How Bad Was The Tiger II?
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- Опубліковано 4 чер 2024
- I've often used the German Tiger II heavy tank as a point of comparison in this series, so it's about time I talked about it in earnest. Much like its predecessor, the Tiger I, online communities either see the Tiger II as the best or worst tank ever. That's an exaggeration of course, but opinions are very polarized. With that in mind, let's delve into the history of this famous World War II heavy tank.
Check the channel "About" section for the link to the creator of my profile picture.
Sources:
Tigers I and II and their Variants by Walter Spielberger
Panther & Its Variants by Walter Spielberger
Germany's Tiger Tanks - VK45.02 to Tiger II by Hilary Doyle and Thomas Jentz
WO 291-1003 - Motion Studies of German Tanks
Tiger Tanks at War by Michael Green and James Brown
CAMD RF 38-11377-12, Kubinka Tests of the Tiger II
Tiger I and Tiger II by Anthony Tucker-Jones
Songs used (in order from first to last):
Subnautica - Into the Unknown
Halo 3: ODST - Rain (Deference for Darkness)
Sound mods:
Epic Thunder (Pre-release)
Armored Warfare Crew Voices
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Second channel: / @spookstoon
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Twitch: / spookstonwt
Steam: goo.gl/BYQjC9
#warthunder #tanks #tankhistory - Ігри
Please watch the entire video before leaving a "Porsche didn't design the turret" comment
Porsche didn't design the turret. And I'm writing this right before I watch the video. Anarchy and fire.
could you do a romanian tank on this series? please
Porsche didn’t design the turret
In light of the recent bringing back of the Maus, I think it would be pretty cool if you gave your 10 cents on how you think it might perform if it did actually enter service.
The 50 "Porsche" turrets where actually the result of a contract that was issued by February 1942 to complete 100 VK 45.02 (P) tanks this contract was later cancelled in November 1942 which left Krupp with enough armor plates to build 50 turrets of the early design. (Source: New Vanguard Kingtiger Heavy tank 1942-1945 by Tom jentz & Hilary Doyle)
The Germans loved fixed fortifications:
-the Atlantic wall
-the sigfried line
And the technological apex of fixed fortifications, the Tiger II which drives for a bit and then sets up as a fixed fortification by either getting stuck or breaking down.
Nah it would just be break downs as i recall the Tiger 2's ground pressure being similar to any other tank
@@jammygamer8961 one got stuck in a bomb crater in Normandy (according to Wikipedia)
lol 😂 true
@@jammygamer8961 also true
@@mrbloodmuffins So?
I love the Tiger 2 with the "H" turret aesthetically speaking, such a good looking tank.
I agree with you . When I ever I seen a tiger 2h i get in to panic mod and can't shoot straight 😅.
I agree my comrade a true JAWOHL worthy
T+3+1= I agree
War thunder radio commands
You know that both turrets where made by Henschel. It's just the later version of the turret. But i actually like the early one better.
@@motarokujo8808 the old turret is only 100mm thick but the new one is 195mm thick it can take more punishment
4:00 F to that poor John who took 88mm shot to the chest
F to his crewmates, John doesn't have any problems anymore.
F
Well, F for the crew who has to clean up the mess
He's just knocked out, let him sleep for a few hours or throw some SL at him and he'll wake up immediately
At least he went painlessly
His teammates gonna have some shits to deal with
Hans the engine has exploded FOR THE 5th TIME
WHERE ZE HELL DID YA GET THAT DRIVERS LISCENCE HANS!
@@codygaming181 Dunno tell to Friedrich
@@codygaming181 Fritz I am not Hans, I am his replacement child soldier Heinrich
@@pascalmeyer4275 Heinrich is barely tall enough to see out of the driver port
One post of six.
The Tiger II has to be one of the best looking tanks of all time
the ARL-44 would like a word
@@bones-fe3gy The ARL looks good, but from certain angles. From directly on the front, it just looks kinda wacky.
I like T32E1 better but yeah tiger 2 does look good
@@bones-fe3gy ARL-44 is like a WWI tank on the bottom and a WWII turret slapped on top. I suppose most French designs from that time were like that (Char 2C looks steampunk af, I must say).
Soviet tanks are so sexy that I want to main them just for the aesthetics. Too bad the gun depression makes it impossible to go hull-down (fav tactic of mine). IS-3 and T-72 put chunky Western tanks to shame tbh.
Aesthetically, I like the look of the later Leopard 2s the most.
HANS! WHERE ARE ZE SPARE TIGER PARTS?
Hans: starts sweating profusely
FRITZ, ZERE IS ZE WRECK OF WITTMANN'S TIGER!
Over there in the factories, see I wrote requests with a magic marker.
@@obamnaprismus finally Hans, spare part
Plot twist: it's the wrong part. >:)
"Hans...?"
"Sir... WE HAVE NO SPARE PARTS"
"Scheiße!"
"Not great not Terrible"
Anatoly Dyatlov
3.6
@@refractivity3388 13,000
I get the feeling that the Germans didn't really know what they wanted to do with the tiger II. Tiger I was a breakthrough tank, using relatively decent speed combined with heavy armour and firepower to break through enemy lines and force a break. The Tiger II couldn't do that because of its weight and sheer armour
The Tiger 2 feels pretty out of place only cause of the speed in my opinion. The german doctrine was about rapid maneuvers (lets ignore the breaking down part cause that is an obvious problem the entire time and should have been fixed if we are all honest), breaking through enemy lines (which had better anti tank weapons at that point so up armouring seems right) and encircling enemy formations (do that with our slow cat here...good luck). The Tiger 1 had a decent speed for it's time (or its job would fit better), a gun that could take out all enemies of it's time with a good chance and had enough armor to engage the enemy with it's gun while the enemy had to get closer. The tiger 2 fullfilled only 2 of the 3 things.
You have to remember that the Tiger-2s Maybach HL-230 was essentially an interim solution due to war time restraints. Designers were well aware of its power to weight ratio problem and had planned to replace the 230 with a much more powerful Maybach HL-234 which, supercharged and fuel injected, would have produced 1200 HP. This would have given the K.Tiger a robust power to weight ratio of about 17 hp per ton. Even the carburetored un-supercharged would have had an output of 800hp giving the Tiger-2 a power to weight ratio of about 12hp per ton -- the same as the Pzkpfw-IV. This engine upgrade would most likely have been introduced at the end of '45. So the Germans had planned to address its power to weight and consequently speed problem. The war just didn't last long enough for us to see these improvements.
You’re entirely wrong. Tiger 2 was exactly meant to do that. It had less ground pressure than a Sherman and wasn’t “slow” for a tank of its class.
@@shadowraven3253 wrong, the Tiger had an ok speed for its weight and good ground pressure. It was precisely designed for maneuver warfare.
@@Grimshak81 ah yes bc 20km/h is fast
Interestingly, when the Soviets first encountered the Tiger-2, they thought it was a replacement for the Panther. I believe, for a short time before they had better intel, they even referred to in reports as the "Panther-2."
The Panther II would have been as heavy as the original Tiger, and although it was going to still use the 75mm L70 main weapon (which had more than adequate performance against even the heaviest of Allied or Soviet armor), was capable of taking the 88 mm L71 weapon. The long range plan would have been to do that with the Panther II, and upgrade the Tiger IIs to a new 105mm L68 weapon, which had specs much the same as the later British L7 gun.
@@selfdo and then they realized putting a 105 in the tiger 2 was stupid and proceeded to just not make the panther 2.
