PzKpfw VI Tiger I heavy tank

INTRODUCTION

In the summer of 1940, during the Battle of France, it was confirmed the inefficiency against the British and French medium tanks of the German 75-millimeter cannon in service until then. For instance, in Arras the impacts of the German cannons had ostensibly failed against the armor of the British Matilda tanks. Because of this, Hitler ordered to adapt the Fliegerabwehrkannone FlaK 36 (a 88-millimeter 56-caliber anti-aircraft cannon) to be installed in a new tank which could penetrate the armor of the Allied tanks at a distance of 1500 meters. Besides, the new tank should be able to withstand impacts from a cannon of similar power. Initially designed as an anti-aircraft weapon, the Flak 36 had been already used as a towed anti-tank weapon and in both roles it gave excellent results. The development team of the Ministry of Armament sought a weapon of lesser caliber and conical bore which were able to confer a higher velocity to projectiles. The adoption of such cannons would have allowed the vehicles armed with them to be smaller and hence lighter. Cannons of conical bore were already being tested as towed anti-tank weapons and they had demonstrated to be very effective. However, large amounts of tungsten were required for manufacturing their projectiles and, eventually, the scarcity of this material costed this plan dearly. Later on, it was the traumatic encounter of the Wehrmacht with the Soviet KV-1 and T-34 tanks what really led to a specification for a heavy tank, one which had the prestigious 88-millimeter cannon installed in a fully rotating turret and were sufficiently armored to withstand the impacts from any existing anti-tank weapon.

INITIAL DEVELOPMENT

The origins of the German program for a heavy tank date back from 1937, when the convenience of a tank weighing from 30 to 35 tonnes was discussed for the first time. The Henschel company was ordered to develop two vehicles having the same specifications than the Durchbruchswagen (Breakthrough Vehicle) DW 1. A prototype was already being built when Henschel was ordered to focus in a heavier vehicle, the VK 6501, which was intended to be denominated PzKpfw VII. This vehicle weighed 65 tonnes and was armed with a 75-millimeter cannon and multiple machine guns installed in secondary turrets. But the project was cancelled in 1940, when two prototypes had been finished and were already in the phase of evaluation. Meanwhile Henschel was working in a lighter heavy tank of which a prototype was built: the DW 2, which had a weight of 32 tonnes, a 75-millimeter 24-caliber cannon - which was the same model installed in the PzKpfw IV - and a crew of five. When in 1940 the German Ministry of Armament convoked Daimler-Benz, Henschel, MAN and Doctor Ferdinand Porsche - the president of the German Committee of Tanks - to present their plans for a 30-ton tank, the proposal made by Henschel was based in the DW 2. Henschel was asked to build four prototypes for evaluation, which received the denomination Vollketten Kraftfahrzeug (Motorized Tracked Vehicle) VK 3001 (H). Besides, Porsche was asked to build two prototypes, which received the denomination VK 3001 (P). The following month of March Henschel completed two prototypes and six months later the other two were completed as well. This design did not differ a lot from that of the PzKpfw IV but it had seven interspersed wheels, connected to torsion bars, and three return rollers at each side, and it was to be armed with the more powerful 75-millimeter 48-caliber cannon. However, when the Soviet T-34/76 tank captured in November was studied, this design was considered to be outdated, even if the tests on the chassis had been already carried out. The project VK 3001 (H) was cancelled and its prototypes were reconverted into prototypes for self-propelled cannons. Henschel was ordered to build a similar prototype of a 36-ton tank, the VK 3601 (H), which was to be armed with a 75-millimeter cannon of conical bore. This project was cancelled as well, because of the aforementioned economical reasons rather than failures in the design.

