Don't be fooled about the Tiger

[Bgile]

...eleven IS-2s blocked an attack by fourteen Tiger IIs of the 105th Heavy Panzer Regiment. An engagement at about 700 metres (770 yd) coupled with skilled tactical handling saw four Tiger IIs destroyed for the loss of three IS-2s and seven damaged."....

Let's see attacking at odds of 14:11 that's ~3:2 somewhat less than the 3:1 normally considered neccessary for success on the part of the attacker. Then they specifically mention skilled tactical handling on the part of the IS-2's and still the result is 4:3 losses. How many of the 7 damaged would have survived had the sides swapped places? This is hardly a ringing endorsement for the IS-2.

How many Tiger I's would it have taken? How many M4's? How many T-34s? The US didn't have 3-1 odds in the tank battles in Iraq. How many times did the Germans have 3-1 odds at ANY time in WWII? They relied on superior tactics and in the case of the Tiger II, superior equipment. The point is the JS-II made a big difference and the Germans didn't want to face them. They withdrew. You don't see the difference? Any other time the Tiger II would have just swept aside an equal number of other tanks.

[lwd]

...How many Tiger I's would it have taken?

Irrelevant. However if the defenders were using Tiger I's and the attackers Tiger II's I suspect they might actually have done somewhat better but perhaps not.

How many M4's? How many T-34s?

Again irrelevant and to give any sort of reasonable answer I'd have to know a lot more about the details of the situation.

The US didn't have 3-1 odds in the tank battles in Iraq.

Irrelavant.

How many times did the Germans have 3-1 odds at ANY time in WWII?

I wouldn't be at all surprised to see that they had it fairly often at this level.

They relied on superior tactics and in the case of the Tiger II, superior equipment.

And the quote above specfically mentions that the IS-2s were handled very well tactically.

point is the JS-II made a big difference and the Germans didn't want to face them. They withdrew. You don't see the difference?

I don't see that it establishes the IS-2 as clearly superior. Indeed if they were well handled as mentioned then they should have done better on the defensive.

Any other time the Tiger II would have just swept aside an equal number of other tanks.

That's over stating things by quite a bit.

[JtD]

I basically agree with lwd. A single engagement doesn't say anything. There are stories of inferior tanks defeating superior ones in almost all possbile combinations.

The problem of the JS2 is the gun. In it not an anti tank gun. The tank carries only little ammunition, again only a small proportion AP, and the gun is slow to reload. The JS2 is pretty much what one could consider a next generation tank if compared to a Tiger, but the gun just isn't that great.

[mkenny]

The stats show most tanks were destroyed by abandonment or destruction (and presumably abandonment). Why would they abandon the tank? I'd guess because of mechanical failure, mobility kill, or lack of fuel. Some of those can be caused by aircraft. I'm troubled by the lack of explanation of those statistics.

The mistake is taking figures for German tanks abandonned when they are in full flight and running for their lives (August 1944) and try and apply those %'s for the losses for the whole of the campaign (June and July).
Looking at the figures for June and July you find that AP pentrations were the main cause of German loss.
Obviously when you are beaten and in full panic mode then your enemy can not get at your tanks and knock them out.
Why this self destruction is held up as some form of 'superiority' always puzzles me. German workers spend a week and 1000's of hours building a Tiger and fleeing Hans blows it up because it ran out of petrol and he can now run faster. Funny way to use your limited resources.

[RF]

How many times did the Germans have 3-1 odds at ANY time in WWII? They relied on superior tactics and in the case of the Tiger II, superior equipment.

An interesting question.

Answers to my mind are:

Invasion of Poland, Sept 1939

Invasion of Denmark and Norway, April 1940, where the opposition had no tanks

Invasion of Holland, May 1940

The Somme offensive started 5 June 1940, in the final phase of the Battle of France

Invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece, April 1941

[alecsandros]

How many times did the Germans have 3-1 odds at ANY time in WWII? They relied on superior tactics and in the case of the Tiger II, superior equipment.

An interesting question.

Answers to my mind are:

Invasion of Poland, Sept 1939

Invasion of Denmark and Norway, April 1940, where the opposition had no tanks

Invasion of Holland, May 1940

The Somme offensive started 5 June 1940, in the final phase of the Battle of France

Invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece, April 1941

Ok, but the counter-examples are much more common: Battle for France 1940, Battle for North Africa 1941-1943, the entire war in the east, and than, when the tide turned, Normandy, Italy, Netherlands, etc. The cases in which the Germans had numerical advantage were rare in overall campaigns, they relied on strategy, tactics and effective communication systems.

