These are war machines.

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>>29689066

It was the best tank of WW2 according to combat performance.

>>29688064
>The Germans were known for diligent accounting of losses

No more than anyone else. Newsflash: Tallying upyour own losses is actually not all that hard.

>and enemies destroyed

And wrong. They were no more accurrate there than anyone else, too. There is little to no reason to take any of their kill claims any more serious than anyone else's.

And no, their numbers against the western allies were also bullshit, claiming consistently more total kills than the allies lost even if we include tanks that were only damaged and quickly returned to service into the actual allied loss numbers.

This is not a unique thing. EVERYONE overestimated their kill numbers, all the fucking time. The Germans regularily killed more soviet tanks than were present within the combat zone, the allies blew up more Tigers than ever existed, the Soviets killed every Elefant/Ferdinan ever built three times over etc. Kill claims are virtually always innaccurate, and absolutely always less accurrate than loss reports.

>so I assume it's the Soviets who would be lying through their teeth.

An assumption you make with absolutely nothing supporting it and agianst any and all facts as well as simple basic logic.

>And Stalinist USSR did lie about practically everything, that is a FACT.

Prove it, dipshit.

More specifically, prove that they for some retarded reason lied in their own internal loss reports that were never meant for publication. We're talking about logistical paperwork used to determine which formations were in need of replacement here - a process without which any kind of industrialised warfare is literally impossible to carry out. If the Soviets had lied in their own internal loss reports, they would have lost the war in short order. THAT is a FACT.

>>29689170
>that ever graced the battlefield
Learn to read.

>>29689037
Except that they then the only counted their own permanent losses. And hence came out to a completely worthless "kill/death ratio" that was nothing of the sort. More like a kill/I-think-we-may-have-hit-them ratio.

>>29686648
> And if you really believe kill claims from the fucking Waffen SS
> not believing the claims of the most elite fighting force that ever walked this face of the earth
ok bruv

>>29689159
I can guarantee that those welds are shitty as they look. You don't think their full of air and Slagle pockets?

>>29685236

>destroy entire American tank companies
>destroy Russian tanks by the thousands

No Tigers were not that great, but German tank commanders were.

So many butthurt naziboos here:Dd it was the t 34 in berlin and not the tiger in moscow

>>29688064
> I have little reason to not believe most of those claims
>And Stalinist USSR did lie about practically everything, that is a FACT
I just don't even...

>>29689938
okay piotr

>>29685236
This is a pretty good book on the Tiger I. It helped change my perspective in considering whether the Tiger tank was an effective tank.

http://www.amazon.com/Swinging-The-Sledgehammer-Effectiveness-Battalions-ebook/dp/B00JQEQ9YC

Very well written and researched.

>>29689192
>Prove it, dipshit.

>More specifically, prove that they for some retarded reason lied in their own internal loss reports that were never meant for publication. We're talking about logistical paperwork used to determine which formations were in need of replacement here - a process without which any kind of industrialised warfare is literally impossible to carry out. If the Soviets had lied in their own internal loss reports, they would have lost the war in short order. THAT is a FACT.

>Believing the public numbers Soviets/Russians put out
>2016
>ishygddt

Look up the Rzhev offensives for one instance. David Glantz goes a good bit into how the Soviets covered up entire offensives that failed for propaganda purposes. We still don't have access to their real internal documents. I can give the link to a good source on the matter if you like anon.

>>29689938
>Zerg rush aside
T34 would have been Panthers opponents, and therefore, a single panther could.wreck several T34 but ruskies would always have more T34's
This aside, same could be said between King Tigers and IS series

>>29690250
>There is a moment where quantity trumps quality and slavs went far.beyond that point
Most Tigers were taken out by AT arty emplacements, ATSPGs, outflanking infantry and strafing aircrafts, not by drowning them in hordes of T-34s.

>I wonder how King Tigers compare to IS series and Pershings
King Tiger was a better tank-killer
IS-2 was a better tank.

By 1943 Soviets figured out that using tanks to support infantry offensive while leaving tank-killing for ATSPG's was better than bashing tanks with other tanks. At least in their context.

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the fucks with quotation
>>29690250
>>29690334

>>29690291
> and therefore, a single panther could.wreck several T34
Frontline panzer action is not tank duels, no matter what Fury shows you. T-34s were awesome, in that they were easy, abundant, reliable, and great for all tasks of supporting infantry and tearing through weakened positions, were Germans did not expect an offensive, especially not one backed by armor. In all means and intends, T-34 COULD duel other tanks (and did it quite often), but if it was anything above PzIV crews preferred to hightail it and leave the beasts to the Beastkillers to take care of.

>>29690250
>>29690250
>>29690250

are you a wizrd?

>>29690180
What part of internal and never meant for publication did you miss? David Glantz has also gone into detail in his lectures and his papers stating that the Russians were even more anal retentive over accurate loss reporting and logistics than the Germans were.

>>29686688
Literally, sure.
But pre-MBT tanks are tanks which are very similar to what entails a modern MBT, but made before actual MBTs.

>>29690161
>http://www.amazon.com/Swinging-The-Sledgehammer-Effectiveness-Battalions-ebook/dp/B00JQEQ9YC

Looks good. What is the gist of it?