@@bruhzy2139 There was nothing "stupid" about it, but the proposed 10.5 cm L68 weapon (quite similar to the post-war British piece that first appeared on the Centurion about 1957) required re-design of the ammo storage and the rest of the tank's interior that affected. It was October of '44 when that decision to POSTPONE the Tiger II upgrade (which also included a Maybach HL 234 which could put out about 850 hp, more what the Tiger II needed, there was even a supercharged version that could crank out over 1,100 hp!) due to the need to continue production of what they had, especially after Henschel's Kassel factory, having been recently bombed, was just getting back into business. Same issue with respect to the Panther II upgrade; the Panther G's performance was considered adequate, even against the heaviest of Soviet and UK vehicles (the M26 Pershing hadn't made its debut yet), and likewise accommodating the 88 mm rounds for the KwK 43 main weapon required interior re-design. The effort to do so, when quantity was needed more than "quality", was judged to not be worth it.
FWIW, both the USA and the Soviet Union had likewise put off replacements for their M4 Shermans (T23) and T-34s (T-43), respectively, even though the new designs incorporated lessons learned and showed great promise. Both powers decided it was better to continue production; re-tooling their factories to produce the new models would deny shipment of tanks when they were needed the most. The "solutions" were essentially the same...keep the chassis of the current model, but adapt the turret of the proposed replacement to them. And both ended up producing what in essence was still a "new" tank, one that exploited the potential of the design!
@@selfdo big turrets damage components of the tank
To quote Chieftain from his Elbonia Q&A video on topic of IS-3: "It was abysmal unreliable design. Problem is, it was quite a scary tank when one could make it work."
Honestly, by the time the Germans could introduce Tiger II, they were already totally fcked. Not only was the source of Molybdenum (Scandinavia) out of the reach of their merchant navy, the face hardening of their steel plates required a bigass induction furnace, which consumes enormous amount of electricity (which Germans by that time already lacked, their dams and coal powered plants were leveled). And even if they had both of that, there is no certainty that the plate would be able to hold against the soviet guns, which used huge shells of calibers typically used by howitzer, but they used it in high muzzle velocity guns, thus creating enormous amount of kinetic energy which would be transfered into the plate anyway.
They would likely need a modern defectoscopy (ultrasound) to find out what is the problem and how to solve it.
Pretty sure they could have and probably did test using a hardness tester and probably a charpy test or some other impact testing.
I'm guessing they already knew what the problems were going to be with a switch to a different carbide, vanadium carbide. The dislocations and how fine they could get the carbide structure was probably what caused so many problems imho.
HE rounds from the 75mm’s on M4’s we’re already big enough to shatter the side armor on Panthers, let alone the massive guns made by the Soviets.
@@proofostrich9061 to be fair, 40mm is not much armor
No tank gun penetrated The king tigers upper hull ever in combat.
@@proofostrich9061 Panther side armor was 40mm thick lmao. It was not designed to withstand tank rounds, its not the same as the King Tigers front.
I'm really enjoying this historical series, keep it up!
So, to summarize:
Pros:
1: powerful and far-reaching gun
2: thick , tough armor, if perhaps -too- tough.
3: a definite improvement over the Tiger 1, which any "successor" should be.
4: Suspension is less of a maintenance headache than the Tiger 1
Cons:
1: Power-to-weight ratio is poor, which is common on the "big cats"
2: underpowered and temperamental engine, again, a common problem.
3: fuel-thirsty, which in late war Germany is a definite liability.
4: gobbled up strategic resources better used elsewhere.... again, a common problem with late war German tanks.
Yay, good comment
I gotta take issue with the 3 and 4 points of the cons: For point 3, sure... but 1 Tiger II is going to use less fuel than 3 panzer 4s, and could very well end up being MORE formidable on the battlefield, while using less fuel overall... pretty much EVERYTHING mechanized at this point in the war will be using fuel that Germany can't afford to use, which actually ties into point 4. As far as allocation of strategic resources, where exactly would they be better utilized? Germany doesn't have the crew or rare material quantities for more but smaller tanks and the fuel issue has already been addressed. Unlike the V2 project which was ineffective due to technological limitations and not necessarily due to lack of sufficient resources, the only reason the Tiger II "failed" is that Germany was so starved for resources, that ANYTHING they made would have had negligible effect on the outcome of the war. Reliability wise, the Tiger II wasn't much worse thanthe panzer 4s and 5s and probably held its own on the cost-benefit analysis in comparison to the other panzers. In all likihood, the reputation of the tiger 2 for breaking down might be in part due to the fact that the tank actually survived long enough to actually break down, rather than get destroyed in combat.
@@socialjihad5724 I mean yeah ok. It was just an art project with benefits when talking about reality.
And planes chasing it everywhere it went
I think given time, the Tiger 2 could have ended up being a great design like the panthers toward the end of the war
From my opinion, Tiger 2 is one of many tanks following the quote "too much, too late". Production started late, when all the german industries was getting bombed by the allies and to make it worse, it was a complicated design, which led to a small amount of tanks. It entered combat late in the war which led to it not making as much impact as expected in the war effort. By that point, the war was over.
Yes, but biggest problem was that they weren't building improved components. If they had built better transmissions and engines, the Tiger would have been a very dangerous opponent but then there are the fuel, ammo and personal shortages as well so...
Biggest problem the german panzerkorps faced was lack of crews and fuel, neither can be fixed with producing more tanks or other models.
The panthers did even more terrible than tghe king tigers for above reason
@@AttiliusRex Lack of crews was never a problem for Germany, because it would imply that the Germans didn't have enough crews to man the Panzer, which was never the case during the war since all Panzers could be crewed (they had literally over 10 million soldiers in the army, so finding a few thousand tank crews is not really a problem there).
But all he other mentioned points were the actual problems: shortage of fuel and of course not enough production units in general.
@@nicolaithelen6567 germany did have an extreme lack of veteran crews, and trained recruits and experienced teachers.
The teachers were sent to the frontlines and the badly trained recruits was too sent to the meatgrinder before they were ready
Germany overall had an extreme lack of skilled manpower in industry and millitary alike.
But yes, enough 17 year olds turned 18 to fill the trenches with their corpses
Even if the targeted production run of 1,500 tanks had been met, how in the hell would the Panzerwaffe have gotten enough fuel to ever properly train the crews, let alone conduct proper operations?
If the tiger 2 is played correctly in war thunder it is one of the best tanks in the game , if it is played by someone who heard legends about it from ww2 and think it’s invulnerable it’s crap
It's always crap. Slow, sluggish, the armor isn't worth the hit. The gun is decent, that's all there is to the Tiger 2.
It’s okay, not one of the best
Its crap if uptiered vs mediums with APDS and HEAT-FS as it trades mobility for protection.
It's a really good tank if you don't get uptired to 7.3 and 7.7. Which unfortunately happens 80 % of the time.
@@Germanempireaboolilel I think gaijin should lower the max uptier for all vehicle. +1 and -1 really makes playing some nations suck ass and in the tiger 2's case fighting post war apds and heats
"Hans we need better transmission"
"More armour you say?"
"Nein hans Better transmission"
"Bigger Kanon eh?"
"hans better👏trans👏mission👏"
"Oh BOTTLE SHIP KANON?"
".... Ja hans,YAAAAA"
-last Recording of Hans And Kerts before they Got clapped
SCHLACKTSHIFFEKANONE JA???