FINAL DEVELOPMENT

Henschel and Porsche took the challenge to create the final version of the new tank. The turret, built by Krupp, would be common to the projects of both manufacturers. Hitler had a personal interest in the development of a heavy tank and he pressed the personnel involved to put the new tank into service as soon as possible. In May 1941, two prototypes armed with the Flak 36 88-millimeter 56-caliber cannon - whose official denomination was KwK 36 L/56 - and denominated VK 4501 (H) and VK 4501 (P) were ordered from Henschel and Porsche, respectively. Both manufacturers based their projects in the work previously done during the development of the 30-ton tank. The design by Porsche was propelled by a gasoline engine, an electric generator and two electric motors, and featured longitudinal torsion bars and other innovative details. However, the more conventional design by Henschel was that which scored higher in the tests, despite having exceeded the stipulated weight in 10 tonnes. The prototypes which competed to become the PzKpfw VI Tiger were exhibited for the first time the 20th April 1942, coinciding with Hitler's 53rd birthday. The production of the VK 4501 (H), with the denomination PzKpfw VI Tiger Ausf H (which would be later changed to "Ausf E" with retroactive character), was ordered in August 1942. As a precaution, Porsche was ordered to build 90 chassis of his model, to be used just in case that Henschel faced unexpected difficulties. But Henschel had no problems in the production of his model and the chassis designed by Porsche were eventually adapted to the role of tank destroyers, initially with the denomination "Ferdinand" and later with that of "Elephant".

CHARACTERISTICS

At the moment of its introduction and during some time thereafter the PzKpfw VI Tiger was the most powerful tank in the world, thanks to the formidable 88-millimeter 56-caliber cannon supplied with 92 projectiles and to the unprecedently thick armor, which guaranteed protection against any projectile used in the battlefield back then. In the Western Front the Tiger was so effective that the Allied tankers had to develop special tactics to engage in combat against it, and it is a fact that the apparition of the Tiger was a shock for the Allies and that this tank soon earned the reputation of being the biggest threat on the battlefield, even if occasionally it worked so ineffectively that in no way it could be thought that the crews were putting into practice all of its capabilities. Despite of its denomination, the design of the PzKpfw VI Tiger is older than that of the PzKpfw V Panther. It had none of the sloped surfaces present in this later, being similar to that of the PzKpfw IV in this regard. With such a profusion of vertical surfaces the Tiger relied solely in the absolute thickness of its armor for its protection, a factor which added unnecessary weight to the tank. The armor was made with flat plates which were interlocked and welded. However, the solidity of the hull was dubious on the prototype, for it showed ostensible flexings when firing the cannon in any direction other than forward. The front of the hull had 110 millimeters in thickness and the sides had 60 millimeters in the upper part and 82 millimeters in the lower part. The front of the hull had an opening for the MG 34 machine gun and another one protected by a laminated crystal block to allow the driver to see the exterior without having to look through an episcope. The bottom of the hull and the top of the turret had 26 millimeters in thickness. The sides and the rear of the turret were formed by a single cast steel plate of 80 millimeters in thickness which was curved like a horseshoe. This plate had a large round opening for the escape hatch and a small porthole which allowed the commander to fire outside with a small gun. The ends of this plate were connected by a flat plate of 100 millimeters in thickness which formed the front of the turret, in whose center a large opening was made for the 88-millimeter cannon. The cannon mantlet had 110 millimeters in thickness, which added to the thickess of the turret's front reached a maximum of 210 millimeters. The turret was built with vertical surfaces, similarly as the hull, but the rounded shape helped to compensate for this deficiency. It was not a great ballistic profile but worse designs had been seen. To protect the tank from magnetically attached mines, a grooved layer of a special mortar called "Zimmerit" was applied to the external surfaces over the whole tank. This coating added a weight of around 200 kilograms to the tank.


Five views of a PzKpfw VI Tiger Ausf H from the First Panzer Division SS "Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler". The schematic camouflage is a model used in the Russian front. Note also the interspersed wheels, the smoke dischargers on the turret, the towing cables and the spare tracks.