>>29688085
Less a German-made KV-1 and more a super-sized Panzer IV.

>>29685388
By 1945, just about every cannon in common use by the allies was capable of easily penetrating its armor.

>>29685318
Armor wasn't all that special. The common Churchill had the same amount of armor and later versions of the KV-2 had even thicker armor than that of the tiger. Not even to mention the IS...

>>29689105
>Welding student
>I know that feel

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>>29689041
Jesus H. Christ

Slav shit is Slav shit

>>29694432
guess what?

those kind of welds won the war

Why did Germany have to design so many special snowflake tanks? Why not just build a fuckton of Pz IVs and StuGs? Better yet, just fucking copy the T34. How the Panther had such a shitty gearbox is beyond me.

I understand that their experienced crews were dwindling in number, which explains the need for "better" tanks.

>>29685388
>2c
>same vintage
How about no.

>>29685236
Over engineered hunks of scrap with a good gun and shaped by an autist

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>>29685259
On paper, yeah.

In real life it was the exact opposite. Tiger IIs were severely handicapped.

>>29685335
>The Tiger became an accidental pre-MBT as well (Thick armour, powerful gun, medium-tank mobility).
Tiger is heavy tank. All around armor. All around gun. Never supposed to be single type of tank, supposed to reinforce units armed with medium tanks.
MBTs are build specifically around against tank vs tank warfare. Extreme disproportion between frontal and side armor, gun built to combat AFVs first and everything other second. Single type of tank in armored divisions. First MBT is Panther tank.

>>29685318
>The only shortcoming of the Tiger I was their small number, 1300, because they weren't designed with mass production in mind.
Shortcoming of Tiger I was armor. Great in 1942, obsolete in 1944. This why Germans started Tigger II meme, Tiger I time was over.

>>29696117
The panther was supposed to be a superior copy of the T-34.

Turned out it was a more heavly armored and heavy firepower counter to the T-34 but lacked the strategic mobility that the T-34 enjoyed which it was supposed to have. (and maybe tactical mobility in the sense that most T-34 wont suddenly start burning because the guy that built you said you were able to drive under water and had put heavy leather or water resistant material in the engine compartment which results in a faster overheating.)

>>29695504
Unnecessary casualties won the war for the Soviet union

The tiger was great because it was simply put just way more armoured and armed than most things it went up against, especially early war and it scared the shit out of the allies and it's hype and reputation is probably one of the main causes for the general feeling of the superiority of German equipment. It was a great tank and it fared really well.

One point worth bringing up though, is that it is no surprise it fared well against T-34s, seeing and even the panzer IV fared well against T-34s, despite having inferior armour, mobility and IIRC a higher profile too, simply because it had proper sights and communication. German's didn't fare well because of muh krupp stahl and nazi science, it was because they knew their shit and were for a time ahead of the curve in terms of tactics, in which the brits were slow and cumbersome command wise, the soviets were a disaster early on and the US had no idea what the fuck they were doing at first, and unlike the Germans, the latter two could afford making mistakes to learn from.

>>29696117
>Why did Germany have to design so many special snowflake tanks?
First is Germans fucking suck at logistics. Second is they went into the war without material or numerical superiority so that tried to make up for it by producing smaller quantities of more effective weapons to try to close the distance. Third is internal politics involving everyone trying to one up the other with the "war winning" weapon to gain favor with Hitler.

>>29688887
the difference in stopping power between 100mm of flat rolled steel vs 45mm of sometimes poorly welded sloped rolled steel is significant

>>29685236

The Tigers were great tanks for their day.

They just didn't exist in large enough numbers to make a difference. Definitely not as reliable as the Sherman, though.

Awful strategic and tactical mobility, shit maintenance. Looking at its suspension make my eyes bleed, and when i remember that you have to remove the turret to replace engine i pass out.

>>29688085
>are you kidding m8
Soviet cross country trials average speed:
KV-1 - 8 km/h.
KV-2 - 6
T-34-76 (4-speed transmission) - 11-12.
T-34-76 (5-speed transmission) - 17.
IS-2 15-16.
Pz III - 18.
Tiger I - 11-12.
Panther - 13.

>>29696166
i thing he means the later versions of the Tiger 1.

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>>29689281
>Most elite fighting force
Nigger please. The SS varied WILDLY in training and motivation between units and also depended largely upon the year. The first few SS units like Das Reich and Totenkopf had some truly hardcore units, then you get scum like Direlwanger's unit. Furthermore even within the more elite formations as time went on they began to conscript new members, and while some had the zeal of their predecessors they lacked heavily in experience. 12th SS for example fought long and hard on the western front but despite having very ideologically true recruits they didn't have the experience afforded to units like Wiking and LSSAH. By the time of Bagration or the Battle of the Bulge most of the veteran SS were long gone. The whole meme that the SS were all the best of the best needs to die, the Waffen SS were an entire branch of the German military and were subject to the same vagaries of any other military branch at the time.
>>29685236
It was a great tank in the right hands, but had real limitations that sort of diminish the whole "supertank" meme. There's a very marked difference between Tigers in the hands of veteran crews and ones that were handled by new guys that didn't know what they were doing.