*laughs maniacally in 12.8cm cannon*
If your Tiger had a hydraulic turret, you wouldn't have been killed in Normandy
@@jamesricker3997 sherman had aimbot
I really do like the Tigers in general, have them all except the Striped Event one. However at the BR it is currently, constantly getting uptiered to 7.3-7.7 with CAS constantly ruining things and then being wrecked by ATGMs and GOOD heat rounds; makes them not really enjoyable. I enjoy using the Tiger 1's more so, since they have a more fair competition against the Jumbos and IS-1/2's. The Tiger II's speed is alright, it's armor does not hold up well anymore and is far too large of a target; to really be considered an 'Effective' heavy tank. It does have a decent gun though, but 6.3 - 6.7 feels like the hardest part of climbing it. At those BR's though, I'd rather use the German Bulldogs at that point; the ones with the remarkably shitty suspension and stability. (Which says a lot.)
This is so true
@@billclinton3862 i never knew you were interested in exotic cats
You do realize those jumbos feel the same way towards the tigers. They can only really kill tigers if they're braindead idiots who don't angle or are alone so they can shoot the gun & tracks and circle to the side. There are many worse tanks getting uptiered with than Tigers.
What you describe is what everyone goes through in WT at 6.3-6.7. It’s not exclusive to the German tree.
The whole 7.0-8.0 BR range is just so bad because it’s the transitional period between post-WWII to early/mid Cold War tech. Plus CAS has better tools to bully while SPAAGs are still trying to catch up.
I wonder why Germany started using said bulldogs over their Tigers…
The comments defending the king tiger are gonna be the best part about this video
BuT MuH TiGeR bEsT tAnK eVeR
Oh definitely, im waiting for the wehrboo with my popcorn ready
@@scuffedtoast4592
But muh superior tiger 2 is equal to 3000000 trillion billion inferior T-34
If we don't talk about reliability issues the tiger II was probably the best tank.
For now I only see Freeaboos trying to mock Wehraboos and start flame war...
Hmmm... predicting that there will be more people complaining about Wehraboos than actual Wehraboos in the comment section.
Wouldn’t be a spookston video without it and defending the jumbo.
Defending the jumbo? Care to elaborate? Sounds like bias to me, smh.
I think Wehraboos were more a thing a few years back, don't see them anymore. Maybe the algorithm has blinded me, hard to tell when every video I see has been selected (all the Wehraboo content left out, if it even exists).
Thourq a good chunk of spookton’s comments are typically full of claiming the jumbo is perfectly fine and has no issues or is even underpowered.
Then take an even remotely critical look at the in game jumbos and you realize they are an absolute disaster balance wise. Sure they aren’t overpowered especially not the 76 at its BR, but the skill floor is so incredibly low on them playing like an idiot and just trading shots in the open especially with the 75mm is far too effective. From 5.3 to like 6.7 you will see entire US teams of just jumbos with a hell cat or two.
It’s effectively a tank that lives and dies by match making and it’s armor mode going nuts and just eating shells it shouldn’t while it one shots modules with its .50. To me it’s the worst kind of tank; it’s far too easy to do well in while playing like an idiot while skilled players would be much better off with almost any other tank.
It’s a crutch tank
Aaron Wood a lot of the salty German main content came from that period when warthunder was genuinely painful to play with their line which is like 1.47 Big guns to like 1.67 assault which was a period of near constant US, USSR and GB gang bang a German team with maybe a few dead weight Japanese tanks with post war vehicles with far to low BRs. At one point during the royal armor update matches past 5.3 where just dead for germany with how insane match up and BRs would be.
The main issues came from the fact the maps really benefited rushing caps with Germany could never do and was a bad idea in most of their tanks, but a few highlights stand out like Hellcats being unkillable of Soviet tanks just not burning with “diesel fuel doesn’t burn” in the patch notes
Would love to hear about some UK vehicles from your perspective, mainly about Cromwell/Crusader or Matilda/Valentine
Agreed, event the charioteer, comet and both centurions (the interwar one and the post war more popular one)
In ww2, british tanks were only superior to Japanese and Italian tanks. Not the best
Get a Brain,
The Centurion was the best tank to come out of WW2.
Matilda was a good tank in the first couple of years, the Valentine was decent (The Soviets loved it), the Churchill was very useful, the Firefly was the best tank killing Sherman, and the Comet was good in early 1945.
It wasnt all bad.
@@lyndoncmp5751 I'm not calling them bad by any means. The centurion was the best post-war tank to come out of WW2. But i wouldn't call them superior to american, russian or german designs
Nah , in this channel we only hate German tanks
Spookston's summary on the Tiger II: "The Tiger II was a tank."
How many Tiger tanks are needed to kill one Sherman? 5. Two out of gas. Two in repair. The other one kills the Sherman.
Yeah, another would be like: 2 didn't make it to the battlefield and was sent back to the factory for repair, 2 broke down on the way and abandoned, one killed a Sherman then took an artillery/mortar barrage.
FINALLY someone other than the Chieftain who will explicitly say there’s no such thing as a Porsche turret. You’re right Spooks, Krupp made both turrets and Rheinmetall made the first version of the gun. After Krupp was asked to re-design the turret to a cheaper and more combat effective shape Krupp made their own version of the KwK 43. Porsche never had anything to do with the turret ever.
I always thought it was Porsche since the game puts a (P) and (H) on the 6.3 and 6.7 variants lol.
@@user-go1sl6rd7u Should be Tiger II (E) and Tiger II (L) for Early and Late
@@user-go1sl6rd7u It’s been a very common but incorrect way to differentiate the initial turret design and the standard production turret design. Also it’s not really Tiger II or King Tiger. It’s Panzerkampfwagen Tiger Ausferung B. Tiger II and king tiger are allied terms. The German slang Königstiger actually is Bengal Tiger not King Tiger.
@@abbynormabrain6664 yea but I'm not going to type the full name all the time
To be fair: Porsche ordered the pre production turrets, so he was connected to them, although he did not design them.
Tiger I, Tiger II, and Panther: *consistently praised*
Panzer IV: *sad tonk noises*
*reaches out and pats the panzer 4, knowing it should have been the Germans best tank*.
Pz I and II: *sad tonkette noises*
They were the ones who blitzed through Poland and France, yet, they don't get as much love as the Panther and Tiger
@@TR33ZY_CRTM A7V: *sad rolling potato noises*
I really like the panzer 4 and I'm a USA main. I just wish it didnt explode everytime it gets shot at
Sturmgeshutze killed 30k allied tanks most of any german tank
"Frontally impervious to anything the allies could field." What a massive fucking understatement, there's many cold war era tanks that can't even pen it's upper plate.
yeah, nothing until the the 50s could pen it's ufp
@@daviarmiliato9032 The charioteer can pen the upper front plate of the tiger 2 if it uses apds
@@daviarmiliato9032 Who needs a tank to kill it when you have the Air Force to steal the kill and all the glory?
@@magicelf7559 charioteer is from the 50s
And I think you are making a massive overstatement. How far into the Cold War are we talking here? 1947? By the 1950s (which is pretty early into the Cold War), the majority of tanks had access to powerful HEATFS and APDS rounds. We start seeing the emergence of APFSDS around the 60s, and becoming popular in the 70s. These types of ammunition could easily penetrate the upper front plate of a Tiger II.
Actualy, based on the Information released a few weeks ago from "Das Deutsche Panzermuseum", The Tiger 1 was a stop gap measure as they already knew before it was put into production that the short 88 wasnt going to cut it. They wanted a breakthrough tank that had a more dominant gun than the short 88 or 75 L70, the earliest drawings were only of the turret and the requirement to make it fit on a Tiger 1 hull, the hull shape changed later on when they uparmored the vehicle. In Fact despite the Tiger 1 and 2 beeing so drasticly different in appearnance the German military regarded them as 2 different models of the same vehicle similar to Leopard 2A0 and 2A6, Hence why its called PzKpfw 6 (Tiger 1) and PzKpfw 6b (Tiger 2). The Naming scheme for Tiger 1 and 2 was only ever found as a designation in the design documents not officialy adopted by the military.
