The stories of World War II are characterised by human valour, horrific atrocity,
and geopolitical shifts on an unprecedented scale. But there is something else too:
technology. Tech has been a part of warfare since ancient times,
but the 20th century saw machinery of frightening sophistication enter the fray for the first time.
In the First World War, pilots in Sopwith Camels and Fokker Eindeckers jousted with
one another above the trenches of France and Belgium, while the lumbering armoured
hulls of rudimentary tanks crawled across battlefields for the first time at the Somme
in 1916. By the Second World War, however, the landscape was different. Very, very different.
Flimsy, open structures had given way to robust, agile Spitfires, Mustangs,
and Messerschmitts, along with the long-range bombers that would serve so devastatingly from
Coventry to Dresden to Nagasaki. On the ground, the clanking and cumbersome proto-tanks had
become swift, highly manoeuvrable war machines, and hardware like the German
Panther and the Soviet T-34 has since transformed into the stuff of legend.
Today we're going to be looking at one of the most famous, celebrated, mythologised tanks of the war:
the German Tiger. Most agree she was the most powerful tank of the war, but was she the best?
Like with many feats of engineering wizardry – both in peacetime and in wartime – the
Tiger's development was influenced by a problem/solution dynamic.
A large, heavy tank had been in development since January 1937, and the early proto-Tigers
resembled tougher, bulkier versions of the already-popular Panzer light tank.
An initial design – the Duchbruchwagen, or breakthrough vehicle – was abandoned in 1938,
and the German army turned its attention towards the even more robust VK 30.01 and VK 36.01 models.
But it was the outbreak of war the following year that brought
the 'problem' that would need to be resolved. Speed, agility, and withering brutality saw
the Nazi Blitzkrieg sweep across Western Europe in the opening months of the war,
and the light Panzer tank was highly effective in this. This is not to say that the Nazi advance did
not falter here and there, and stiff resistance in the form of the French SOMUA S35 and Char
B1 and the British Matilda II tanks left the German command with a conundrum on their hands.
A year later, the Blitzkrieg was rolling eastwards, as Operation Barbarossa saw the
greatest mobilisation of troops in history. The full might of the Wehrmacht was unleashed
upon the Soviet Union. But here too, there was friction and failure. Even before the dogged
defence of cities like Stalingrad and Leningrad began, the advancing Germans found themselves
struggling against superior T-34 medium tanks and the monstrous KV-1 heavy tanks.
Victories in the west and in the east gave Germany the advantage, but as General Guderian
swept ever deeper into Russia, he may well have considered the words he'd uttered some
four years earlier. "If the tanks succeed," Guderian had said, "then victory follows."
There was no guarantee that Germany's tanks would succeed. If the ultimate
aims of Blitzkrieg were to be realised, the German Heer armed forces would need a new
weapon – a far better weapon than anything the British or Soviets could throw at them.
By 1942, the Tiger I was in service. While the vehicle had been rushed through the
final design and development phases, it was still a seriously impressive beast.
Almost 6.5 metres from front to back and weighing in at 57 tonnes when fully laden for combat,
the Tiger would have been quite a sight to behold.
With the gun included, the vehicle was closer to 8.5 metres in length, more than 3.5 metres wide,
and 3 metres tall. It was also encased in armour, with 100 mm thick plates protecting
the frontal hull and turret of the Tiger, and plates ranging from 120 mm to 200 mm
in thickness elsewhere – welded together to create a formidable set of defences.
The main gun of the Tiger was the 56-calibre 8.8 cm KwK 36 – a weapon that could be devastating
at both long and short ranges. Designed to be accurate, punishing and versatile,
the KwK could fire the [T]PzGr. 39[T] capped armour piercing round, the [T]PzGr. 40[T]
composite rigid armour piercing round, and the [T]Gr 39 HL[T] high explosive anti-tank round,
although keeping the Tiger and her crew fully supplied would prove difficult later in the war.
The beast was driven by a 21.35-litre, 12-cylinder petrol engine, developed by
Maybach, and capable of achieving a top speed of 38 kilometres per
hour [Text: 24 Miles Per Hour]. In later versions, the engine was upgraded, expanding the capacity
and pushing the power output levels from 650 to 700 horsepower. On the surface,
this wa s a masterpiece of engineering, but would this translate to success in the field?
While the Nazi engineers and strategists had been watching the progress of Blitzkrieg carefully,
they were not alone. The Americans had been watching too, and they'd been learning a lot.
The United States knew that Guderian was right – a tank victory was crucial to overall success in the
field. And so, the M4 Sherman was born and entered service in 1942, the same year as the Tiger.
Variants of the Sherman ranged from 2.62 metres to 3 metres in width [Text: 8.6 to 9.8 feet] and
between 5.84 and 6.27 metres in length – substantially smaller than the Tiger,
although h er height was similar. Like the Tiger, the Sherman could carry five crew members,
who would be protected by armour plating across the hull, turret, and all other areas of the tank.