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>>29689041
>caring about quality control when the aim was to get as many of the tanks made as possible
>expecting all welds to be 100% perfect when they rolled out 84 thousand T-34s
retard

>>29690394
>t-34
>reliable
No.

>>29696294
>Panzer 4
>Higher profile

>>29696484
It was about 50,000 T-34s but yeah, quality control wasn't the first thing on people's mind.

>>29688485
>>29688553
We talked about heavy tanks. Panzer IV and Panthers are still medium tanks.

>>29688366
Top kek, yeah sure. They wuz bad xD meme. Truth is KVs were like the Tigers to the soviets for like half of the war. KVs raped Pz2, 3s, and the Pz4s before the Pz4 got the 75mms, and even then a Pz4 would and they did in fact sometimes bounce off KVs. And even a german ww2 tank vet said that his tiger couldn't pen KVs at long ranges so they have to drive in closer.

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>>29696670
nah, m8. not falling for it

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>>29696679
You /k/ autists are annoying. I didn't even browse /k/ at all barely but after being on /k/ for a like 3 days I got called a troll/shill for saying Russian civilians got killed by chechens before any actual fighting took place now some kek thinks I'm baiting him. Yeah whatever, but seriously go watch all of the Greatest Tank Battles shows were they feature tank battles that happened on the eastern front then come back and apologize when you see in one of them a german vet saying that his tiger couldn't pen KV-1 at a long distance kid. And if I'll find it I'll post it, because I'm certain I saw it.

>>29696728
>kid
>onky three days and already shit talking like a true /k/ommando

You have come far.

It was the only worthy cat tank that did well

Panther was shit, Tiger II was shit

Total garbage. Unreliable, too thirsty, too heavy, too expensive.

>>29685259
The tiger is a panzer

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>>29685236
What do I think of Tigers?
Well, they're GRRREAT!

>>29685259
I think you mean Panther.

Panzer is just German for armour.

>>29685236
Powerful weapon, economic dead weight.

>>29696728
>Russian civilians got killed by chechens before any actual fighting took place
because you are a slavboo and failed for the russian propaganda
not only have been the chechense victims of the soviet ethnic cleansing from 1958 on but they also wanted their independence (just like georgia 1989 and they made it in 1991 - they got later punished for that by the kremlin with an artificial civil war, just like in ukraine today) and the demonstration got shot together in the streets by the russian puppet government and their gangs
only then did the chechens thirst for the blood of these russian savages, by every god given right i have to say

>>29699471
You literally proved nothing and have a poor idea of what you're talking about. Once again proving what an obnoxious place this board is.

But one thing I have learned for sure from browsing /k/ is that if you state your opinion even if it's factual you could still be labelled as a slavaboo paid russian troll/shill.

>>29688993
Thats the cutest Hetzer Ive ever seen/

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>>29686154
>Wiking, Das Reich(?), and one other SS panzer division held off two soviet tank armies on the Mius front, destroying over 800 soviet tanks, with no more than 50 functional panzers between them.

Feels so good

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>>29685236
The tiger was a pretty meme tank however not as much as the panther. the tiger did at least have some merit to the rumours and legend surrounding it.

Whilst it was by no means the most unreliable tank in the world, the crew had to be very gentle with it indeed if they wanted to keep it that way. few tigers where ever pushed over 2600rpm with a trained crew and fewer still ever used it cross country. if the track system broke you where stuck for a long time and its weight prevented it from traveling across muddy or swampy ground effectively.

the frontal armour was not anything special in reality. it was usually the extreme ranges at which it could operate that kept them alive. the Sherman or T34 had armour nearly comparable due to the sharp sloping of those tanks frontal plates. it was the side and rear armour which was a considerable advantage over its competitors however that was not really the best use of the weight.

The best part of the Tiger 1 was the gun. The KwK 36 was the best part of the tank. high velocity allowed for long firing range and the high damage the shells could cause once they hit was what made the tank so formidable.

To prove this point, look at the British Churchill. Comparable to the tiger in many ways, a heavy slow and box like tank which design was outdated to say the least. The Churchill in fact (at least the mk 7) had 150 millimetres of armour 1.5x that of the tiger. the reason the Churchill wasn't known as a war winner was its ill fitting 6 pounder gun. this gun made it basically impossible to kill a German tank from anything over 600 yards.

>Soviets win WWII
>Russians still crying over not winning it hard enough

But why?

>>29703568
what was memey about the panther m8 the 75mm gun on it was great better than kwk36 by comparison. it had great cross country mobility and good armor. it was also definitely more mechanically reliable than the tiger.

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>>29703945
Whilst it is true that the 75 mil on the panther did out preform the 88 on terms of velocity and raw penetration. the 88 was a more effective gun. either gun only had to penetrate armour of 100 mil at the most under average circumstances. the extra penetrative power didn't matter. the larger shell of the 88 was more effective at knocking out tanks and not to mention the high explosives from the 75 where extremely terrible, this is a big reason why panthers where not used typically as infantry support. considering most of the time high explosive will do the job against light vehicles, infantry and even some tanks it was more favourable to have the 88.

the mobility of the panther was indeed very good. the suspension system was the best of its day however it did suffer a similar problem to the tiger in this regard. the suspension if damaged took a long time to fix.