The biggest issue with Tiger 2 was that it was made for a different type of war, it was meant to push and advance, breaking through lines basicly what Tiger 1 was doing, not to be used defensively.
Interestingly the Late proposals for Tiger that were drawn up in 44 and demanded for 1945 would have made this vehicle more modern than almost any other at the time, these proposals werent even that undoable for the time they just didnt have the resources and time left to introduce them.
Addition of a Rangefinder whcih only required a small increase in turret hight.
They wanted to Stabilize the Gunsight, having it disconected from the gun itself as in modern MBTs. mainly to aid in observatin and target acquisition while on the move.
A newer better and more powerfull engine.
a Gun/Sight Syncro that would hinder the gun from firing if it wasnt aligned with the sight. this feature in particular is still used in modern MBTs and hasnt been looked at in service vehicles till more modern vehicles entered service in the late 70s and early 80s (Leo2, M1 etc)
Sometimes model naming follows what sells to your country's leadership. For example, the US Air Force, knowing that their new jet bombers were still a few years away from being ready (B-47, B-52, B-57, and B-58), and needing a better "medium" bomber than the B-29 (the B-36 was the new "heavy" bomber), pushed for an upgraded version of the B-29, the "D" model, which had the better Pratt and Whitney "Wasp Major" engines, larger wings, and a taller tail section (I believe it also folded to get it into existing hangars). But Congress wouldn't fund further "upgrades", so it was designated the B-50 Superfortress. Po-tay-toe, po-tah-toh.
"would have made this vehicle more modern than *almost* any other at the time" keyword being almost cause there were Sherman models with all of that technology and the standard Sherman came with a stabilizer less go (not to take away from the tiger 2 45 which would be my favorite tank if it had left the proposal stage)
"In Fact despite the Tiger 1 and 2 beeing so drasticly different in appearnance the German military regarded them as 2 different models of the same vehicle similar to Leopard 2A0 and 2A6, Hence why its called PzKpfw 6 (Tiger 1) and PzKpfw 6b (Tiger 2)."
Not quite. German tank naming conventions were not as straightforward as popular history remembers and the Panzer "number" (so in this case, Pz VI) was sometimes as much a description as weight class and role as it was a signifier of the specific vehicle type. This is why, during the invasion of France, the Wehrmacht's LT vz 38s were called the Pz IIIs - because it performed the same role and had the same armament as the German Pz III ausf Fs. The Czech tanks would only be renamed Pz 38(t) later - at around the same time the Pz III was upgunned meaning the two types were no longer tactically interchangeable. You see something similar going on with the various Marder tank destroyers, which could be based on Lorraine 37L, Hotchkiss H39 or FCM 36 chassis but were all Marder Is.
The true signifier of the chassis type was the SdKfz number, which for the Tiger I was the SdKfz 181 whilst the Tiger II was the Sdkfz 182. Clearly, the German army didn't regard them as two different models of the same vehicle but rather as two different vehicles that occupied the same doctrinal role.
Having said all that, the Germans were notoriously inconsistent about how they applied this nomenclature during the war so lots of exceptions apply which badly muddy the waters when trying to make sense of this.
4:00 poor guy ate the whole 88mm
More flattering than I expected honestly. Still my favorite tank
There are several stories of the IS-2 defeating Tiger IIs frontally from around 1km. The low quality of the Tiger II's armor caused it to spall internally when hit by large calibre AP and HE shells, even though the armor was not penetrated..
Yea imagine if tiger 2 had tiger1 quality armor
Same way around, Is2 had many spalling and cracking problem, yet you all dont talk about it
@@darklysm8345 whataboutism at its finest. Check the title again buddy
@@hickspaced2963 If people like you only bring up these flaws when talking about german tanks lol
there are actually 0 evidence of Tiger II's being desteroyed frontally. Most Tiger II's that were destroeyed in combat were actually penetrated from the weak sides.
The only occasion where one Tiger II was destroyed frontally was during a shooting test, lobbing several high calibre shells on an empty capturted stationary Tiger II.
It didn't prove anything.
We might debate forever if tiger 2 was good or bad, but we all can agree on that it looks super hot and it is the best looking WW2 tank.
Good looking, but not the best looking.
The Tiger 2 was a really hot tank when it's engine catches fire for the 3rd time this week.
As long as it wasn't depending on its mobility the tiger 2 was very good against other tanks
OwO
@@uisce_ Which one is the best looking in your opinion?
With how overconfident Porsche was I'm surprised he didn't also immediately start production of the Leopard 1 when he submitted his design.
It still blows my mind that the German army actually accepted Porsche's Tigers as Ferdinands when the prototype keep breaking down and catching fire during trials. And not only did they accept them they did the damn fool thing of putting even more armor and a bigger gun on an already overtaxed engine. And when they lost 2/3 of them to mechanical problems instead of trying to fix the engine the answer was to put some more armor on it.
@@erwin669 The best video i’ve ever seen on the Ferdinand was Potential History’s video on it lol. I think its less to do with them ‘Accepting it’ and more to do with “Well shit. We made 90~ hulls for this thing, and now it wont be used. We need to do something with them otherwise the steel/iron will of been wasted.”
It was probably Porsche who convinced them it would be better to actually use the hulls instead of melting them down and using the steel for something else. That would’ve been the smart thing to do, melt them down and use them for something else, but I guess they didn’t wanna take the resource loss.
@@hex6970 they could have not put the extra armor on the thing, there was literally no need for 200mm of front armor on the thing. 5 tons of armor was just bolted on the rejected the Porsche design; you just want to look at it and go WHY?! Especially things with less armor like the Marder, Stug, and Dicker Max were effective. Then they sent them to Italy of all places when they had trouble driving around the relatively flat Russian steppe
@@erwin669 I remember a German tank commander who was in command of a Ferdinand recalled thinking they got hit by an artillery shell until they realized the engines exploded.
@@erwin669 it was a surprisingly good TD in practice, I don't get why it gets so much flak, every source mentions their efficiency in combat. They had highest kill statistics of all TDs in the war. They had very high efficiency at tank destroying and were having great successes at tactical level, that is supported by both statistics and memories of soldiers of TD units and those who were supported by them. Adding so much heavy armor was good choice because problems with engine that Porsche Tiger suffered weren't related to overloading, they even used that in one Porsche Tiger that served in TD unit as command vehicle despite the fact it wasn't exactly supposed to fight on the frontline. Before Ferdinands broke down they caused heavy losses to enemy. I'd say that if in conditions such as Kursk meatgrinder your tank destroyer gets so many kills and causes so many losses to enemy, survives massive amount of hits and yet it still isn't destroyed and even survives so long it simply breaks, then it's a huge success and clear net profit. Porsche Tigers being built in high numbers was a show of wastefulness, but later rebuilding them to Ferdinands was one of examples of good resource reusing and even creating a successful machine out of a failure.
To give some credit to the tiger 2, it was very agile for a 70 ton tank with that engine
It was designed pretty decently for a video game though, that makes it great.
Have to give it credit though as it did serve as a very good defensive vehicle but offensive wise it’s fairly lacking on many departments.
Thank you German tank designers for your bizarre foresight
@@waterdotzable It was their plan all along!
Great video, all good information…. Had it play at x3/4 speed to completely understand narrator. Smearing words together, Again.
BUT…, other than that, outstanding content keep up the good work!
I would love to see a streamlined or improvement series on sprocket of every main WW2 countries most fielded or used tank. What you’d change on the designs to make them better while trying to keep the look of the home country. Obviously some countries would be more difficult than others but I’d love to see you do it. How would you make a more streamlined and cost efficient German WW2 tank based on what they were working with at the time. Same for Italy, France, Japan, etc etc etc.
