# was the tiger really all that good



## fly boy (May 22, 2009)

aganist the sherman in the long term if the US upgraded them and got more of those m18 hellcat tank killers with them in a group


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## Njaco (May 22, 2009)

This might give you an answer - whatever the question was............

http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/ww2-general/sherman-v-t-34-v-panzer-iv-17987.html


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## BombTaxi (May 22, 2009)

The Tiger was a much superior tank to the Sherman. British experience in Normandy showed that only the Firefly variant of the Sherman armed with the 17pdr gun stood a good chance of knocking the Tiger out. This was probably the largest gun the Sherman could carry (77mm as opposed to the 75 and 76mm guns of US and other British variants) - fitting the powerful 90mm gun required a larger turret ring, and ultimately a new tank (the Pershing). 

While adding TDs like the Hellcat might have given US tank formations more firepower, sucess still depended on being able to hit the Tiger before it hit you - the Hellcat's armour was even weaker than that of the Sherman. The Hellcats would only be useful where a tactical advantage could be guaranteed...


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## comiso90 (May 22, 2009)

From wiki:

The M18 Hellcat was a key element during World War II in the Battle of the Bulge.[3] On December 19 and 20, the 1st Battalion of the 506th PIR, was ordered to support Team Desobry, a battalion-sized tank-infantry task force of the 10th Armored Division assigned to defend Noville[3] located north-northeast of both Foy and of Bastogne just 4.36 miles (7 km) away. With just four[1] M18 tank destroyers of the 705th Tank Destroyer Battalion to assist, the paratroopers attacked units of the 2nd Panzer Division, whose mission was to proceed by secondary roads via Monaville (just northwest of Bastogne) to seize a key highway and capture, among other objectives, fuel dumps—for the lack of which the overall German counter-offensive faltered and failed. Worried about the threat to its left flank in Bastogne, it organized a major joint arms attack to seize Noville. Team Desobry's high speed highway journey to reaching the blocking position is one of the few documented cases[1] wherein the legendary top speed of the M18 Hellcat (55 miles per hour (89 km/h), faster than today's M1A2 Abrams) was actually used to get ahead of an enemy force as envisioned by its specifications.[1]

*The attack of 1st Battalion and the M18 Hellcat tank destroyers of the 705th TD Battalion near Noville together destroyed at least 30 German tanks and inflicted 500 to 1000 casualties on the attacking forces in what amounted to a spoiling attack. A Military Channel expert historian credited the M18 destroyers with 24 kills, including several Tiger tanks, and believes that, in part, their ability to "shoot and scoot" at high speed and then reappear elsewhere on the battlefield and therefore appear to be another vehicle entirely played a large part in confusing and slowing the German attack, which subsequently stalled, leaving the Americans in possession of the town overnight.[1]*


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## Doughboy (May 22, 2009)

BombTaxi said:


> The Tiger was a much superior tank to the Sherman. British experience in Normandy showed that only the Firefly variant of the Sherman armed with the 17pdr gun stood a good chance of knocking the Tiger out. This was probably the largest gun the Sherman could carry (77mm as opposed to the 75 and 76mm guns of US and other British variants) - fitting the powerful 90mm gun required a larger turret ring, and ultimately a new tank (the Pershing).
> 
> While adding TDs like the Hellcat might have given US tank formations more firepower, sucess still depended on being able to hit the Tiger before it hit you - the Hellcat's armour was even weaker than that of the Sherman. The Hellcats would only be useful where a tactical advantage could be guaranteed...


Great post.


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## Stitch (May 22, 2009)

I believe the Tiger was superior to just about any tank on the battlefield until the M26 and JS series of tanks started showing up in late 1944/early 1945; so, for almost two years, there was nothing to compare to the Tiger in terms of armor or firepower. The Tigers biggest weakness was it's expense; pretty much the whole tank was hand-assembled, using extremely close tolerances and a lot of precision machining, which cost a lot in terms of time and materials. Other than that, it was an extremely formidable tank, right up to the end of the War. 