In regards to the armour, the frontal plates where very good however the turret front did apparently suffer from weak points apparently, at least on the early models. the thing that let down the armour on most panthers was the way they fought. almost opposing its optimum role, many panthers where put in close quarters with allied armour and in the end it cost many crews.

People seem to think the panther was some sort of revolutionary tank, the first MBT or something."it wuz da best tank in da war" is just not really true. panthers gun was lacking in overall combat effectiveness and whilst it was more reliable than the tiger it was still very over engineered. the suspension was probably not the best idea, whilst it made a nice ride it was heavy and difficult to repair. it was supposed to be so the gun could fire on the move but they never did do that anyway.

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>>29685236
Really, a tank's performance is down to the commander and crew. Tigers with good crews did well, Tigers with shit crews did shit. Don't trust /k/ because everyone on here wildly biased towards their favorite country or tank. If you're really, really interested, read first hand accounts or other nonfiction. I'd recommend pic related and anything about Micheal Wittmann.

>>29689159

When a weld looks like shit, it is shit. It doesn't matter, the structural integrity of that tank is hindered by what ever slag is hidden inside that weld.

But the german machines suffered the same shit late war, using the slave labor.

>>29696294
>just way more armoured and armed than most things it went up against, especially early war
Germans had no Tigers in early war. Meanwhile since the beginning of Barbarossa they had to deal with Commie KV-1, which was only slightly less armored, and SU-152 (ATSPG on KV-1 chassis), which was only slightly less well-armed.

>>29688366
>i mean i like the KV tanks but lets be honest, they were bad
KV was a heavy strain on Soviet logistics, but otherwise it was an ok heavy tank. It was infinitely better than American T1, British Churchill and French B1. Circa 1941, KV-1 was the best heavy tank in the world. And after Tigers were deployed by Germans, it was the second best in the world.
>"B-but it can't reliably kill a Tiger from the front while Tiger easily can take it out!"
Well good thing it wasn't meant for killing tigers, and was AWESOME when facing it's most common foes - powerful mechanized advances, fortified positions and lots of PzIII and IVs. And later Soviets added IS-2 into the mix for doing basically the same job, but better and with the added capacity for REMOVE TIGERS REMOVE PANTHERS.

>>29707568
>When a weld looks like shit, it is shit. It doesn't matter, the structural integrity of that tank is hindered by what ever slag is hidden inside that weld.

this is 100% incorrect

>>29696276
>expecting a low casualty from being invaded

grow up, kid

>>29708160
>expecting a proficient officer core
Lol, what are you, German?

>>29696166
>dat non-painted chromed barrel
my eyes reached orgasm

>>29686468
Not too late to learn anon.

>>29685259
So wrong. The Tiger II was to retardedly heavy and fuel reliant that most ended up abandoned or broken down.

>>29689159
they said that for the Panther's armor too

>>29688887
but as same time Soviet tanks were far behind in firepower, even when compared to long barrel Pz IV.

100mm is enough when enemy guns can penetrate up to 70mm at 1km. In fact even later D-5T could pen Tiger's frontal armor only up to 500m range, and even that if hit angle is perfect.
At same time Tiger's gun could defeat both T-34 and KV-1 at any practical range. Even Pz IV's long gun could defeat it at 1200m, according to post-war tests.

>>29696630
55,000 in 1939 - 1945, but 84,000 total as production lasted to 1958.

By 1945 45,000 was lost, leaving Red Army with "only" 10,000 T-34's, compared to ap. 40,000 Shermans out of 45,000 produced (nevermention number of Brit medium tanks), so Soviets decided to keep chunking them up while creating new tanks and retooling factories for them.

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>>29688085
>KV1
>Anything but a hunk-of-shit tractor engine with armor bolted on

>>29686844
Just like slavaboos that claim the t-34 wasn't garbage.

>>29696117
>Why did Germany have to design so many special snowflake tanks?
Private contractors trying to win political favor by wooing Adolf with the next wonder weapon

>Why not just build a fuckton of Pz IVs and StuGs?
IIRC, the StuG III was the German's most produced AFV.

>Better yet, just fucking copy the T34.
They did. The VK 30.01/02 (D) tanks were ordered as a response (*cough* copy *cough*) of the T34, but were scrapped in favor of the Panther. Also something about being too similar in silhouette to the T34.

>How the Panther had such a shitty gearbox is beyond me.
Rushed into production before serious teething problems could be worked out, like a lot of things under the 3rd Reich (sorry, wehraboos).

>>29703945

Panther was the most meme tank of WW2.

Probably the single most unreliable mainline tank out of any service, and that includes the early British cruisers.

People shit on the M16 for jamming in Vietnam. The Panther puts that to absolute shame.

During Kursk, more than 50% of panthers were out of service by the end of the first week due to breakdowns. This meant tanks with defects that could not be fixed at the depot level.

Reliability improved over time, but in Normandy, the US army found as many broken down and abandoned Panthers as knocked out ones.