Cheers

[lwd]

...Ok, but the counter-examples are much more common: Battle for France 1940, Battle for North Africa 1941-1943, the entire war in the east, ...

Are these really all counter examples though? For instance in France didn't the German's tend to have the numbers at the actual point of engagement? Same with the early parts of the war in the East.

[alecsandros]

...Ok, but the counter-examples are much more common: Battle for France 1940, Battle for North Africa 1941-1943, the entire war in the east, ...

Are these really all counter examples though? For instance in France didn't the German's tend to have the numbers at the actual point of engagement? Same with the early parts of the war in the East.

IIRC, you're right
However, overall, the Allies had superior numbers in France and in the east. German tactics (concentrated, well coordonated attacks) proved decisive.

Cheers

[tommy303]

For instance in France didn't the German's tend to have the numbers at the actual point of engagement? Same with the early parts of the war in the East.

If I understand you correctly, yes. The guiding principle of German armoured attacks was concentrate overwhelming force at a weak point in the enemy positions, thus achieving local numerical superiority even if the overall numbers in the theatre of operations favored the enemy.

[lwd]

Exactly the key to German victory in the early years was doctrine. Both they concentrated against the foe and had forces that were at times technically inferior to their opponents but were more flexable and which encouraged the use of this flexability at low levels. Doctine and training were the big think not equipment. Certainly the Germans of the time (1939-1941) would have been overjoyed to have had Shermans even in later years they likely would have done as well or better with them.

[RF]

And they did have the light tanks taken from the Czechs, which they made full use of......

[madmike]

Because of some of the comments on this forum , May i ask if ANYONE has found a battle report(allied/soviet)of the front armour of a Tiger II ever being pen by tank or tank destroyer gun , i've been researching abit about the tigerII and cant find ANY reports , plenty of reports of tigerIIs being destroyed by arty,AT guns or aircraft.

any help at all plz

[alecsandros]

Yes, there is a photo of a Tiger2 in NOrmandy, with the front turret armor perforated by a 76,2mm Firefly shot. Schneider gives some details about this: the tanks was abandoned when it was discovered by Canadian (IIRC) armored units. They did not know the tank was abandoned, so started firing at it. One of the shots perforated the 180mm frontal turret armor. The range is not explicitly mentioned. My impression after the reading is that it was about 500-600y... I may be wrong though. If you scroll down you can watch it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_II


Schneider pretends there was not a single documented instance when the frontal-hull armor of the Tiger 2 (150mm sloped) was perforated by any type of weapon. Maybe he's right ...

[madmike]

thanks Aleco for the info,,ok thats turret now to try and find frontal hull armor pen on tiger II,(i dont believe that the tigerII NEVER had front hull armour holed) just doesnt seem possible that no-one pen the front hull armour , as there were a few (mostly soviet) guns mounted on tanks and tank destroyers that could pen the hull armour,So here i go hunting through more battle reports,lol

thanks again

[alecsandros]

Hi Mike,
There were many soviet guns that could perforate the front-hull armor of the Tiger2. The problem with them was the shells. Soviets developed many pointed-AP shells (the AP cap was more conical than rounded) to improve perforation against vertical armors. This helped against the vertical surfaces of the Tiger 1 and for the turret of Tiger 2.
However, against laid-back armor, such as in the hulls of Panther and Tiger 2, the pointed-tip shells did not behave well at all. Many times they would ricochet, allthough, in theory, they should have perforated much mroe armor than there was.
Soviet shells also tended to have quality problems: they wrere excessively "soft" compared to the armor they were supposed to pierce (in Brinell scale, many times the AP caps were only 200-300 Brinell, while the other combatants had 500-600-700 Brinell cap hardness) and sometimes slightly off-cenered or off-balanced, which lead to an imperfect trajectory, and the impacts were not alwasy "head-on".
Some of those problems, were corrected starting with Nov 1944. Quality never reached German or US standards for AP shells though...

I am anyway quite puzzled myself by the lack of documents (pictures mostly) with Tiger2 frontal hull perforated... After all, from 50 tanks firing against a Tiger, there should be at least one "lucky" hit, no ? So I'll keep searching myself, and happy hunting!