The interior of the PzKpfw VI Tiger granted to the five crew members as much comfort as it was possible inside a tank. The driver and the radio operator sat in separated compartments in the fore part of the hull with the Maybach gearbox situated between them. To steer the tank, the driver could use either an innovative steering wheel or the two levers which were usually found in the driving compartment of a tank. The other driving controls comprised a throttle pedal, a brake pedal, a speed selector and a hand brake. The driver's instrument panel, which was one of the most complete and perfect used back then, was situated on the right side of the driving compartment. The radio operator was in charge of the wireless communications through a FuG 5 radio transmitter-receiver device and he also operated the hull's MG 34 7.92-millimeter machine gun. The rotation of the turret was effectuated either by a hydraulic mechanism which took energy from the gearbox or by a manual mechanism when the engine was stopped. The hydraulic rotation mechanism was situated on the bottom of the turret, next to the pedal which the gunner used to control its movement. The commander had at his disposal a manual rotation mechanism which was operated through a handwheel rotating in the vertical plane, and the gunner had at his disposal another mechanism of identical purpose which was operated through a handwheel rotating in the horizontal plane. In any case, the low rotation speed of the heavy turret was one of the Tiger's greatest handicaps. The space inside the turret was relatively generous but rather restricted when the full load of ninety-two 88-millimeter projectiles was stored. The breechblock of the 88-millimeter cannon divided this space in two. The commander was protected by a shield from the hot cases ejected out of the breech. The gunner had at his disposal a manual mechanism for controlling the elevation angle of the cannon and a binocular telescope for aiming. The recoil of the 88-millimeter cannon was countered by a heavy spring installed inside a tube, situated in the right side of the breechblock. The 88-millimeter projectiles could penetrate a steel armor plate of 112 millimeters in thickness at a distance of 450 meters, which was enough for defeating any armored vehicle at the time when the Tiger was introduced. On the right side of the turret was installed the MG 34 7.92-millimeter co-axial machine gun, which was fired by the gunner through a pedal. Six smoke dischargers were installed in the sides of the turret, next to two slits which allowed the gunner and the loader to peep the outside. The commander had at his disposal a rather tall observation cupola.

The first 250 exemplars of the PzKpfw VI Tiger were fitted with a Maybach HL 210 gasoline engine which developed 645 horsepower, whereas the subsequent tanks were fitted with the Maybach HL 230 of 700 horsepower. The engines were fitted with an air depuration system which was visible in the rear part of the hull. In practical terms, there was very little difference between both engines regarding their performance and the maximum speed was about 37 kilometers/hour. The speed was low due to the necessity of using a high reduction factor in the transmission to overcome the mechanical resistance posed by the considerable weight of the tank. Since this weight was excessive for using the normal driving system by clutch and brake, Henschel adapted the British regenerative steering unit attaching it to a Maybach eight-speed preselective gearbox. A related problem was the excessively restricted operational range; with a fuel capacity of 567 liters, the Tiger could travel only 120 kilometers by road with two stops to refuel, whereas in cross-country travels the operational range was about half of that. The lessons which Henschel had learned with the suspension systems of the primitive VK 3001 and VK 3601 were invaluable for the project of the Tiger. This one had eight wheel hubs on each side, each of them fitted with road wheels which were interspersed with those of adjacent hubs. The Tiger was the first German tank which was fitted with such a characteristic wheel arrangement. The large diameter of the road wheels rendered return rollers unnecesary. The road wheels were fitted with rubber tires but from February 1944 these were replaced by fully metallic wheels fitted with inner springs. However, the Tiger never had the problems with the tires which characterized the Panther, whose crews had to effectuate an exhausting maintenance work to keep their road wheels in good condition. The hubs were connected to the hull by swinging arms attached to torsion bars. The torsion bars of the two foremost and the two rearmost wheels were thicker than the others and their swinging arms were fitted with cylindrical shock absorbers internal to the hull. The drive sprockets were fitted with disc brake drums which were ribbed to dissipate the heat.

The PzKpfw VI Tiger was provided with two sets of tracks: combat tracks which had 725 millimeters in width and travel tracks which had 520 millimeters in width. The weight of the Tiger rendered necessary the utilization of wide tracks but this caused a problem for the transportation on railways, which was addressed with the adoption of the aforementioned travel tracks. However, the utilization of these narrower tracks required the removal of the outer road wheels, whereas the utilization of the combat tracks required their reinstallation. The shift of the tracks, which would take about 15 minutes, was tedious and expensive, and contributed to further restrict the mobility of these heavy tanks. The interspersed arrangement of the road wheels granted a gentle and stable movement in any type of terrain, but it had a treacherous disadvantage: the soft mud and the snow accumulated between the two rows of wheels could cause the immobilization of the tanks when freezing. When the tanks spent a long time stopped during the winter nights, after having been traveling across muddy or snowy terrains, they were often immobilized at dawn. The armored units of the Red Army soon knew this and they exploited the opportune time when the Tiger tanks were unable to move.