Japan would be really tough.
@@Zorro9129 well first things first I’d add more crew positions. Make it larger but not super large to keep with japans material shortages. Remember Japan is going to fight on jungles so if it has a low profile it’s easier to hide. Make radios a basic must. Finally probably up Gun them though I’m not sure how much larger you can get without it taking up too much space. It seems Japan finally got it near the end of the end of the war with the Chi-Nu but I’m sure there’s something’s that could be improved.
Well the E series Panzers where entirely designed around that concept.
In summary, good if built under perfect conditions.
Under ordinary condition would have been enough. But these never where the case in that time of the war
@@user-tk5jx4ih4g well, yes. That is kind of what I meant, but I exaggerated it
It's another WW2 German tank that on paper was amazing and definitely one of the best......but Germany would never be able to get to it's full potential in reality
It still amazes me that they built nearly 500 tiger 2 in a year and half even at the sub-par standards with what their production lines we're dealing with, the factories they were built in were being bombed constantly and everything was scarce from fuel to steel to crewman just to drive the damn things
Even with all its issues though the Tiger 2 was still a big problem for allies, with a majority lost due to non-battle issues with high KD ratio regardless in the end it's a good thing they were not able to get the tiger 2 to it's full potential
Best summation on the Tiger II I've read.
There were plans for an improved version while the E-75 of the "E" series was being developed, which would have had an uprated, fuel-injected version of the HL230 V12 engine, probably putting out about 900 horsepower, with an even more powerful 105mm L68 main weapon, as the Tiger III Ausf C.
The E-75 specs were never finalized before war's end, but among the changes were supposed to be moving the driver to the central position in the hull, akin to the Soviet IS series, eliminating the hull machine gun, and inclusion of a 20 mm autocannon aside the main weapon. Whether this would have been operated by the loader, or the fifth man would have been moved into the turret and also had "assist" duties to the loader hadn't been decided.
Even if the tiger 2 was perfected allied Bombers could still absolutely destroy them
I have to say, that this was maybe the most accurate video of this series. Everything was correct and I liked, that you pointed the fact out, that the frontal hull-plate often broked due to the lack of goods.
I might add that building the hull was only allowed to humans because it was such a complicated step that required perfect accuracy.
Also, I recommend the "Das Panzermuseum" series about the Tiger II. It's a German channel, but there may be subtitles if you're interested.
agreed, most of his other videos have some massive issues but this one seems good overall, I wish he brought up the lapland war though as it was one of the major reasons for the degrade in production quality
Despite messing up large parts of the developmental history its good for it's length. Of course it can't compete with the three part series of the "Deutsches Panzer Museum" on the same topic.
Find me a photograph of a Tiger II with a broken glacis plate that doesn't come from a Soviet test range. You'll struggle - your claim that it happened "often" is not supported by the evidence. The Soviets were able to "break" a Tiger IIs glacis plate by attacking it with heavy artillery at point blank range, but I've never seen any evidence that it ever happened under battlefield conditions.
Now, internal spalling is another matter - if that's what you mean then sure. However if you look at the available images of Tiger II wrecks from battlefields on the Eastern and Western front alike, you won't find any examples of penetration or breakage of the glacis plate.
funny thing is there are more functioning tiger 2 tanks then tiger 1 tanks
I think there is only 1 and it's in France
@@mrbloodmuffins there's another one that just completed restoration about 2 years ago and if I recall it might be in Germany, don't hold me to the location of the second one.
@@cameron-vj6vy there's still only one? Idk where you got that info for that restoration but i can't find anything about it
@@motmot8879 yeah i just checked with source and she says the restoration was for a private collection in Europe, but I was only partially functional , the collector didn't have enough money to make the turret work so it only is able to drive and not move the turret or fire the gun.
@@motmot8879 oh and there should be a video for the restoration on youtube, it's in German though.
lol got here early. Personally in my games against Tiger 2s, I remember them being quite easy to one shot on the side with a Hellcat, their front is really good though. But if your in the flanking business your always on the best spots to shot.
Wouldn't that be true with all tanks? I mean the 'weak side' part? Alos there is the disappointment of a Tiger 2 P...same as the 2 H but the 100mm turret really takes that danger away as it is weaker then the Tiger 1 turret
The Hellcat in general can sneeze on everyone. i don't main US, but it seems like a really fun tank to play.
@@haatonofthebasementoutofth276
The M18 Hellcat is available on the Chinese and Italian tech trees so you don't need to main USA just to get one
@@TR33ZY_CRTM I would rather main US than touching west taiwan or Italy. The grind in those nations seems painful.
@@haatonofthebasementoutofth276
Both countries aren't that bad when it comes to their grind. Grinding China/Taiwan in particular would be more like grinding USA and USSR at the same time
Hilariously, this is what i thought your previous video about the balancing of the tiger 2 was going to be. Glad it ended up happening for real!
Very informative, as always. Perhaps a British tank next? Cromwell?
It would have been interesting to see what the Tiger 2 could have become if it had a couple years to be produced under optional conditions. I can't think of any tank of the 41-45 Era that didn't have quite a bit of teething issues in its first year before becoming ironed out and ultimately becoming a tank that's looked at positively.
*“Heavy breathing noises”*
-Wehraboos
Auf der Heide blüht ein kleines Blümelein
@@alanhoff89 *KAARINA!*
@@arttulehtinen5527 no, that is not how you're supposed to play the game
I keep hearing about wehraboos, but I never see actually see anyone claiming that the German military were in any way superior to any of the Allied nations. Closest thing to that would be mainstream history channel types claiming that the Wehrmacht lost because Hitler made stupid decisions...have the wehraboos been hunted to extinction?
@@Pellagrah you need 3 bottles of sauerkraut and one long 88 to summon them, you won't simply find them walking on the streets
Your video shows some fantastic sniping by the Konig Tiger.
German High Command: We're running out of Fuel.
Tiger 2: So anyway i started blasting...
Blasting what the ground you never got to the front due to everything braking
@@boomboomyourdoomdoom1767 you never got to the front because half the time the whole regiments were running out of gas and the Tiger needs support from halftracks and panzer 4s, on the flanks.
@@91plm I’m on the allied side bud
The mad flex of a US tiger 2
That one was used by the 83rd Infantry. Crazy story. The famous Ragtag Circus.
Was it put in a museum or was it scrapped?
The tiger II is one of my favorite tanks from world War 2
Wehraboo
@@yorben6987 and what's yours?
@@niume7468 probably an sovietboo or Americaboo
@@yorben6987 F U
German mains in the comments seething
German tank commanders in 1945 when their transmittion breaks for the 24234345342643645645543q4th time: 🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯
You know its a spookston video when the intro is a cannon shot
When used properly in good tank country the Tiger II was a beast. When the 30 Tiger IIs of Schwere SS Panzer Abteilung 501 were removed from the awful tank country of the Ardennes in January 1945 and transferred east to Hungary they were instrumental in the German retaking of the Gran Bridgehead in February. The open countryside was perfect for their long range guns and they were taking out Soviet tanks up to 3,000 metres.
So it all depended on the terrain and their usage. Let's face it, the Ardennes was poor tank country for both sides.
Not really. On paper it was one of the best tanks of the war due to its armour and "long 88" gun. It was anticipated to completely change the tide of the war in favour of the Germans.
In reallity, this of course didn't work because the tanks effectiveness was completely ruined due to constant breakdowns and fires. Also as you mentioned, by the end of the war allied bombing runs became more frequent and slowed down the production of the Tiger II. Not more than 500 hundred were produced which were not even close to the Americans making 50,000 Shermans and the Russians making 60,000 T-34s.