This armour plating was not quite as robust as that of the Tiger. The front of the hull
was encased in 50.8 mm thick armour, around half the thickness of the Tiger's armour,
although the angled design pushed the effective thickness beyond 90.8 mm. The turret featured
armoured plates between 25.4 mm and 76.2 mm in thickness – far thinner than the Tiger's
beefy protection – although the effectiveness of this was also boosted by the angled design.
Various tweaks and upgrades were made to this armour across the tank's operational history,
eliminating weak points and better protecting the crew members within.
Primary firepower was provided by 75 mm M3 guns, although 76 mm variants and even 105 mm howitzers
feature on some models. These were backed up by Browning machine guns as a secondary armament.
Not quite so heavily armed, nor so heavily armoured, as Germany's behemoth, the Sherman
had its work cut out against the Tiger. And yet, despite the apparent technological advantage, the
Nazis were pushed back across France following the Normandy landings, eventually retreating into the
very heartlands of Germany itself. Just how did the Sherman emerge victorious in Western Europe?
Nazi Germany's tank battalions earned themselves a legendary reputation, and deservedly so. Tank
units were instrumental in smashing the resistance in Western Europe in the early years of the war,
and then on the Eastern Front as the Wehrmacht savaged the Russian forces.
The mythology surrounding the German hardware largely turned out to be true.
The far lighter Sherman, for example, paled in comparison with the Tiger I, and the arrival of
the Tiger II – or King Tiger – tipped the scales even further in Germany's favour.
It was said that a Tiger II could withstand the onslaught of 10 or even more Shermans,
and this rumour was frequently proven right on the battlefield.
The long-range guns could pick off these Allied war machines at a distance,
while the formidable armour plating repelled most attacks. A well-crewed, fully armed Tiger laying
waste to an armoured column devastated enemy morale. These juggernauts scored significant
victories even late in the war, at Gumbinnen on the Eastern Front and in the Ardennes in the west.
So what went wrong? If the Tigers were so formidable,
why were the Germans pushed back in the final years of the war? If the
Tiger was such a brilliant piece of design, why did it backfire so badly?
There are a few things to consider here, the first being the semi-literal elephant in the
room. The Tiger was enormous. While this made it difficult to beat in open combat,
it also made the vehicle difficult to manoeuvre and vulnerable to flanking manoeuvres.
Without cover, a Tiger might be a match for a dozen Shermans, but Allied commanders quickly
learned to use the agility and swiftness of their machines to their advantage.
Next, we've got a word that so often gets used to describe the Tiger. Over-engineered. The tank was
a serious feat of design and development, and this showed on the battlefield. But,
while complex problems lead to complex solutions, the reverse is also true,
especially once these solutions start breaking down. It was difficult for the
Wehrmacht's tank crews to keep the Tiger in the field, and this rapidly became an issue.
It wasn't just difficult to keep Tigers in the field. It was difficult to get them there in
the first place. Building a Tiger required vast amounts of material and manpower. It
also required infrastructure and resources. While the tank-producing factories in places
like Kassel were working at full capacity under the shield of the Luftwaffe, and as the country
expanded its territory into the resource-rich lands of Russia, this wasn't a problem.
When Allied bombers began to pound German industry day and night, and the workforce was
siphoned off by an ever-receding frontline, it did become a problem – a big problem.
Of course, industrial might wasn't a uniquely German phenomenon. Across the Atlantic, and safe
from energy bombing raids, American factories went into overdrive. If a Tiger could knock out
12 Shermans, then there'd better be at least 13 Shermans for every tiger. In the end, Nazi Germany
churned out less than 2,000 Tiger tanks. The United States knocked out 50,000 Shermans.
Finally, the technology itself. Yes, traditional shells would bounce off the armour plating of
the Tiger, but this is just one-half of that tried and tested problem/solution dynamic.
The United States and the Soviets were able to develop anti-tank guns that could damage or even
disable a Tiger, but only the United States was able to mount these guns on Shermans.
On May 8th, 1945, Nazi Germany surrendered unconditionally to the Allies, and the war
in Europe was over. The German military machine and its elite soldiers and much-vaunted hardware
were defeated. With Tiger tanks and Me 262 jet aircraft, and majestic battleships like the
Bismarck and the Tirpitz, the Nazis had led the world in terms of military technology, but these
war machines would eventually come to naught. There were just too many other factors at play,
and the Germans found that engineering prowess would not be enough to stem the tide of the Allied
advance. As resources grew scarce, leviathans like the Tiger became more a hindrance than help.
For a little while, though, the whole world cowered when the Tiger roared.
What do you make of the Tiger I and Tiger II tanks? Are they as impressive as they appear, or
is this another example of the legend getting in the way of the truth? Let us know in the comments.