BombTaxi said:


> The Tiger was a much superior tank to the Sherman. British experience in Normandy showed that only the Firefly variant of the Sherman armed with the 17pdr gun stood a good chance of knocking the Tiger out. This was probably the largest gun the Sherman could carry (77mm as opposed to the 75 and 76mm guns of US and other British variants) - fitting the powerful 90mm gun required a larger turret ring, and ultimately a new tank (the Pershing).



I beg to differ; the Israelis manged to stuff a 105mm French gun into their Shermans in the early '60's (the so-called "Isherman", or M51), and used them in the Six Day War in 1967, and the Yom Kippur War in 1973, where they gave a good account of themselves against Egyptian, Jordanian, and Syrian T-55's T-62's.


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## Vassili Zaitzev (May 22, 2009)

Overall the Tiger was an excellent tank. In terms of firepower, armor, and fear factor, it's extremely high. The downsides I would give it would be the low production rate, high cost, and the constant maintenance it required.


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## RabidAlien (May 22, 2009)

I've read that to knock out a Tiger generally required five tanks...three to act as cannon fodder (poor guys), and two to zip around to the sides and back where their guns could pierce the Tiger's armor. Also, another weak point was the fuel supplies. The Tiger was a gas hog. Am I correct in remembering that the Tiger usually towed its spare fuel on a cart behind the tank? Talk about easy targeting!

Team Desobry's Hellcats had the distinct advantage of being able to choose the time and place of their engagements, being able to shoot from prepared (albeit hastily) positions with pre-sighted routes to fall back and displace. In a high-noon showdown on a deserted street, I doubt the Hellcat would be able to stand for long against a Tiger. This is not intended as a detraction from the valiant efforts put up by Team Desobry, far from it...faced with the oncoming juggernaut, I would probably choose to employ more guerilla-style warfare than traditional stand-up-and-slug-it-out methods.

Against the Tiger, the Sherman's best offensive (and defensive, too, at the same time) capability would be its speed and maneuverability. Zip around that bad boy, hope to survive to the sides or back, and pound the living hell out of his weak spots and hope like heck he didn't spin his gun around to find you.


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## Coors9 (May 22, 2009)

I'd take a Panther just because there's not a sharper lookin' tank...


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## BombTaxi (May 22, 2009)

Rabid, you might be thinking of the Chrichill Crocodile towing the fuel for it's flamethrower behind it? 

Stitch, good point about the M51, I had clean forgeotten about it when typing my post. My question then becomes, if you can get a 105 in a Sherman, why not a 90mm? In any case, the gun alone would be no use as an upgrade, because the platform would not survive long enough to get into action. The Sherman would need more armour to survive around Tigers and Panthers and the added weight would require a largewr engine - in other words, you would need to build a Pershing to carry a 90mm gun. On reflection, I suppose thats the 'real' reason the Allies never put anything bigger than a 17pdr in a Sherman.

Doughboy, cheers - even if I have just blown myself out of the water


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## Stitch (May 22, 2009)

RabidAlien said:


> I've read that to knock out a Tiger generally required five tanks...three to act as cannon fodder (poor guys), and two to zip around to the sides and back where their guns could pierce the Tiger's armor. Also, another weak point was the fuel supplies. The Tiger was a gas hog. Am I correct in remembering that the Tiger usually towed its spare fuel on a cart behind the tank? Talk about easy targeting!



You're more or less correct about the "5-Shermans-to-one-Tiger"; I'm having trouble locating my source now, but I remember reading that the Allied tactics were to send five Shermans up against one Tiger and, if they were lucky, one Sherman would live to fight another day (or another Tiger!). The Allies didn't really have anything that could go 1-v-1 with a Tiger until the advent of the M26 and the JSII.

I don't remember hearing about a "fuel trailer" for the Tiger, but I do know that Tigers would often strap extra 55-gallon (200 litre) petrol drums to their deck whenever they had the chance, especially if they weren't expecting any action in the near future. You can often see photos of Tigers, especially on the Eastern Front with it's greater distances and comparatively few rail lines, with 2 or 3 extra fuel drums on the rear deck. 