>>29709197
>>29696117

the main problem with the panther, was that it was designed to use helical final drive gears of a certain quality

to save money, and probably cause more factories have the tools, they decided to use straight cut final drive gears of shitty steel
the tank would work fine if driven carefully
ofcourse its a war and drivers will get stressed and that goes out the window.

otherwise the design itself is pretty amazing, and the engineering behind it.

it was an incredibly cheap tank to produce. much cheaper and faster in production than pzIV ans pzIII

>>29696262
>The panther was supposed to be a superior copy of the T-34

stop with this meme.
it was designed to counter them effectively. it doesnt share many similarities at all.

>>29707784
its true, except for aluminum, they always look like shit.

ugly as fuck welds mean shitty welders, wich mean shit welds.
weld speed and the cooling rate, in additon to slag inclusions, pores, and hydrogen embrittlement. are things that will happen when a shitty welder welds and ugly as fuck weld.

>>29696117
>Why did Germany have to design so many special snowflake tanks?
I don't know, did they? How many special snowflake tanks did they build in significant quantity? Or are you just repeating a meme?

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>This just in! Autismal retards who read statistics of the losing and winning side of a world war fling shit at eachother

Ive spoken to many a WWII vet before they died and can tell you many things
>Everyone was terrified of the Tiger
>Everyone would shit bricks at a Stug or Hetzer
>No one ever saw a King Toger except flipped over by bombs or just in a ditch and out of fuel
>Germans would walk up and surrender after expending all ammunition
>German soldiers were impressed by the t-34s and shermans ability to burn
>German soldiers wish their tigers were as easy to fix as the stug
>Pumas were boss as hell apparently
>Americans would call anything from a Puma to a 7,5 Halftrack a Panther or Tiger

And more

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>>29699517
>factual

>Le unreliable Panther meme xD

Jesus this thread

>>29708160
Then explain Kursk which was a tactical defeat for the soviets where they had months of prep time, laid out mine fields, trenches, propositioned equipment and still lost more men and material?

>>29709428
Indeed, please explain how anyone can call Kursk a tactical victory for the Germans.

>>29709444
Less losses, army group managed to survive and pull out when they had absolutely zero reason on paper to have not been completely destroyed and prolong the war. Kursk should have opened the door to Ukraine and lead to large gains in the matter of weeks. It did not because of Soviet incompetence.

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>>29708160
>kill your officers before the war
>have inexperienced officers when the war starts
>not prepared for war because Russian retardation
>I-It's because we got invaded!!!1!

>>29709424
I still wonder why tank threads on /k/ are always this shitty.

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>>29709480
Because of memes

>>29709585
*tips turret*
>m'vatnik

Sorry, had to do it

>>29709454
>Less losses,
Right, just like how WW2 was a "tactical victory" for Germany.

>>29710121
Do you not know the difference between tactical and strategic?

>>29710912
Do you seriously think tactical victory is achieved whenever you lose fewer men and equipment than the other guy?

>>29685292
>an accidental pre-MBT.
>that would be t-34

vatnik please

>>29710925
Your non answer implies you do not know the answer to anons question.

>>29709424
Remember : in these threads, no tank is reliable

>>29709480
/thg/ are nice threads

>>29685236
>an accidental pre-MBT.


MBT's are an organizational philosophy, not a design choice. Any tank that isn't the vast majority of it's army can't be considered an MBT.


>what is the true value of the Tiger as a tank?


Virtually nothing. The German army wasn't in a position logistically to deal with them, and couldn't produce them in numbers to make an impact.


>>29688064
Germany's liberal interpretation of what a loss was- as opposed to the allied definitions which typically marked anything not immediately war ready as a 'loss'- is well documented.


>>29689281
>not believing the claims of the most elite fighting force that ever walked this face of the earth


Even the Wehrmact didn't. Only about 3 SS divisions were anything approaching a military outfit, while the rest were anything from raw, untrained conscripts to criminals.

>>29703945

If you think the Tiger I was unreliable, the Panther was an absolute disaster. It was a war expedient tank build by slave labour under critical materials shortage conditions and often sabotaged by the forced workers. It was better optimized for mass production, and in that respect it was better than a Tiger since they made close to 8,000 vehicles in a shorter time period than it took to manufacture 1,300 Tigers.

>>29706963

>Mfw Willi Fey killed 80 tanks in Normandy in a 2 months alone.

>>29709409
Believe whatever you want, truth doesn't need to be shoved down other's throats

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Was a meme tank which the history channel blew out of proportion along with the T34

>>29706963
This. There were even a few sherman crews which were tank aces.

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>>29703945
>>29709197
>>29711492

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>>29711535

>>29696363
>The whole meme that the SS were all the best of the best needs to die
> trying to falseflag this hard
fuck off you dickhead

>>29712102
Picture would be far more fitting with Porsche's Tiger or the Ferdinand. You know tanks that actually were unreliable and had serious engineering issues.

>>29709229
>Does not know about vk30.02

>>29709424
>150 kilometers

>>29709354
We already know all that. We're trying to figure out if the Tiger I was a good tank, not a scary tank.

Also
> Shermans propensity to catch fire
This is a meme spouted by PoGs and people without a comparative view.