_- big fan of your content (subscriber)_
Weren't the US starting to make pershings around the end of the war? Would they have been tiger killers?
@@JsphCrrll most probablly they would but they came in too late. Any other allied also proved to be a good enough Tiger 2 killer
Even on the paper it was shown to be ditched on the side of the road
When it comes to things like breakdowns, T-34 was very unreliable too to the point where Stalin believed his own soldiers sabotaged their tanks to get out of tank duty and issued an order that required certified mechanics to validate the soldiers claims. Considering they lost almost 90% of the t-34s produced and the crews too you could argue that making "better" tanks like tigers and panthers helped germany delay the inevitable by a fair amount as their soldiers had a better chance of survival and fight another day and at the same time cause alot of dmg to the enemy. Tiger was never ment to be produced in great numbers. It was a specialized breakthrough tank. Comparable, US only made 250 breakthrough tanks and the soviets made like 3.8k IS tanks so comparing tiger numbers to T-34 production numbers creates this false idea that the germans didnt know what they were doing.
visual representation is very good thanks
no one else anywhere I commonly see knows about the turret being Krupp not Porsche 😊😊😊 you've made me happy
3:57 "Crew Knocked out" as decimates ONE American crew member.
The M56 has 3 crew members, 1 was already knocked out leaving you with 2. When you have 1 crew member left you are considered dead because you can't drive and use the turret anymore
Imagine that poor tanker getting his body ripped apart by that shell
@@tajp917 and the guy beside him getting painted by his friend's innards
@@mcmactheaveragesunbro8741 poor bastard is dead as well
@@tajp917 And the driver just vibing while his friends are literally dy1ng around him.
When talking about engines why is horsepower always brought up? Isn't torque more important for these heavy machines?
Wouldn't torque be reliant on knowing about the transmission setup and gear ratios? I'm not sure why, but I think the reason is that it's easier to do metric tests on an engine in a vacuum and calculate an accurate horsepower rather than a torque which needs to be understood in context of the vehicle. (Not to mention that you still need some level of force to rotate a shaft no matter what torque it is)
Torque is important, but horsepower is commonly used because it’s how fast you can actually deliver the power. Engines, even electric motors, deliver torque in impulses as a function of RPM. Power is more commonly used because power directly translates to work, which equals force times distance. If you have a greater work over the same distance (say, the distance it takes for a crankshaft to make a rotation), you inherently produce more force
yea but on those times diesel engine were not used, engines were only gasoline (except the japanese they did had diesel engines) so horsepower was the thing that moved tanks
@@max___87 What? All engines produce torque lol, The type of fuel doesn't dictate that. Bore, stroke, and displacement do.
Torque is how much rotating force the engine can produce at one specific moment, horsepower is how fast it can produce that torque. 2 engines can both be producing 500 ft-lb of torque, but one running at twice the rpm is producing 500 ft-lb faster. Its a weird concept to wrap your head around but once it clicks it makes perfect sense. Engineering Explained made a great video on this if you are interested
It looked cool tho
Anyone remember an old game where you had to fight a tiger 2 (p)? It was a circular arena-ish map with a house in the middle. The was a bazooka/panzerfaust inside. It was probably medal of honor or an old call of duty.
I think it was Call of Duty: World at War. At least you do fight a Tiger 2 that is hidden in a building.
I definitely want to hear more about the jagdtiger! Or jagdpanther even. I remember reading a bunch into the jagdtiger (even though there were only a few) but it was really interesting since they did fairly well in combat then were abandoned by their crews or destroyed when they ran out of ammo and turned and exposed their sides.
Well that poor maybach engine got some hell being forced to power such a huge tank as TIger II now imagine the same engine but having to power even heavier Jagdtiger! Only few were built but they had even more problems than tiger II . Germans also did not have many guns for them so they were installing standard 88mm guns to the newest jagtigers. If they had a good engine it could have worked but they came out too little too late. there is however an amazing story about a platoon of 4 Jagtigers stopping and destroying 24 shermans without any damage taken. They were however later destroyed by allied aircraft as they were slow targets.
The Tiger II gets a lot of smack, for what it was, developed in a short time, it's a truly impressive work of engineering.
Germany could've released some killer tanks with the E series ngl
It was less effective than the StuG-III. It was a terrible tank for the time.
>it was less effective than the most effective german tank
Less effective than a tank 1/10th the cost, yeah. Not exactly what you want if you're trying to win a war.
@@jameshodgson3656 Totally different design, totally different usage.
Go make a new King Kitty in Sprocket
Instead of it's standard armor thickness, change it as such:
120mm UFP
60mm Side Hull
150mm Turret
Same 80mm side turret
Then keep its other components the same, gun, ammo, engine, the works.
Then test it against what woulda amounted to the same WW2 tanks(Sherman, both M3 and M1A1C equipped, as well as T-34s, both the D5T and shorter 76mm equipped ones. Seems like the King Tiger coulda gotten away with many millimeters less armor thickness and still been nigh impervious to most allied tanks at the time. Maybe the 17lber woulda still busted it's nuts, since that was a very powerful gun....but eh, shaving off 80mm of combined armor off its various faces, wonder how much weight it woulda saved and how much of an improvement it mighta been to its automotive performance.
60mm side armor is kinda useless. Too heavy to just put on without knowing what to do with it, but too thin to actually protect against most AT guns.
@@pavelslama5543 yup. With MIKO side you should probably go all in on either to just say fuck it or make it tanky. Not some half assed in between
Can you do a video about the T26E5? I would love to see your opinion about how it feels in game or how it actually was in real life.
The meme vid ab you is really spot on, your vids are memes now
Tiger II is my favorite heavy tank in WT. Amazing reload, good armour, good speed (for a heavy tank), amazing shell and just very fun to play. The only problem with the Tiger II are the germans 6.7 teams.
"it's been a while since we talked about a German tank..."
*Looks at rest of series*
Riiiiiigghhtt... 😒
The other tiger ii video is about wt gameplay lol
@@waterdotzable I feel as though he's biased against German tanks, specifically WW2 ones. He's already shown he's an American main so we all know that there's a clash there
@@theicequeen32 he's a pretty blatant freedomboo
Tiger 2 was actually NOT immune to frontal fire on its Turret. There were a number of cases where US 90mm guns actually almost ventilated the Tiger 2's Turret with through shots.
Through the Front Plate and then out the Back Plate shots in other words. Though most of these rounds would just slam into the Tiger 2's Turret, penetrated and kill the Turret crew, possibly destroying the Tiger in the process. They were rare admittedly, more so because of how rare the 90mm was on the battlelines.
In one notable case, in full view of a US Army Divisional commander, a Major General, a M36 Jackson fired on a Tiger 2 about a mile out. The Turret was reportedly visibly penetrated and was later confirmed when the vehicle later found abandoned. The 90mm round had failed to find anything important in the Turret to destroy and had lodged itself in the back of the Turret.
I think the round would have been a Tungsten Core round. Due to the lack of German targets for such ammunition and the supply issues with them being addressed, the US Army was beginning to build up a fair number of these rounds. Tungsten Core munitions would have allowed anything to punch through what the Germans had. So, a Tiger 2 was definitely not going to survive a 90mm round with a Tungsten Core.
Additionally, German reports were also found concerning the Tiger 2 that was hit. The crew was apparently unharmed for the most part and the frontal penetration had caused what had been a planned counterattack in that Tiger 2's area to develop into a German retreat out of fear of American troops with powerfully new Tank and Anti-Tank Guns available. The Tiger 2 had been abandoned largely because the Germans could not repair the frontal damage to the Turret.