From Alan Hamby's excellent site on the Tiger I:


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## Messy1 (May 22, 2009)

I have heard the ratio of 4 to 5 Shermans to take out 1 Tiger before, feel sorry for the Sherman crews. The Tiger was a great tank, but as has been said, it was hard to manufacture which hurt Germany as they could not produce enough of the Tigers and all their other tanks to replace their losses. It was way too technical for a country with Germany's resources to be able to supply the numbers of tanks that were needed. But I do not think Hitler foresaw a need to produce huge numbers of Tiger*s(am i right about this?)*. The weight of the Tiger was also a problem, many of the roads were not designed to handle the Tigers weight. Also, the Tiger was a open country tank, and was not really suited to urban combat, except for cities with wide streets.


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## Soundbreaker Welch? (May 22, 2009)

Reading of the fuel tanks reminds me of the movie "Battle of the Bulge". The ending looked pretty unusual, rolling barrels of oil at the tiger tanks and then igniting them so they flamed up and burned them all.

Did an incident like that really happen at the Bulge, or was it just a quick Hollywood movie ending?


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## Soren (May 22, 2009)

Never heard about it Welch, I think it's just some hollywood addition.

However, if one of those drums would've ingnited then that tank WILL be out of action and the crew will be getting out of there quick or risk getting burned to death. Fire is one of the worst enemies of a tank.

Back in the day I remember how easy it actually was to take out a tank with incendiary bombs such as molotov cocktails. Throw one near the ventilation system the engine will suck in smoke and heated air, and soon the crew will have to open a hatch to survive. That is when you strike.


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## parsifal (May 22, 2009)

Messy1 said:


> I have heard the ratio of 4 to 5 Shermans to take out 1 Tiger before, feel sorry for the Sherman crews. The Tiger was a great tank, but as has been said, it was hard to manufacture which hurt Germany as they could not produce enough of the Tigers and all their other tanks to replace their losses. It was way too technical for a country with Germany's resources to be able to supply the numbers of tanks that were needed. But I do not think Hitler foresaw a need to produce huge numbers of Tiger*s(am i right about this?)*. The weight of the Tiger was also a problem, many of the roads were not designed to handle the Tigers weight. Also, the Tiger was a open country tank, and was not really suited to urban combat, except for cities with wide streets.



A Tiger cost 4 times that of a Sherman, and that single fact was its undoing. But it wa also slow and short ranged (relatively)..

Having said that, the tiger was still the most battle capable tank of the war....but taking into account cost, I would dsay that the Panther was a better production choice. A panther just a little over half as much as a Tiger (RM180K vs RM312K)cost less. A MkIV cost RM 112K. A Sherman with a 75mm gun cost around RM76K. I recently was sent some information suggesting that a T-34/76 cost a little under RM25K, whilst a T-34/85 cost approximately RM30K to build

So disregarding the crew costs,, you could have a choice of the following:

1 Tiger
1.75 Panthers
2.8 MkIVs
4.1 Shermans
12.5 T-34s, or
10.4 T-34/85

It has been suggested by some, but not coroborated that on average between 5 and 7 Shermans were lost to destroy every Tiger. However, this does not take into account the large number of Tigers abandoned for lack of fuels, or otherwise incapacitated and not recovered. When those factors are included, the los ratio drops to about 3:1.

Viewed in those terms, the Allied tanks makes sense. If you can build 4 Shermans to every one Tiger, you are going to win, albeit at cost. This was why Speer was so dead set against the Tiger.....and constantly pointed to the Allied Tanks because of their ease of production.


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## GrauGeist (May 22, 2009)

One of the nicknames for the Sherman was the "Purple Heart Box"...