>>29709255
It's true. Look at all the prototypes the built and then abandoned. Hell the Panzer III and IV made at the same time in different factories had little interchangeability.

>>29685236
APHE
P
H
E

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>>29713503
Nah. Old dude was a wehrmacht rifleman and their AT Halftrack put a round through a E8s side while it was chugging down the road. Halftrack was innabush with other AT infantry in case they were needed and caught it flat to the side. Sherman went up like a torch and the the turret crew came tumbling out on fire while the infantry supporting the Sherman took cover from the ambush MG fire. He was detailed in explaining how he saw the driver try to get out but was "swallowed by the flame". They knew the Sherman was very protective of its crew with all the space in it, and always aimed for places that would catch fire easily
>We would have to lie in wait and think like the bushes while our men ahead radio'd in their position. We would have to hit them as close as possible with the [Scout Vehicles] that had the anti tank guns so that there was no chance of bouncing. We always aimed for the flattest part of their side, and the tanks would always be knocked out. Much of the time they caught in flame and we would cheer. However there were also times there would just be a little poof of smoke and all the crew would jump out and run for the hills! Was a very good tank, very good to its crew.

>>29713388
well, T-34's engine was expected to survive only 200km.

Original demand was for engine that will last 2000km, because higher ups had no idea about engines. To save explaining things to papa Stalin, documments were changed by removing one "0". 200km was perfectly doable and, already during war, allowed lowered quality control, which increased production rate without anyone beign prosecuted for producing faulty equippment.

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>>29714356
>T-34's engine was expected to survive only 200km.
Things sure got different in 1943.

>>29706963
>Really, a tank's performance is down to the commander and crew

This. Time and time again, especially on the Eastern Front it was shown that superior crews (German) could overcome superior tanks (Soviet) with shit crews.

>>29714461
By 1943 the Russian industry was close to recovering from a hasty unplanned move from factories in the Ukraine and the baltics to rail sidings in the middle of bumfuck nowhere in the Urals. The new workers that had been working hard (but not well) after the move were more skilled, logistics issues concerning natural resources had been sorted out, and design issues with the T-34 had been corrected (improved engine air filters, transmission went from a 4 gear to a 5 gear, etc.). By mid 1944 they were getting the factory certified 2k km out of the drivetrain system.

>>29714461

Is this text calling the T 34/85 a completely different tank?

>>29714566
That is really interesting anon, got a link or name of the book(s) where you read that from?

>>29714624
Maybe.

>>29685259
>i dont know anything about tanks: the post

>>29714704
The article is called "Once Again About the T-34". It was published in the Journal of Slavic Military Studies (David Glantz is one of the guys running the journal) and goes in depth on the T-34 and touches tangentially on the KV-1 concerning the Aberdeen tests, the T-34s shortcomings, the reasons for said shortcomings, and how long it took to fix them.

Full PDF is here:
puu(dot)sh(backslash)otnro(backslash)9da30a7318(dot)pdf

>>29714785
And correction on the drivetrain, factory reworks from 1945-1966 on brought pretty much wartime production AFV up to par and they were reaching their factory warranty mileage of 2k km. Later war production T-34 models were capable of 500km forced marches however.

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>>29714785
>>29714827
Thank you.

If you want to know, this>>29714461 is from a book called: Panther VS T-34, Ukraine 1943. By Robert Forczyyk

>>29696484
their welds today even on armata are about as bad.

>>29713957
Yeah but it's one guy's PoV. If he's aiming for the ready rack and not the sponson wet bins then of course it's going to catch fire. Every tank will catch fire if it's hit in the ready rack.

>>29710121
>one country ends up in an hilarious staurday morning cartoon tier totalitarian incompetence that claims over 100 million lives from forcibly occupied countries
>ends up being a bancrupt shithole whose only achievement was launchin sputnik
>ends up crashing and staying as a 3rd world undeveloped shithole

>other side gets taken in by americans and turns into a modern powerhouse
idk, seems to me germany had the last laugh

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>>29715115
Divided in two and now being cucked.

And having a "good" leader

>>29685318
>The Tiger II is a meme tank
the one point you are right about
>The Tiger I was a superb fighting vehicle on every front up until the very end of the war.
totally depends on what you mean by "fighting vehicle" upon its introduction it was effective at knocking out enemy armour. Thats all it really did. strategically it was a mess. it really was an unreliable vehicle. sure with a well trained and adapted crew it ran fine but with a new crew it was terrible. it had a massive logistic footprint. despite its small unit size of two tanks. massive amounts of fuel was needed to keep them running. any repairs that needed to be done took an extremely long time and it got easily bogged down in marshes.
> the same mobility and reliability of the ubiquitous Panzer IV
no it didn't it was no where near as mobile as the panzer 4. it like mentioned previously, got bogged down often and had to be towed to get its tracks replaced. the engine only ran reliably at 2600rpm 400 below its supposed maximum rev range. seasoned drivers never had it above 2600 which limited its mobility further.
>had their own field workshops accompany them
this alone demonstrates how unreliable and logistically retarded they are then.
>The only shortcoming of the Tiger I was their small number
if they had made more the fuel reserves that the Reich was going off would have been sucked dry a long time before 45.

its armour was obsolete after 43 and that was all it had going for it bar the gun, which was the only truly great component in it.

