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To: jmacusa
the dreaded Mark VI Tiger Tank with it’s 88mm. that could destroy any Allied tank on the battlefield and was protected by up to four inches of armor plate was the M1 Abrahms of it’s day. And given to the Prussian tendency to over-build there was the Tiger 2 “Konigstiger’’ or King Tiger. A massive 70 ton brute with up to six inches of armor plate and a long barreled 88mm main gun tapered to increase it’s muzzle velocity to 1,130 fps. There is simply no doubt the German Army of WW2 had the most superb tanks and armored vehicles of any army at the time.
True, but only part of the truth. “The rest of the story” is that Tiger and King Tiger tanks were difficult/expensive to produce, and were mechanically unreliable.

My uncle was a Sherman tanker. He noted the maneuverability of the German tanks, which could turn in place by reversing one tread while forwarding the other. What he didn’t know, that the French learned in using German tanks operationally after WWII, was that actually using that capability made the tank even less mechanically reliable.

It was Hitler himself who was infatuated with size in tanks; he committed significant resources to the development of the “mouse” - a monster tank even compared to the King Tiger which never went into production. And which would have been dangerous to cross most bridges in. Bridge carrying capacity was an issue with the King Tiger as well.

The cost/producibility issue was expressed by a German tanker who said that the Tiger was ten times better, but there were usually eleven Shermans to contend with. Not exactly comforting if you are in the ninth Sherman, tho . . .

The other issue with the huge tank was its high target value for aircraft - that probably was enough to make the “mouse” impractical in its own right.

102 posted on 09/08/2014 3:57:28 PM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion ("Liberalism” is a conspiracy against the public by wire-service journalism.)
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion
God bless your uncle. I thank him for my freedom but mechanical reliability aside , I have known WW2 vets who were in the infantry, flew B-17s and B-24s, and were tankers and that damned 88mm just scared the piss out of them. They hated that thing. And the MG 42.
125 posted on 09/08/2014 8:11:41 PM PDT by jmacusa (Liberalism defined: When mom and dad go away for the weekend and the kids are in charge.)
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