Inside the Tanks
Inside the Tiger 131
Hello and welcome to Bovington Tank Museum,
where we’re about to get up close and personal to a legend of a Tiger I,
which you will be able to take control of in World of Tanks on consoles.
It was known as the ‘big hitter’,
a force to be reckoned with,
a truly formidable vehicle on the battlefield.
Please welcome, Tiger 131!
So join us in this two part series,
where we're going to have a 360° look
at this truly remarkable vehicle.
So here it is.
Nicknamed ‘Tiger’ by Ferdinand Porsche's team,
this is the last of its kind in working order
anywhere in the world.
The Tiger I really lived up to its billing at the battle of Kursk in 1943,
when just one of these vehicles took out twenty-two Soviet tanks!
Now this monster weighs in at 54 tons
so there are lots of bridges that they can't actually travel across.
To that end, the developers came up with a snorkel system,
which allowed it to deep wade through four meters of water.
Now behind all of this weight and power there is need for a serious engine.
So let's go and have a closer look.
We're really fortunate
because the 131's engine is out for routine maintenance
allowing us to get a really good close look at it.
This Maybach V12 engine
enabled the Tiger to reach a top speed of around 37 km/h,
which is pretty impressive considering the sheer weight and size.
With a fuel tank of 534 litres
it enabled the Tiger to travel around about 80 km
before it needed to refuel.
Now a tank wouldn't be a tank without a gun
and the one we'll see is particularly impressive.
This massive 88 mm gun
with its destructive power
struck fear into the hearts of the Allied troops.
It was the best gun of its kind at the time,
capable of penetrating 112 mm of armor at 1,400 m.
If you couple this with outstanding armor,
it's fair to say this was a tough nut to crack.
Let's take a look inside.
We're here now in the fighting compartment of Tiger I.
the first thing you see is
there's not a huge amount of room but it's not too bad,
however one thing it does lack is the headroom,
there's none of that whatsoever.
So, there's 3 positions,
the first we'll deal with
is the loader's position.
The loader would have been positioned on this turntable, just down here.
Where I am at the moment
is actually directly behind the breech of the very famous
or infamous 88 mm.
The loader wouldn't be here
as when it did fire, the breech would recoil
and he would be squished, so not a good place to be.
Ahead of that, right of the main armament
we've got the mounting for the MG34 machine gun,
you can see that the loader's got a very simple periscope
or episcope up there
for a very limited field of view.
As far as the ammunition was concerned
Tiger I could carry up to 92 rounds of ammunition
usually divided equally
between armor-piercing and high-explosives.
The second position, to the front and left
of the main armament
is the gunner's position.
nice seat for him to sit on there,
directly in front of him, a very good binocular sight
and directly below that a number of controls.
He's got a traverse handwheel
so he could traverse the turret of the tank
and also the elevation handwheel to allow for fine adjustment
of the main armament.
Just to the left of that we've also got a traverse indicator.
He's also got his own vision block, but again, really, as a gunner,
this is not really something he would utilize very often,
usually relying, of course, on the main sight just to his front.
On the floor, Tiger I could be electrically and powered-traverse
for which he has controls on the floor plate at the bottom.
The final position we will look at
is the Commander's,
the most important man overall, in command of the whole vehicle.
He is protected by this flashguard here,
so to get a better look of that
we'll just jump across now
so we can see his position in more detail.
I'm now sat on the other side of the turret
in the gunner's position
looking back on the final of our 3 crew positions in the fighting compartment,
that's the commander.
Now the commander was responsible
for the overall command and control of the vehicle
Directly above him is the commander's hatch,
and a number of episcopes or periscopes
giving him quite a good 360° field of view.
Another thing you can notice on there,
just to the left of there
you can see we've got small arms port.
We've also got a rather large handwheel
just to the left of the commander.
So both the commander and the gunner
had the ability to manually traverse the turret of Tiger I.
Tune in for episode 2,
we'll be taking you through the history of Tiger 131
and how it ended up here at Bovington Tank Museum.