>>29709354
>>Everyone was terrified of the Tiger
That doesn't mean the Tiger was particularly good for its class, though. It's a heavy tank, after all - it's EXPECTED to outmatch the "typical" tank, which is a medium tank. But that by itself doesn't make it a good tank in comparison to other heavy tanks.

>>29716632
Old Wehrmacht guy said Tiger crews were getting pissed off at allied armored cars, i think Greyhounds, because they would deafen the tank by an endless fire order to just pound it with rounds.

>>29696256

Despite the modest thickness of the plate, the Tiger I was still safer to operate than a Panther and considered more survivable.

>>29709055
Well, that'd depend on the T-34. Early models (1940-1942?) without a cupola, shitty, untested crews and asstastic communications equipment are crap. Later models of T-34 (1943-1944) as well as T-34/85s aren't bad. Not fuckin' Easy 8 tier, but not total ass either.

>>29690605
>we don't have access to the real internal internal documents
>but the Soviets were so great about calculating this shit
I'm not even saying you're wrong. It makes sense, I'd want the most accurate and up-to-date info on all the stuff I could get, but how are we supposed to tell what is a real number and what isn't if we /don't/ have access to the actual Soviet documents?

>>29699011
He probably means the changes from Panzer I through to Panzer IV tanks, not recognizing they are all separate vehicles.

>>29713503
Shermans without "wet" racks did burn easy. The Americans fixed that later, Brits did too, just /more/ later from what I know.

>>29717845
The guy was implying that all shermans caught on fire, which is far from the truth and happened to all other tanks.

>>29717666
Because that shit has been getting declassified over the past two decades, and has been pored over by US military analysts like David Glantz and other western scholars on Russia, the USSR, and their military. It has then been published in articles and delivered in presentations by those same people. Use your fucking head dumbass.

>>29709354
>>German soldiers were impressed by the t-34s and shermans ability to burn
>t-34s to burn
Being a diesel, T-34 burned less than virtually any vehicle in German motorpool.

>>29719901
The fuel is not the main cause of fire but the tank rounds inside the tank.

Well diesel is less burny then gasoline but it is not significant.

>>29709428
>Then explain Kursk which was a tactical defeat for the soviets
Line moved west. Get BTFO.

>>29719918
>The fuel is not the main cause of fire but the tank rounds inside the tank.
T-34 ammo racks we're much different from those in PzIV, and Soviet and American ammunition was not any more or less likely to cook off than German. At least with Shermans there's the excuse of very vulnerable racks on early models.

>>29719931
>we're much differen
Dammit WERE NOT. Selffix.

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>>29719931
>>29719962

They are different.

Panzer 4 is placed here and there while everything except the ready rack is at the bottom of the T-34.

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>>29719967
And then there is whole difference in shell design and sensitivity to fire.

Soviet 76mm APHE rounds used good ol HE in it while burgers had a mixture of something else.

Germans I dont know.

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>>29703568
If the British whipped this out much earlier, then it would have been very interesting.

>>29685292
>that would be t-34

T-34 being great is the #1 meme of WW2.

>>29720275
>T-34 being great is the #1 meme of WW2.
Spread by people such as von Kleist, who clearly don't know anything about tanks.

>>29714566
Things varried from factory to factory, but in general main issue was lack of qualified workforce. With many men drafted and sent West, gaps often had to be filled with women and men unfit for service, due to their age or health. And constant demands to increase production speed, sure didn't make things easier.

>>29720326

Nazis faced T-34 with outdated garbage like short barrel Pz.IV. This is why T-34 legend was born.

>>29716860
One Jagdpanther commander noted how Americans would even open small arms fire on tanks just to annoy and distract them.
Also pointed out that if their infantry did things like that, they would likely get their commander court martialed for criminal waste of ammunition

>>29712671
The fuck about my post was false-flagging? I'm trying to point out that as a military branch the Waffen SS weren't always the best of the German military and that the combat capabilities varied by unit, sometimes in more drastic ways than others.

>>29720986
You honestly think Field Marshal Paul Ludwig Ewald von fucking Kleist couldn't form a competent opinion about tanks?

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>>29721009
>dat one lucky round that hits the gunners sight
>crack

>>29721014
officers say shit to get better shit themselves

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>>29696484
>mfw you realize how much of a blood bath operation unthinkable would be

>>29721053
>Letmetellyouaboutjapan.jpg

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>>29719931
Shermans had 1 tanker killed for every 2 tanks knocked out. Americans achieved even lower casualties by putting emphasis on safety, like checking if crews aren't lap loading, or forcing them to wear helmets, so they don't break their skulls when tank gets out of control after hit, or driver fucks up.

For T-34-85 it was 2 tankers killed by every tank lost when fighting Germans and 3 tankers per tank when fighting Americans.

>Soviet and American ammunition was not any more or less likely to cook off than German
not really, Americans used higher quality, more stable explosives, which were less prone to sympathetic detonation. Shells would ignite each other from heat, rather than blow up entire tank, giving crew precious time to get the hell out.

>>29721037
He said it in a post-war interview.