There were about 2 or 3 M36 Jacksons brought forward as Tiger 2s had been spotted by US perimeter forces prior. Additional Tanks were on the way as well with more Tank Destroyers. A mix of M18 Hellcats and more M36 Jacksons. All with M4 Shermans and some Light Tanks, though I couldn't tell you if they were M5 Stuarts or M24 Chaffees.
Yoo I had a game with you yesterday. You were in a kugelblitz and I was the bmp next to you
Now I'm convinced most UA-camrs play Vs bots that are switched of or Vs players that are afk they could have killed you so so so many times with little effort
I can promise you that's not likely. Some of us (like me) just suck.
ironic how i had two tiger 2 matches . the first one was an absolute victory against russians on tunisia. only for the second to be a trail of tears against heatfs and cold war tanks on alaska . after i leave the game i find this great video
Ah, yes, Germany's great issue, having WW2 tanks faced up against Cold War tanks
Anyway, the tanks can do great despite the disadvantages they have
@@obamnaprismus uhhh
76 jumbos and IS-2s suffer the same thing of having to fight cold war tanks
@@T--madefromstalinium I'm not saying Tiger II is the only one. I don't even know what I was saying. But we know that it's a problem many tanks face and the BRs gotta be decompressed or something
love the chat in the begining of the video :)
Just noticed the Tiger II is the final itineration of the "Schmalturm turret design".
First design was the 1941/42 VK-1604 LEOPARD tank with the "PUMA turret" and the KwK 39 gun mounted in 50mm Saukopfblenda plus 50mm front turret @ 20o + 30mm side turret@ 30o. x 70o the compounded angle. Viewed from front POV the gun and sharply sloped Saukopfblende is maybe 1/4 of this turret profile, while the bulk of the rest of this profile is the 30mm side turret armor at 73o compounded angle. This results in 87mm LOS over most of the front turret.
The second itineration was the PUMA turret mounted on the 1943 11 ton SdKfz 234 wheeled re-con vehicle . the turret with 30mm front @ 20o and 10mm side turret amour @ 69o compounded angle, resulting in 29-31mm.
The third itineration was the end of war , Panther F Schmalturm with 75L70 gun mounted on a POT mantle 150mm thick on the front turret plate of 120mm @ 20o. The side turret is 60mm @ 70o compounded angle, over 175mm LOS
TIGER II turret has 190mm mantle + 100mm pot mantle . The 80mm side turret armor @ 20o > 70o compounded angle = 220mm.~ 250mm .
BTW the armor was flawed 80% of LOS
At least it looked good.
German armed forces during ww2 in a nutshell.
@@user-go1sl6rd7u They looked good while being dead. Probably.
@@user-go1sl6rd7u Althrough not flawless, it was the most powerfull of it's time. It took a few superpowers and countless minor nations to stop the Behemoth.
And that's all that mattered. Most of high command were aware that it was over, with winning the war anyway.
Germans after their heavy tank falls apart due to ISU hit: "Well, at least it looked good"
:D
SITUATIONALLY it was very good. Just like the Tiger I and other tanks.
If its reliability problems werent such a massive issue then it probably could have been one of the best tanks of the war, but making a tank like that without mass reliability problems from the Germans is expecting a bit much.
But you know, as with most German tanks, the Tiger II functions well as a bunker when something inevitably breaks down.
the Tiger II functions as target practice for P-47's when something inevitably breaks down*
It's not a shit tank...... but yeah, the Allied forces have a heck ton of weapons for deployment in case the war went on for quite a while, if that's the case, that would really be the worst day for KTs as the IS-3 and T29/30/34 (Mxx if they made into commission) would be a thing, as well as newer HEAT.
@@walterchau1484 Thats another thing, even if the Tiger II didnt have reliability problems it would be hopelessly out dated by the end of the year or at most early 1946 (War wouldn't go on that long because of ths Tiger but hey) due to new soviet armour like the IS-3 That could likely destroyed a Tiger II in one shot, or new allied HEAT weapons that nearly negated the sloped advantage of the armour by late war.
The Tiger II is almost a cursed by design tank.
Problem is that in a war, you dont want a tank that works marvelously in 1 certain situation, and terribly in all else. You should want a tank that does its job in most situations, even though it may not be as good in 1 specific tactical scenario.
@@walterchau1484 if the war went on then the tiger 2 would be replaced by the E-seroes of tanks. Also an is-2 still used the same gun as the is-2 so it would still struggle penning the tiger2 ufp, not to mention that the is-3 had tons of reliability issues that it got scrapped due to armour falling off etc, ot wasn't until during the coldwar when the T-10m and is-6 where produced that most of the issues where fixed.
Good clip. You could make clip about your idea how the best tank for germany during WW2 should be design?
"Porsche had nothing to do with the design of that turret. It has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with it. Krupp has a design process, and has the contracts to design the turrets."
David Willey, Curator of the Tank Museum in Bovington, UK
"One small thing to note, while it was indeed used on Porsche’s design, it would technically be incorrect to call them Porsche turrets. Both turrets were designed by Krupp, one is just an older version.
"
Porsche ordered the pre production turrets though. Hence the naming.
To me, the Tiger-II is a good heavy for what it was meant to do; be a juggernaut on defense, but was rendered null by Germany's state in the mid-40s when they'd wasted everything on London and Barbarossa.
Would be interesting if they fielded the Tiger II earlier in the war. Would have certainly motivated the Allies to develop some serious heavy tanks instead of just pumping out Shermans and T-34's. I always wonder what WWII would have looked like if Hitler was less aggressive/ambitious and took it easy sometime between taking Poland and invading the USSR. Probably still would've lost, but they might have been able to refine their tank designs (other weapons too). More deaths and needless bloodshed, but the tanks would have been cooler...
The Tiger 2 isn't defensive at all.That turret should be enough fo prove that.
@@Pellagrah Well Tiger I was an answer for T34. Tiger II was an answer to IS-2 . When Hitler invaded USSR he thought his PZIII and early PZIV are superior. He was proven wrong when he met KV tanks and T34. If he waited he would never develop these. He should abandon the "big" design and focus only making panthers. If he made more panthers he could have more chance but still his obsolete luftwaffe would lost him a war.
You’re wrong here: Tiger two was meant to be for maneuver warfare, not static defense.
@@Grimshak81 of course, between parts shortages and the transmission, the Tiger II's only viable employment was as a static defense. But it was *designed* for manoeuvre.
The Germans simply didn't have time or resources to make the Tiger 2 as reliable as it could have been. I mean the Modern Day American Abrams weighs as much as Tiger 2 even though its made from lighter composite materials. But Then Again the US Military had the time build a good base model that they could upgrade and gradually increase Abrams armour weight and fire power because they weren't in another world war by this point and for most part its just being smaller isolated conflicts across the globe. Germany on the other hand with Tiger 2 had to scramble with the design and make do with what limited resources it had by the point the Tiger 2 enter service and lost a lot of experienced tank crew members that would also have helped the Tiger 2 be more effective. But if you just have crew of fresh and inexperienced members more rookie mistakes will be made at critical moments in battle leading to the Tiger 2 get disabled or destroyed in a fight.
So Tiger 2 be like so I was expected to run on a Panther engine that was too underpowered for my size and my armour varied in quality due to lack of high quality steel and shit metallurgy processes. That either ended up being good quality and could survive dozens of hits with hardly any damage. To entire side skirts sheering off from glancing shell hit. So given the Situation I think I had pretty Good Run Tiger 2 said. Tiger 1 good for you my transmission would break trying to free fellow Tiger 1s that got stuck in the mud. Tiger 2 OOOF!.
