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Posted on 03/16/2004 12:00:43 AM PST by SAMWolf
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 are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
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| Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should feel free to address their specific circumstances or whatever issues concern them in an atmosphere of peace, understanding, brotherhood and support. The FReeper Foxhole hopes to share with it's readers an open forum where we can learn about and discuss military history, military news and other topics of concern or interest to our readers be they Veteran's, Current Duty or anyone interested in what we have to offer. If the Foxhole makes someone appreciate, even a little, what others have sacrificed for us, then it has accomplished one of it's missions. We hope the Foxhole in some small way helps us to remember and honor those who came before us.
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King Tiger  The Tiger II was also known as "Tiger Ausf. B" or "Königstiger" (King Tiger) and was the last major tank design to see service during the war. The original Tiger design was finalised before the Russian T-34 was encountered so it lacked the excellent ballistic shape which was a feature of the Panther. The Tiger II went into production late in 1943 and was first engaged in action on the Russian front in August 1944 and was later encountered by the Allies in France in August of that year. It was born of a demand from the Waffenamt (Army Weapons Office) in August 1942 for a redesigned Tiger tank incorporating thicker armor, sloped plates to deflect shots as on the Panther and T-34, and armed with the 88mm L/71 gun, which should be capable of dealing with any new tank development that the Russians could possibly produce.  Tiger II with Porsche turret Both Porsche and Henschel were asked to submit designs to these specifications. The Porsche design (VK 4502P) had alternative layouts with the turret either well forward or at the back of the hull. It was to mount the longer L/71 KwK 43 gun as in the Elefant tank destroyer. At first the Porsche model was considered for production and the construction of turrets by Wegmann of Kassel for this vehicle began, but due to the shortage of copper required for the parts in the electrical transmission this tank project was cancelled. The Waffenamt also rejected the electric drive as unreliable and too sophisticated for service conditions.  Adding camouflage colours The second design from Henschel (VK 4503H) was powered conventionally like their Tiger I and was accepted. The project was put in hand as a top priority effort and the first prototype was delivered in November 1943. By that time the Panther II had been designed, and under the new rationalisation policy it was decided that as many parts of the Panther II as possible had to be incorporated to standardise design features between the two vehicles. Production of the Tiger Ausf. "B" began in December 1943 on the Henschel production line, parallel to that which was building the Tiger Ausf. E. The first production models began to reach the Army late in February 1944.  Tiger II of the "Feldherrnhalle" Panzergrenadier Division (1945) Henschel remained the sole builders of the Tiger II during its whole production life. By September 1944 Tiger Ausf. E production ceased completely in favour of the new vehicle. Production was scheduled to reach a rate of approximately 145 per month, but disruption by enemy bombing and shortage of materials reduced the best ever monthly output to 84 in August 1944. By the end of the war 487 Tiger IIs had been produced. The first 50 Tiger IIs to be completed were fitted with the spare turrets originally intended for the Porsche Tiger. This turret had a curved front mantlet and a bulged commander's cupola on the left side. The remaining vehicles had a Henschel-designed turret, having thicker armour and eliminating the re-entrant angle under the mantlet.  The protective effect of the sloped lines The Tiger II was derived from the Tiger Ausf. E and both tanks had many features in common. At the same time it bore a much closer resemblance to the late model Panther. Common fittings included cupolas, engines, engine covers and road wheels. Compared with the other vehicles the Tiger II had thicker armor and was dimensionally larger. It incorporated various features which experience had shown were desirable; notably the front glacis plate, which was now sloped as on the Panther and T-34 tanks instead of squarely vertical as on the original Tiger. The armor protection, particularly that carried on the front of the vehicle, was the thickest to be employed on a tank that was due for large scale production. The front plate was 150mm set at a 40o angle, the turret face 180mm thick, and the side and tail plates, including the turret wall, were 80mm thick. Frontal attack of this tank, by any weapon available to the Allies, was out of question.  After completing the camouflage, the crew fit the armored mudguards. The extremely wide tracks gave the Tiger II good cross-country performance despite its excessive weight. The Tiger II incorporated all the good points of the Panther tank and armed with a new main armament, the 88mm KwK 43 L/71 which was almost 21ft long. This gun represented the largest calibre length to be employed operationally by the Germans in a tank mounting during the war. There was a small, conical Saukopf (pig's head) mantlet, and a well-sloped turret and sloped morticed armor plates making up the hull. The tanks were often covered with Zimmerit to prevent the attachments of magnetic mines.  A battalion of Tiger IIs drawn up for inspection in Paderborn-Sennelager, autumn 1944 Internally the vehicle followed the usual German layout with front sprocket drive and crew positions as for the Panther. The big turret had several interesting features; it lacked the usual basket and was built out very wide over an immense 73inch diameter turret ring. To assist in loading the big ammunition rounds carried, 22 rounds were mounted in the rear turret bulge, thus giving the loader a minimum handling movement. Power traverse was as for the Panther and Tiger.  Tiger of sPzAbt. 'Fernherrnhalle' in Budapest, spring 1945 Suspension was by torsion bars and it followed the same type of arrangement as in the Tiger Ausf. E. However, the wheels were overlapped rather than interleaved as on the Tiger. This change was adapted to simplify the maintenance problems which had been inherent with interleaved road wheels. Similarly, the tendency for the wheels to freeze solid with packed snow was obviated to some extent. Steel-tyred resiliently sprung wheels (which featured a layer of rubber between two steel tyres) were standard on the Tiger II as on the late models Tiger Ausf. E and Panthers.   The early-style turret.............The Serien-Turm (series turret).