>>29720214
>literal Ferdinand with turret
why would they need tank destroyer that, unlike Firely, can't keep up with medium tanks?

>>29686000

lel, how many of those "kills" were fireflies that caught fire while driving to the front?

>>29721053
It would also save more lives that would otherwise be killed by the russian government, and US occupation in those areas would mean rapid development what happened in west germany and japan.

Imagine that, eastern europe not having to recover from 60 years of stagnation.
World would literally be a much better, more advanced place. Also once nukes got dropped, it would be over instantly.

>>29689041
>>29689105
>>29694186

It's not easy welding using a nugget to shoot the welds into place

>>29685236
It's garbage. The idea is nice, but there are better heavies in the war, particularly on the Russian side. Most of the tigers were lost due to their horrendous rate of mechanical failure and the highly specialized training needed to fix many of their parts. There are way better uses of time. Seriously, the man hours to build one tiger is roughly the man hours required to build over 100 T-34s. That isn't a typo.

>>29688085

Slavboos are fucking retarded.

>>29688887

Flat armor was just as good if you had the horsepower. Also better crew comfort.

>>29689940

t. Carl the Cuck

>>29721192
>once nukes got dropped, it would be over instantly.

I don't think you understand just how fuck huge russia is, never mind the Soviet union.

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>>29721053
I highly recommend reading the Red Gambit series by Colin Gee since it actually explores a hypothetical WW3 scenario taking place shortly after WW2 in Europe ends. Only about halfway through the series and not going to spoil much, but the amount of death and destruction caused by literal the first few weeks of the conflict make the last few years of WW2 seem like a walk in the park
>allied formations desperately attempting to hold a front line that is slowly (and in some cases rapidly) being pushed back by much more numerically superior Russian units
>large swathes of German countryside contested by mass American and Soviet armored units
>Brits tenaciously holding northern Germany, one particular chapter in the 1st book describing a particularly brutal assault by Soviet Guards formations in Hamburg against dug-in Commonwealth and German (Allies decided to re-arm the Germans, with both positive and negative consequences that make themselves known over time) defenders
>Soviet VVS and the various allied air units going at it in the skies over Europe, with ground attack units from both sides tearing massive chunks out of ground formations
>Intelligence shadow warfare as the NKVD/GRU/MI5/OSS attempt to break each other's respective codes and try to mislead the other by planting agents everywhere
It's some really damn good reading, even if the author occasionally writes in some weird shit like Gurkhas fighting mounted Red Cossacks or some segments where famous units go at it through slightly contrived situations (Soviet paratroopers fighting FFL, Elements of the 101st airborne division, the 442nd RCT, and the 92nd Infantry Division showing up all together in one chapter for some reason, Siberian Infantry units squaring against the Chasseurs Ardennais, etc).

>>29721411
Most of it is empty though. Nuke Moscow, Leningrad and a dozen other cites and you're left with a bunch towns and villages with little to no industry.

>>29721535
America didn't have enough nukes to destroy entire cities.

>>29721535
Do you have any idea how far you would have to fly over enemy territory to reach soviet industrial centers?

>>29721147
Post-war interviews and memoirs from the German commanders are not good sources of information on why the Germans lost. They coordinated their stories with each other and blamed Hitler, the weather, and Soviet numbers for their loss while completely omitting their own mistakes and lapses in judgement.

>>29721573
>Post-war interviews and memoirs from the German commanders are not good sources of information on why the Germans lost.
The interview was about tank warfare, and Kleist wasn't trying to explain why Germany lost or blaming anyone. He thought the T-34 was the tank that best combined mobility, firepower, and armor. His statement wasn't an attempt to blame German tanks for the loss, as he thought the Pz IV was a great tank. Basically he had a certain view of what a tank should be, which was a mobile, exploitation tool, and he thought that tanks like T-34 and Pz IV were the best at it.

>>29721557
True. But Tokyo was destroyed more than Hiroshima using various conventional bombs.

>>29721573
Almost like if you were bombing Germany from UK.
With the considerable difference of Soviet fighters being shit tier.

>>29721192
I wonder how well Soviet Union would fare aganist enemy that isn't starved of resources, and can actually outproduce them.

>>29721573
Twin Mustang was built specifically, so it can escort bombers all way to from England to Moscow, stay over it for 30 minutes, and return home without refueling.

>>29721701
You saw it until secont front was opened for germany

>>29721708
German problems with resources started moment they broke their alliance with Soviets that quite literally fed and fueled their country

>>29721654
The ironic thing here is that the early war T-34s they faced were absolutely terrible in firepower, mobility, reliability, and situational awareness compared to the T-34s that were coming out of the factories in late 1943/early 1944.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zinPbUZUHDE

>>29721708
So holding their ground until they got their house in order, then curb stomping, then curb stomping the Germans even harder after the 2nd front opened.

>>29721701
German production was about 2 times that of the USSR. They just didn't put all of it into tanks.

>>29721421
I'm mad that the series doesn't appear to have been made into audiobook format, I don't have the time to sit down and read them sadly.

>tfw you find something you've wanted for ages but can't use it for some reason

>>29721767
Source? Because everything I've seen, the USSR was outproducing Germany in war materiel from day 1 to VE day.