The downfall of the Tiger besides it's terrible mileage, was the fact that the interior was always filled with exhaust and fuel fumes. It was constantly breaking hydraulic lines and tempermental in general. Another drawback to the Tiger, was in order to transport it, the skirting and battle tracks had to be removed. That and the fact that the Tiger had to keep to firm surfaces because of it's weight, really limited it's flexability on the front lines.

The Sherman's range and speed made it a good asset, even though it was much lighter than a good number of Axis tanks. But it's mobility and numbers made up for that shortcoming.

And I think the King Tiger is far better looking than the Panther!


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## RabidAlien (May 22, 2009)

Stitch said:


> You're more or less correct about the "5-Shermans-to-one-Tiger"; I'm having trouble locating my source now, but I remember reading that the Allied tactics were to send five Shermans up against one Tiger and, if they were lucky, one Sherman would live to fight another day (or another Tiger!). The Allies didn't really have anything that could go 1-v-1 with a Tiger until the advent of the M26 and the JSII.



I'm wanting to say I read the ratio in "Six Armies in Normandy" by John Keegan...the part where he's going over the battle around Caen. I could be wrong on that, though.

As for the fuel drum vs trailer thing, I remember looking up some gun-camera footage online (Google Video Search), and pulled up a documentary segment where they were interviewing a P-47 pilot, talking about the best way to kill a tank. He was going on about the Tigers, and how the bullets would just bounce off the armor, so they would either aim at the barrels or the trailers (camera footage showed a tank towing a small trailer with two or three barrels on it), or if they weren't carrying their fuel, they learned to aim at the road just in front of the tank so the bullets would bounce off the road into the relatively lighter armor of the underbelly. That's actually the only place I've seen the trailer thing, but seeing it on gun-cam footage is hard to argue with.


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## BombTaxi (May 22, 2009)

GrauGeist said:


> One of the nicknames for the Sherman was the "Purple Heart Box"...



British crews also referred to it as the Ronson, a reference to the lighter company's ad slogan 'Lights first time, every time'. 

I believe the Germans also referred to the type as the Tommy Cooker, although I'm not too sure on that...


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## Messy1 (May 23, 2009)

I read that info too RA about pilots aiming at the road in front of or behind the tank to ricochet the rounds off of the road and hit the underbelly.


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## Messy1 (May 23, 2009)

I find it interesting that the US philosophy behind building tanks has completely changed since WW2 and we are now following the German idea of building superior tanks in smaller numbers. In WW2 with the Sherman, basically building a tank that is not the strongest in anyone one category except for the numbers able to be produced, and has now been completely reversed by the building of M1A1 Abrams, which even in the Gulf War, was out numbered by the Iraqi tanks, but was far superior and thus wiped them out.


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## Njaco (May 23, 2009)

With almost zero knoweldge on tanks, I agree with Grau, my fav is the Royal Tiger. Of course thats for a "Best Tank...." thread. Sorry for the interuption.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (May 23, 2009)

Tiger was overall the best tank built with its combination of firepower and armor, but it was not the best tank to win the war. For a conflict like WW2 you needed mass produced quantities of a "good" tanks. The answer to that was the Sherman.

You give me a one on one situation and I will take the Tiger any day. You give me 500 Tigers vs. 500 Sherman's and I will take the Tiger any day. However that is not realistic. There were more Sherman's than Tigers and in that case the Sherman is the winner.

The Sherman was a war winner, because it was easy, cheap and able to produce in mass quantities.


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## Njaco (May 23, 2009)

I think WWII showed that having quality material will not always let you win. You must also have quanity and the Allies had that. As good as any equipment may be - i.e. Tiger, Ta 152, Bismark, etc. - its still how many you have that decides the outcome.


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## Soundbreaker Welch? (May 25, 2009)

Well said, Njaco. 

I agree with Adler though, in a one on one situation, the Tiger would probably win, unless the Sherman can use it's smaller guns to find a weakness.


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## Burmese Bandit (May 25, 2009)

That Bastard and yet Master of Realism, Iosif Dzhugavili (Stalin) said it best -

"Quantitiy has a quality all of its own".