THE TIGER IN ACTION

The PzKpfw VI Tiger was intended to be assigned to special battalions of 30 vehicles under the control of a corps in the headquarters. In general terms this was carried to practice but some armored divisions, particularly the Waffen SS, received their own Tiger battalions. The Tiger entered action for the first time in September 1942, during the Siege of Leningrad, where the conditions of the terrain were undesirable for any tank. Deployed very sparsely and in short numbers, the Tiger tanks found themselves alone in the open field, with very little cover at their disposal, and thus very exposed to well camouflaged anti-tank cannons. As a consequence, they suffered heavy losses. In the period of the large battles in the Western Front, after the Allied landings in Normandy, the crews of the Tiger already knew that their tanks performed better in ambushes, in more restricted spaces, where they would benefit from their thick armor and powerful cannon more than in the open field, where they would suffer because of their limited speed and short operational range. It was in the battles for containing the Allied advance in 1944, particularly in the "bocage" areas of Normandy, characterized by their narrow roads, high hedges, wide fences and small orchards, where the Tiger tanks found themselves in their element, where their cannons could inflict the maximum damage and their armor allowed for a respite during the counterattack.

In one occassion in 1944, an armored battalion from the British 7th Armored Division - known as the "Desert Rats" - lost at least 25 of their tanks and many auxiliary vehicles from the attack of a sole Tiger tank. It has to be noted, however, that not all of the British losses took place during tank combats, albeit, on the other hand, much higher numbers are given regarding the destruction of Allied armored vehicles. The incident took place the 13th June 1944 near the town of Villers Bocage, during Operation Epsom, which was part of the Battle for Caen. The Tiger tank was commanded by SS Obersturmfuhrer (Lieutenant) Michael Wittmann, from the 11th Abteilung Schwere Panzer SS (SS Heavy Panzer Battalion). Back then, after two years as tank commander, Wittmann had 119 destroyed tanks in his tally (or 138, according to other sources). This translated version of the story states that "in the morning of that day Michael Wittman watched from the peepholes in the turret of his Tiger the movements of a British armored column which meandered along the road to Villers Bocage. Along with his crew, which had been always the same, Wittman had fought in Russia, where he destroyed 119 Soviet tanks in nine months. If Commander Carr, the second-in-command in the British armored column, had known about his presence, he would probably have advanced with more caution, but the column continued moving sparsely along the road. Suddenly the Tiger bounced into an esplanade which ran parallel to the road, and in very little time it destroyed 20 tanks, four tank destroyers, one command vehicle, 14 armored personnel carriers and 14 Bren Carriers."

Also during that winter, during the Battle of the Bulge, in the thick forests of the Ardennes mountains, the Tiger demonstrated its worth one and another time. It was there and in Caen where this tank earned its reputation of being invincible against any armored vehicle which it faced, and it was in fact very feared by the crews of the Sherman tanks. On the other hand, it was a reasonably compact tank but so heavy that it could not cross the German bridges and the first 400 units had to ford the rivers to cross them. The requirement of shifting tracks was very laborious and the wheels had some problems because of the excessive weight. The Allied discovered that their more agile tanks could surpass the limited maneuverability of the Tiger and attack it from the rear. This along with other limitations rendered this tank obsolete in 1944, albeit it remained in service until the end of the war. In August of that year 1300 units had been built, not so many having into account the reputation and the effect of this tank on the Allied morale.




Apart from the standard version there were other utilitary versions of the Tiger. Some were fitted as command vehicles (Panzerbefehlswagen), provided with tactical panels and plans and two additional radio devices: one for requesting direct air support and another one for communicating with the headquarters of the divisions. These modifications were made at expenses of the storage space for the ammunition of the 88-millimeter cannon and the co-axial machine gun. Some other Tiger served as armored recovery vehicles (Bergepanzer) and as assault tanks (Sturmtiger) armed with a 380-millimeter mortar which fired projectiles propelled by rockets (Raketenwerfer) at short distances.

Specifications for Tiger I

Categories: Tanks - World War Two - 20th Century - [General] - [General]

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Website: Military History

Article submitted: 2014-06-26

Article updated: 2023-11-24