Tiger Attack! (1 Viewer)

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I think it's safe to say you're much more up to date on the s.Pz-Abt and SS s.Pz-Abt, Erich. I was wondering have you ever heard of the problems that experienced crews had during the latter half of 1944 and 1945 when the Soviets and Allies introduced more up to date tanks that let the Tiger's practical invulnerability slip. I have read that the crews through 1942-43 threw away the usual tactical armour practices because the enemy could not destroy their Tiger like they could the enemy. And with the introduction of heavier tanks capable of destroying the Tiger it proved quite a big problem. Which I believe even attracted attention from Herr Guderian himself ...who was quite dismayed. Ever read that yourself?
 

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similiar events plan. my base is 44-45 and not earlier, and this from way back in the 60's as a kid, interested in W-SS armor ops and then almost dropped due to strong infuence of Luftwaffe ~ familie and friends

not too much from me on the Heer Abteilungs but do have some on the W-SS Abt.'s. Actually this particular SS-503 unit knew quite well the defensive capabilities the Konig had and although they were asked on a continual basis to free surrounded forces and break open the cauldrons the unit was also ordered on many ops to go back and retreive lost ground. I cannot think of a time when this unit, small in comparison to the T-34 and JS 1 and 2 units they fought against felt inferior in any way. Knowing full well the 122mm had a leathal punch I think the W-SS heavy crews felt confident in their long rod 8.8cm and the exceptional optics that went with it. Again having to adjust and turn the turrets by hand the superior ammo and the long range could defeat anything they came up against. the problem was too few a number and as it has been said a slow beast it was with tiring engines which the crew were always working on or sent back to the werktkompanies; also the retrieval of sacked Konigs on the field. Something slips or a track gets blown off by a mine and the crews went after the machine at night to secure it and get it running again so needed they were in the last days of battle in the Ost.

what really pulls my chain was the insane order for spring awakening and the last battles in Hungary/Austria thinking the Konig almost by it's little lonesome could be used in the advacne and break Soviet defences............idiotic, but we have to see who was in charge, der Führer loser
 
Ah, yes, the recovery of the Tiger and King Tiger were always a problem. As with those numbers provided on the page before most losses were to those that should have been recoverable. They really needed the likes of the BergeTiger long before it's actual introduction.

Despite all this wastage and misuse it must be remembered that the sole purpose of the s.Pz-Abt were to destroy enemy tanks ...and they did that with obvious precision and brutality. I think the Allied tactic of retreating from the Tiger's to lead them on to minefields was pretty impressive ...and a good way to defeat them. Too often s.Pz-Abt had to go in without engineer support.

I cannot remember which unit it was but on an advance through Italy they kept an almost full compliment of Tiger's operational ...every 20 minutes they stopped for maintenance! I believe it was one hour movement equalled ten hour maintenance.
 
that maintenacne problem plan could also be for just 1-3 tigers and the whole Kompanie and sometimes Abteilung would have to stop recover the Panzers set up camo shelters and work all night to get them rolling again.

Example is the SS-101 going to the Normandie front as well as the SS-102/502 which lost all it's armor in Normandie but the result was 250 odd British kills. both units refittd and sent to Ardenne and the Ost front respectively.

you will also find with Tiger 1 and 2 on the Ost front in the last months of the war that many were just abandoned due to lack of fuel or a single Tiger 2 defending it's small area of turf, Soviet tanks knocked out at the longest possible range the German crew runs out of ammo and escapes at night setting off the explosives within the turret. Later the Soviets would do the typical propaganda shot of the Tiger remains stating it was blown apart by a JS 2
 
As you see from those numbers a lot of Tiger's were just abandoned. It was quite stupid (surprising, uh?) of Hitler to send in these high maintenance machines in to combat so early without actually providing adequete maintence and recovery vehicles.

I know the Tiger's often acted either in pairs or in singles when in Italy because the terrain disallowed grouping of such a large number of Tigers. A group of 40 odd Tiger's would have provided tasty target practice for the Allied air force too ...so not advisable.

As with the W-SS itself though the s.Pz-Abt and their SS counter-parts were really driven into the ground. Moved around too much ...German high command loved these things so they expected them to be everywhere all the time ...wore them down ... a lot! Same with the W-SS though ...mobile fire brigades or flank protection ...these s.Pz-Abt were probably the most powerful formations in World War II ...but misused in too many circumstances ...imagine a full strength s.Pz-Abt at Zeelow ...Soviets wouldn't have been laughing then. As it happens it was remnants of those that had been wasted on fruitless assaults on other fronts ...the most useless being Spring Awakening ..as you mentioned.
 

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Plan what is not really mentioned in war books is that W-SS Schwere Panzerabteilung 502 was at Seelowe heights and really pout it too the Soviets in a terrible way along with many dug-in 88's. The 561 SS Abt equipped with the Hetzer and as they were quite low down in profile and very mobil also put it to the Soviets with one encounter knocking out 40 T-34's.

One of the interesting tidbits is that SS-502 and SS-503 did not have any W-SS ground support but were as you put it a fire brigade of 3-4 Tigers and defended by Heer and Luftwaffe ground troops/Fallschirms for cover.
Again spread so thin over huge amounts of land the Tiger units were surrounded on a constant basis, shifting to the front or a firing retreat to take up other ground and then ordered stupidly to advance and retake ground lost.

SS-502 was ble to escape the halbe pocket which was anothe blood letter for the Germans but also the Soviets and they skirted around Berlin to surrender to the US forces to the west in the nick of time.