Tbf most of these problems aren't design flaws but really just lack of operational facilities and heavy budget cuts
I love these videos as it gives good insight on how a tank or vehicle did IRL and the impact it made or could have made. Keep it up!
T-29 having a turret and hull armor weakness with a slower rld at 7.0 while the Tiger 2 has only a turret weakness a better gun for sniping, and faster rld at 6.7,,,
Idk man
T-29 used to be 6.7 but was probably bumped up to 7.0 cus it was effectively invincible from the front to the Tiger I and even the side hull was tricky at times which at 5.7 BR Upteirs were a disturbingly common occurrence for Germany.
@Hans Blitzkrieg Gosh, the amount of wehraboo in this comment
@Hans Blitzkrieg Cope harder Hans, average german player is worse than the average from any other nation
@Hans Blitzkrieg hurr durr, germany suffers, hurr durr i have many chromosomes
@Hans Blitzkrieg "haha i keep saying reddit meme therefore i am correct, oh boy i can't for mommy's tendies"
" Frontal armor impervious to any allied guns "
IS2 and ISU 152 : Allow us to introduce ourselfes.
Only due to crappy armor quality
@@Phantom-bh5ru But tigers 2 had crappy armor quality, what is your point ? Germans did not have the technology to roll big armor plates at the quality needed. And IS2 and ISU 152 HE was so strong that better quality steel would not matter much, one hit from that and the tank is likely knocked out. Remember that first of all tank vs tank fights were rare, Tiger 2 were very rare and who saw the enemy first and shot ( and hit first ) won.
An HE shell landing anywhere on a Tiger 2 is a knock out. Including frontal shot.
@@Vlad_-_-_ um no. germany definitly did have the tech to have large high quality armor. you do know they made battleships right? lmfao
@@Vlad_-_-_ and no 150mm HE would not be able to destroy 150mm of high quality steel. that's just not how shit works. you are delusional if you think high explosive of only that size can do shit to high quality steel of that thickness
No allied tank penetrated its frontal hull armor in combat, ever.
I used to wonder why the hull on these tanks was much more heavily armoured than the turrets.
But apparently the armour fractured more easily when hit at an angle.
I cant remember where I heard it from but it was stated at one point that the Tiger 2 couldve been in the running for being called a Main Battle Tank before other tanks earned that classification. Of course it wouldve needed some much needed improvements to iron out the problems before it could truly earn that classification.
Well, if it just faces Shermans and Is-2, like it did, then it is a decent, above average machine, even with its short comings, such as rushed production, shortages, bombing, etc.
If it faces sci fi fantasy tanks from the future, like in WT, then it is pretty much useless, even without its short comings.
Sherman’s and is 2 we’re just way better tanks
it’s alright ig
I really enjoy your content, but I hate how often watching your videos I get the urge to play Subnautica because that music is FIRE
Always 10 minutes before I go to work
Where do you work?
War Thunder: Tiger 2 lives up to the hype, maybe even too well (up tiers follow).
Reality: So much potential...but meh.
All the issues cited and this...by the time it premiered though, driving fast and far weren't priorities. The Germans were in a defensive fight, and stubbornly trying to hold ground. As a defensive tank, the Tiger 2 did pretty well. It was when it was pressed into the offensive role (as in The Battle of the Bulge) that it underperformed. Then again, with a proper logistics train behind it, it would have done much better. You see this reflected in its War Thunder performance.
Did this man really just use war thunder as proof that it would've done much better?
Battle of the Bulge "underperformed"? What? It was actually quite effective during the Adrennes offensive, knocking out more enemy tanks than lost by enemy fire.
It was only after it ran out of fuel and ambandoned by the crew that made it stop.
"An experienced loader could cycle a round in 9 seconds."
Not that they had any experienced loaders. Or rounds for that matter.
or above 20 years old crew sometimes )))))
Underrated comment
Average shmucks never were put in tigers they were highly trained.js2's were way slower to load with 2 piece ammo
@@shawnb1774 There reached a point in the late war where there was basically nobody left but mostly untrained schmucks.
Lol “no rounds” thats the dumbest comment of read on here
How about making top tier tanks rating? That would be useful for choosing the tech tree to grind.
I agree. It was a promising design that had too much going against it, and was too late in the war to be thoroughly tested and improved imo.
You need to talk 25% more slowly.
go to setting and slow the video
@@karmdeez911he did that 2 years ago
@@robbyduceyhe did that 1 month ago😊
Tiger II had quite specific role to fulfill witch was even more specialized than that of Tiger I it would work only as breakthrough tank, in ideal world Germans would deepoly them as first line of attack, broke their line and then medium tanks and mechanised infantry are taking over with further attacks, and that might work. For a war on witch tiger II stumbled it was bad tank for defence
yeah, even if i love it in how it looks, they could upgrade the panthers and jadgs to better reverse and easier repair, with easier production , and continue and upgrade the panzer iv to have a good line of tanks to fill a hard defensive lines
@@krosskreut3463 I don't really see any reason behind PZ IV it was at the end of it's possibilities and Panther price was comparable with that of PZ IV while Tiger I was much more pricy
@@krosskreut3463 Panzer IV had reached the end of its potential by 1943. At the end of the war, Germans started to simplify its production (ausf J - no powered turret traverse). If they wanted to update it even more, it would require a total rework (ausf K - triple wheels, stronger suspension, reworked body shape, etc.). At that time, it was already more economical to build a Panther instead.
@@pavelslama5543 yeah, for that ussually i defend the panther, but for a while as say filling spaces , not jump onto another model and fail miserably, and having a good tank for a while util the panther finally supply and substitute the pz4 in all in the front, and for that i would use a use of the pz 4 and panther until the better is all
There was recently a miniseries on the Tiger 2 by the German Tank Museum (only in German, I think, maybe with subtitles). They also highlighted how slave labor contributed to the quality issues and that, in the end, it was designed as the last Blitzkrieg Panzer, a role that had become obsolete when it entered production, giving it a lower priority than Hetzers, for example. Overall a flawed design with a great gun and massive quality issues...
Thanks for pointing out these 3 videos (they should have English subtitles).
Just the “flawed design” isn’t correct, it was designed for maneuver warfare and it could do that. Not flawed. The situation around the design was flawed.
@@Grimshak81 well, it was underpowered and overweight for the suspension...
spookston being nice and blurring the chat from toxic ppl
This is sort of like asking “Is the Eiffel Tower a good tower?”
how?!
Meaby
Wha- Based?
Huh
Very big, very slow, horrible logistics, unreliable and pressure from the allies was the disgrace of Tiger II and the Jagdtiger making them easy targets. I would never call it the best tank in WWII or close to that, but one of the heaviest and most armored of course and with one of the best guns of the war.
what does logistics have to do with a specific tank type or design? And what do you even mean by "logistics"? It could be transported by train just like the Panther or Tiger or any other type. Also it was not slower than any other heavy tank at that time. Besides, the speed was by far the least important factor anyway.
@@nicolaithelen6567 During the second half of WWII, Germany's logistics in general were horrible because of the allies and the problem of moving, supplying and maintaining a Tiger II in those conditions makes its performance dramatically worse like all German vehicles at that time.
@@nicolaithelen6567 A IS-2 can march for over a 1000 km on its on tracks with almost no issues, A tiger had to be loaded on a train so it had to be close to rail lines or otherwise it will have to be abandoned because it could drive hundreds of km on it's own
If properly maintained the most powerful tank of WW-2.
Dont quote me on this but i believe that the (P) designation stands for pneumatic and the (H) stand for hydraulic on the different turret designs