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You're right. :-)
She's gonna have to wait until May 11th. ;-)
Obviously carefully planned, engineered, and executed.
1400 lbs, armed with 12 ga shotgun and .22 pistol.
Here's the Japaneze Jagdzilla:
archy, is this your game room or SAM's?
Oh man, it was 40 years back. Cat 390 series Diesels, as I recall, though Cummins had some big power in that range in that period was then being used for repowerings. I recall the price tag [then] of around a quarter million dollars per powerplant, and thinking that for that kind of money, some nice M48s could be put together.
We had Allison cross-drives in our M48s and M60s then, so a replacement transmission was at least a possibility, but the repowering of the radial-engined Shermans with GAF 500 HP engines from Pershings was done with the original transmission, as were the Diesel reengining of Mk50 Shermans by the Israelis and the NAPCO Sherman repower Diesel conversion, which I think used a Volvo engine, though it stuck with the Sherman tranny and final drive.
Don't know what engines of that era would fit, cooling, etc., the engine bay might need replacement, so cut the whole back end off and start over. Something like cutting the back off of a Leopard I and welding the whole thing on.
It wasn't quite that bad- the dimensions of the proposed engine had been checked, though I think some auxiliaries had to be relocated and enhanced cooling installed. The electrical system was reworked to 24 volt for cold weather starting and compatability with the then state-of-the art RT-505/ PRC 125 radios, and there was some concern as to whether the turret electrical slip ring would handle the amperages involved, so the master switch was installed in the hull at the bow gunner-radio operator's position. That crew position was considered for removal and replacement with additional ammo storage, as was done with M26/46s and M47s of the same era, but it was thought that it was worth having the additional forward-firing MG for suppression of Sagger ATGM teams, then just becoming really widespread in the Warsaw Pact armies. I don't know how a Sagger hit on a Tiger's fromtal armor would have worked out, but it seems a thing a crew wouldn't want to try.
I had the opinion the deal was very secret and that the host country was not going to be the end user, but was going to export the nicely deniable, *sterile* armor to somewhere where it wasn't expected. A couple of possibilities from the period come to mind, in at least one of which where 88mm AP, AT and HE ammunitionp wouldn't have been much of a problem.
Interestingly, the MG34S MGs aboard were to be pulled and replaced with MG42s, whether in the original 7,92 caliber or 7,62 NATO, this deponent knoweth not. But somebody obliously had infantry suppression in mind as one of the tasks for the things.
Son of a gun, you've got me looking for engineering drawings. Fun project, you should have given me a call and supplied transport back to '65!!! Too bad it was forty years ago, I wouldn't have been much use when I was 18.
I've really gone over old news news photos of the 1968-70 period and can't find any record of their having been used. And it could be that the work was never meant to be done, that it was some sort of intel operation or sting intended to bluff someone into thinking tanks were going to show up in an unexpected area of operations. But if so, those of us working on the project hadn't a clue, and we were taking it seriously. Eight Tigers, even 25 years after their war had ended, could have made a heck of a force multiplier in some places, then, and even now.
Hmmm, gunner's on the portside, as in Soviet armor. That's harder on right-handed loaders....
Since the charge for killing or disabling a tank needed only to be pooch-sized, I expect you could scale down the concept and still achieve acceptable results on unarmored, soft-skinned 'rats. And using animakl that are more naturally attracted to such targets than man's best friend seems a reasonable touch as well.
I figure hungry weasels, trained to find food in the trousers cuffs of beltway and collegiate community 'rats or in their briefcases or bags, using tennis-ball sized saddle charges, would do it. Cry *Havoc* and let slip the weasels of politics continued via other means.
-archy-/-
LOL! that would be a good tag line!
LOL! that would be a good tag line!
Be my guest. You're welcome to use it yourself, or pass it on to some deserving soul. But I think yours is particularly classy as is, and hope you stick with it.
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