SS-503 what was left of it some 10 or so Konigs defeneded Berlin with Nordlands make up of several panthers and it's stug III compositions plus the hordes of German troops/civilians and kids armed with Panzerfausts
 
Yeah ...too bad for the Germans the s.Pz-Abt weren't full strength. That number of Soviet destroyed would have been much-much higher. Do you know the Pz-Abts that were stationed at Koenigsberg during the Soviet siege 'cos I read this interesting story of one Panther G destroying three IS-2s in a matter of minutes and completely halting the Soviet attack in that area. Apparently it kept coming out from behind a building, blasting one then retreating to reload before coming out again and blasting another. Soviet supporting infantry panicked at the sight of their beloved IS-2s being picked off like flies.
 
...I'd have been panicking the whole time!! Can you imagine being thrown into an open field with a PPSh-41 ...being kicked up the arse and told to march next to these lumbering tin cans towards an enemy that's just plain better than you and in the nice cover of a big city ...well ...you've obviously come closer to that experience than me ...but y'know ...reading incidents like that really dispell the whole "German troops were poor fighters by the end of the war...and Soviets were good ..." crap. Oh yeah, IS-2 crews in that engagement were dump. Why not blow the freakin' building to bits? That's what the D-25T was designed to do!
 
sheer stupidity and forcing by numbers was the Soviet land game.

Konigsberg, yes ! you are in luck. let me do some data searching here Plan. My good freind Helmuth Reichert in the 1st Infantrie Divison fought here before the retreat towards Hela bay and Danzig after the Preussian capitals fall. Can tell you it was like tons of bricks thrown at the Soviet panzers during the engagement; every soldier that Helmuth could remember had a Panzerfaust at his side. Sad to say I did not interview him more about this battle as he died several years ago on a cold November day. I have a priority emplacement map of the defences of the city soemwhere so it should indicate the major heavies placed. also at least 2-3 Stug III Abt.'s were to be used in the defending countryside. the Ost Preussian marshes were to consume many soviets including their armor. almost as if natural traps had been provided commented my long time friend............let me check this further
 
Excellent, thank you. I will try to find where the story is from and see if I more indepth information on the incident. If my memory serves me correctly the Soviets attacked again in the same area some time later and the Panther wasn't there anymore - ran out of ammo? I think it's likely.
 
Plan :

not exactly what you want but.....

69th inf.
Polizei Kampfgruppe
61st Inf.
367th Inf.
548th V.G.
561st V.G.

this all for April of 1945.

5th Panzer was just on the western outskirts as well as the 1st Infantrie Div. which did go into Konigsberg and then back out.

I do not see a Heavy panzer Battalion but I do know as mentioned earlier 2 Stug III Brigaden did take part outside of the city in the forests as well as Groß-Deutschland div.

Das Ende in Ostpreußen
 
It wasn't a heavy battalion, Erich, because it was a Panther G. It must have been with 5th Panzer. I'm still struggling to find the story but when I do I'll tell you what I have on it.
 
that would make sense Plan. it still amazes me from what divisions which were pretty shaken by 45, could defend the capital of East Prussia as well as they did. German fortitude it would appear
 
You must remember they had support from the Kriegsmarine who had a few warships in the area. I think Lutzow was one of them. Maybe even Prinz Eugen as well. I'll have to find the real ones that were there ...but 200-300mm shells don't bode well with enemy armour.
 
"Later the Soviets would do the typical propaganda shot of the Tiger remains stating it was blown apart by a JS 2 "

The pathology of soviet propaganda.

Has any of you read George Nipe´s "Decision in the Ukraine"?
Nipe debunked one more of the countless myths produced by the bolshevik propaganda:

the "hundreds of Tigers of the II SS Panzer Korps after the battke of Prokhorova" in the Kursk salient, during the cauldron of 1943.

What a surprise for them bolsheviks to know there were only some 3 dozens of Tigers in the whole Kursk salient deployed, and in fact, most of them went through the battle chewing T-34 ass.
 
Tiger's operational rate suffered quite heavily at Kursk due to misuse on the Germans part. Most of the time the Soviets claimed more Tiger's destroyed than were actually present on the battlefield. However, at Kursk the Tigers were misused.

Guderian before had strictly told the generals to not use the s.Pz-Abt too much in the first wave. The s.Pz-Abt needed to be ready for the Soviet armoured counter-attack - after all the sole purpose of the s.Pz-Abt was to destroy the enemy armour, and nothing else.

The s.Pz-Abt were sent in penny packets - and I belive even one was split up among divisions. A sin in Guderian's eyes!

And three dozen? I don't know the full operation rate of the s.Pz-Abt but in theory from the E deployment there should have been 43 per Abteilung ...and there were two in the Kursk salient. Of course, not all were operational ...I'll have to find the operational rate.
 
here is an example at Kursk. The 13th SS Schwere Kompanie of the 1st SS Pz.

notice roughly 15 Tiger 1's in the 1st SS at their disposal
 

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if I may add to the 13th SS Pz regiment 1, the Panzerregiment during Kursk lost a total of 2 Tigers. One of these was wrecked on the field and cannibalized.

for 8./SS-Pz regiment 2 Das Reich they lost a total of 1 Tiger due to enemy combat.

for 9./SS- Pz regiment 3 Totenkopf they lost a total of 3 Tigers due to enemy action, with one of them looted, the other Ko'd by a panzerfaust.

one of the finest works which was incorported into Nipes work, and yes I own a copy; By Sylvester Stadler RK winner: Die Offensive gegen Kursk 1943. Some great maps, 19 to be precise and 78 pics. Sadly I do not own a copy of this large book
 
Those losses were at the expense of the Red Army - I think it was a remarkable kill:ratio on the south side of the bulge where the SS s.Pz-Abt attack I believe ...I can't quite remember at this exact moment.

And it was Lutzow and Admiral Scheer that were protecting Konigsberg.
 

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