Zaloga said that Tiger 1 vs. US tank encounters in WW2 numbered

>>34858959
Why can't you believe it? Tiger I wasn't the only Tiger around you know? What you said does not mean that Americans only faced three Tigers.

>>34858978
1400 Tiger 1 were built, less than 500 Tiger II were built

There are many many pictures of knocked out Tiger 1 with penetrating hits in France

Which is why I can't understand this statement

>>34858959
It's true all elite SS panzer divisions with Tigers were on eastern front holding mighty red army.
Western german forces were mostly bunch of conscripts and crminals

>>34859046
ohh boy, first of all dum dum if you were at least somewhat interested in subject you would know that bogs were the ones who encountered "number" of tigers, americans lucked out on that

second, while there are just handful of documented encounters its reasonable to believe in them considering how overall passive germans were in western front and how badly trier armor ate shit from air

its reasonable to believe that there was way more actual encounters, towed 88 guns would leave same damage profile, so times when germans were not identified you could assume it was tiger, yet even then large at gun losses were overall rather small, maybe this has to do with fact that tanks suck ass in full defensive posture germans had ?

>>34858959
>I can't believe this.
On Western Front it's actually possible. Tigers were mostly sent to Eastern Front, they've definitely met some in Africa and Italy though. The only time major number of them took part in fighting was during Ardennes offensive and then those were mostly Tigers II and they broke/ran out of fuel before reaching the enemy lines.

Then again you have to consider the fact that not all combat encounters were accurately reported - they could've said they fought with "tiger" because they've seen boxy German tank and irl it was Panzer 4. Or they could've been shot at by Tiger but reported that those were stationary 88's because bad visibility.

3 is probably understatement but Americans could've met tigers in western Europe just few times - Bongs just happened to be unlucky and stumbled on more of them there.

>>34858959
The number is a good lower estimate.
They probably encountered more but to believe they somehow regularly faced Tigers on the Western Front is a bit of a lunacy.

Tigers were rare and super expensive. They were thrown into the war machine to crush the Soviets and once they saw that somewhere along the way, they couldn't give them the decisive advantage they had been hoping for, they developed Panthers and pushed those as fast as they could.
They started fielding Panthers as a full on replacement by Kursk, which happened in August 1943.
D-Day didn't happen until June 1944, a whole year later and it took a while before the Germans mounted a counter-attack and the fighting really started.

There's only 1347 Tigers ever made, but 6000 Panthers. You can clearly see the thing that would be thrown at and faced the most by the Allies would be these guys whereas most Tigers were already fucked up by then.

>>34858959

Yeah it.

The Brits and Canadians dealt with Tiger Is in the northern sectors of France where they operated.

They had a particularly bitter fight with SS Tiger Is around Caen, specifically the battles for Hill 112 during OP Epson.

No matter what they threw at them and the naval and aerial bombardments they would receive in support, they simply could not eject those Tigers and took horrific losses in men and material against a single tank platoon.

This is mostly where the Tiger's ferocious reputation in the West comes from.

Well deserved tbqh. The Tiger I was a superb battlefield machine. It's durability was unmatched.

Don't confuse the statement "The US only faced X tanks" with "Only X Tigers were on the western front".

According to the records 126 tigers were deployed to the western front.

It's fairly believable. Tigers were mainly faced by UK on the western front, and many of the ~1500 that were made would have been fighting on the Eastern front anyway. What's more, the source is talking about tank vs tank encounters only- its likely there were more Tiger encounters with non-tank units.

>>34858959
the US mostly encountered hedgerows on the western front.

it was the bongs/leafs that fought the panzer

>>34859360
>According to the records 126 tigers were deployed to the western front.

Yeah, and they were deployed almost exclusively against British and Commonwealth forces in Normandy and the Low Countries.

The Americans ran into some Panthers in Normandy when the Germans assembled a Panzer force to attempt to break American gainz after OP Cobra.

The Panthers of Operation Luttich didn't operate so good,

>>34859360

Yeah and with only 126 tigers wich are used in heavy companies of tank divisions or the heavy tank battallions

since most of the armies were mechanized / motorized or infantry forces tiger vs. us tank engagements should have been extremely rare

>>34858959
German long 75mm (Panzer IV / Panther's) was adequate for handling all of the US's armor up until they started fielding Pershing(1945) which was extremely late in the war, the Churchill(1941) the bongs fielded were a bit of another story...

>>34859252
Nah, it was shit

>>34858959
Many American troops got the Panzer IV confused with the Tiger

>>34859084
>accuse someone of not being interested in a subject, implying it lessens their knowledge of it
>proceed to harp on about 'how badly [their] armor ate shit from the air'.
The irony.

>>34859046

Because many of those Tigers were knocked out by air power, non-tank units or most notably by the British, who encountered the majority of German heavy armor in France up near Caen.

File: Panzer IVH.jpg (115KB, 800x539px) Image search: [Google]

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>>34860207
This. A highly underappreciated aspect of the infamous "Tiger Scare" was that there was a lot of identification troubles. To the average American tanker in 1944/45, there wasn't a huge amount of information on identifying a Tiger. You were told to look for something big and boxy with a muzzle break and a cupola. Depending on the range, this could easily come to describe both the Tiger I and many models of the far more common Panzer IV.

>>34859046
There's an AAR from a British unit where they take out multiple Tigers, and Wittman was killed by a Canuck I think

File: British report of a 75mm Sherman.jpg (408KB, 1000x1435px) Image search: [Google]

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>>34858959
Brits had much more contact with them, like >>34859252 >>34859484 said. Also, the Americans preferred sending artillery shells in lieu of tanks and infantry whenever possible. Shermans and TD's probably knocked more out with indirect fire than they did over open sights.

>>34858959
Well the Tiger had reliability issues, it was rare for a Tiger tank to reach the battle field.

>>34858959
Three recorded events on the western front where US forces met German tigers.

Yes

>>34858959

Recorded, sure.

There very well might be more engagements with tanks and TDs that missed being recorded due to chaos, though.

I think the only KT engagement recorded was with 90mm TDs.

File: 1485143858624.png (38KB, 499x338px) Image search: [Google]

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>>34864025

>Doesn't know the difference between a Tiger I or II.

>>34860366
>WW2 airpower
>actually hitting tanks ever