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## Airfix (May 25, 2009)

Just my opinion:
The Sherman was designed as an infantry support tank not as a tank killer.
The Tiger was designed as an answer to the far superior russian KV-1 tank in 1941.
Overall i would choose the Panther as the best tank of WWII, with it´s sloped armour and an even more powerful gun than the Tiger....


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## renrich (May 25, 2009)

Another factor favoring the Sherman for the US is a factor overlooked by many regarding everything to do with WW2. The Sherman was produced in the US and it with all the spare parts, ammo, crew, fuel and lubricants and everything else needed to make the tank effective had to be shipped to the battle front where it was needed over thousands of miles of ocean. In some cases the German tanks or other instruments of war had only a few miles to go by railroad or transporter to go into battle.


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## fly boy (May 26, 2009)

thats a good point and ever since i watched saveing private ryan how good are say 100-500 pound bombs against tigers panthers and other huge tanks?


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## parsifal (May 26, 2009)

The Sherman was introduced in 1942, and in North Africa it at last gavce some parity against German tanks then being fielded in any numbers. By 1943 it was again painfully obvious that the germans had regained the lead in the qualitative department. An increasingly shrill chorous of criticism went up about the Sherman by the forces at the front, because of its increasing inferiority against the hevier German tanks. However the General Board resisted these requests, because a break in production to a new type would mean a drop in numbers, and the fielding of more than a single battle tank. In addition if the Sherman had been replaced by a heavier tabk, say in 1943, it would have fatally delayed the cross channel attack, because at a stroke, many of the landing craft that had been spefically designed for a certain tonnage and size of tank, would have become useless, because the new tank (say the M-26) would be unable to be loaded properly into the allied landing ships. So the decision to soldier on with the Sherman was not all to do with the capability of the tank.

Moreover, except against the Tigers and the panthers, the Sherman could hold its own against most German tanks and SPGs. A Mk IV, for example, which still accounted for about 50% of German production, MkII chassis were stil being used to build STUGs. Only a relatively small proportion of German armour was superior to the American tank


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## Stitch (May 26, 2009)

Airfix said:


> Overall i would choose the Panther as the best tank of WWII, with it´s sloped armour and an even more powerful gun than the Tiger....



" . . . . even more powerful gun than the Tiger"? Correct me if I'm wrong, but the 88mm L/56 on the Tiger was actually more powerful than the 75mm L/70 on the Panther; I would take an "88" over the 75 any day, even with the shorter barrel. And that's not including the long-barrelled (L/71) 88mm on the King Tiger, which many experts consider the best all-round tank gun of the War.


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## Airfix (May 27, 2009)

Stitch said:


> " . . . . even more powerful gun than the Tiger"? Correct me if I'm wrong, but the 88mm L/56 on the Tiger was actually more powerful than the 75mm L/70 on the Panther; I would take an "88" over the 75 any day, even with the shorter barrel. And that's not including the long-barrelled (L/71) 88mm on the King Tiger, which many experts consider the best all-round tank gun of the War.



Tiger
88 mm KwK 36 L/56
500m, 30°, 110mm penetration; 1.000m, 30°, 100mm penetration

Panther
75-mm-KwK 42 L/70
500m, 30°, 124mm penetration; 1.000m, 30°, 111mm penetration

Sources
Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger Ausf. E Sd. Kfz. 181
Panzerkampfwagen V Panther Sd. Kfz. 171


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## Stitch (May 27, 2009)

Airfix said:


> Tiger
> 88 mm KwK 36 L/56
> 500m, 30°, 110mm penetration; 1.000m, 30°, 100mm penetration
> 
> ...



Corrected!

I did not realize the 75mm L/70 was that much better; I'm assuming this is because the muzzle was much higher than the 88mm L/56's (1120 m/s vs. 930 m/s). Even wiki says "In this respect it was in fact even more powerful than the Tiger's famous 8.8 cm KwK 36 L/56 when using APCBC-HE rounds. . . ."


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