Why was the Tiger I`s armour never "side-sloped"?

[Guest herbjorn]

I am particularly thinking of the side and front body armour. Was it deemed unnecessary? Or would it require making changes to the production lines that werent feasable? Wouldnt it be better to have a side-sloped Tiger I at Kursk (both body and turret) once the T-34 came charging?

(Or were the engineers ahead of themselves, knowing that allied fighterbombers years after the Tiger I`s introduction, attacking from an angle, would have a harder time penetrating the vertical armour of the tiger ;P )

[Guest Germanboy]

IIRC, the Tiger I was developed before the German army encountered the T-34 and learned of the advantage of armour sloping. I guess they just did it by the book. "Hans, vhy are ve nicht make ze armour slope?" "Ah Dieter, ze Panzer IV und ze Panzer III did not need it, vhy vould ze new Tiger?" "Gut Hans, let's do it by ze book."

Tiger - German for unimaginativeness (with apologies to Volkswagen)

Just in case you wondered, my good written English skills notwithstanding, I really do sound like the above specimen.

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Andreas

[dalem]

Yes, the heavy tank project that eventually became the Tiger I was begun in 1939 or 1940, I believe. Not many designers had figured that sloped was better, I guess.

-dale

[von Lucke]

I've always looked on the Tiger I as the acme in pre-war panzer design. It's a MkIII taken as far as it could go.

The Panther (and later designs) are just T-34 hibrids mutated with a heavy dose of German engineering.

[Guest herbjorn]

dalem and von Lucke:

I was wondering why they didnt go ahead and change the design for the Tiger I from vertical to sloped AFTER it had been in production for some time, say, early 44.

[Sergei]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by herbjorn:

I was wondering why they didnt go ahead and change the design for the Tiger I from vertical to sloped AFTER it had been in production for some time, say, early 44.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well they DID develop Tiger II with sloped armor. It's just not that easy to change vertical armor to sloped, otherwise you might think they'd done that to Pzkpfw IV instead of developing Panther. Neither did Russians change KV's side armor to sloped one.

Armor is not just the exterior of tank, it's also the frame, and changing it requires a lot of adjusting, balancing and testing. The production lines and techniques also have to be changed. At the same trouble you can design a whole new model.

[Niklas Johanson]

"Tiger!"

The most feared thing an allied commander could hear from his front-line troops.

Yet, the tiger had a motor that was much to weak to carry the giant on anything but plain roads.

Does this show in the game?

And how bad-ass is the Tiger II in the game ?

-Niko

[Guest Germanboy]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Niklas Johanson:

"Tiger!"

The most feared thing an allied commander could hear from his front-line troops.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Fortunately enough most of the time it turned out to be a Kübelwagen out of petrol. I have seen pictures of Panzer IV in books and on veteran websites where the guys claim that they are Tigers. If the Germans had had the number of Tigers spotted by the allied grunts we would have won the war.

As Bryan Perrett put it in 'Knights of the Black Cross' - the Tiger was a superb tactical weapon, but never made a strategic difference.

I love the FOW in the game, where the allied troops identify everything that has tracks as 'Tiger', and if they added the same for guns (making them all 88s) it would be even better.

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Andreas

[Jarmo]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Germanboy:

I love the FOW in the game, where the allied troops identify everything that has tracks as 'Tiger'<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I wish, my braindead morons identified panther as P-4!

Wasn't I in for a nasty surprise.

[wadepm]

In discussing sloped armor don't forget that armor can be "sloped" in two directions - vertically and horizontally. When going into a firefight with a Tiger I try to approach the line obliquely. Incoming shots will hit your armor at an angle and voila, you have "created" your own sloped armor. To make this work successfully you really need to know where the opposing AT assets are. Recon!

[tss]

Niklas Johanson wrote:

"Tiger!"

The most feared thing an allied commander could hear from his front-line troops.

There's a story by a Soviet Su-76i gunner in the Russian Military Zone (don't have an url for it right now). The gunner said that the thing that they feared most was not the Tiger. Instead, they feared Hetzers much more. He said that a Hetzer could fire 4-5 (IIRC) shots before it could be pinpointed while other vehicles got only 2-3 undetected shots. The reason for this was small size and a gun without a muzzle break.

- Tommi

[Jeremy Cupit]

Sorry for the daft question but what does a muzzle break do?

[Sten]

Jeremy,

it uses the escaping gases from the barrel to brake the recoil of the gun. It is the wider, slightly angular thing at the end of the barrel.

Sten

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Keep your whisky on the rocks and your tanks on the roll.

[Guest Scott Clinton]

A muzzel brake can also increase the stability of the projectile and reduce the dust kicked up when the gun is fired (very important for dug-in/hidden AT-guns).

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Please note: The above is solely the opinion of 'The Grumbling Grognard' and reflects no one else's views but his own.

[Dittohead]

The tiger had 100mm of the Finest Krupp steel why would it need to be sloped against the inferior Allied guns?

[dalem]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>dalem and von Lucke:

I was wondering why they didnt go ahead and change the design for the Tiger I from vertical to sloped AFTER it had been in production for some time, say, early 44.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

herbjorn-

The Tiger was obsolete by '44 and production was stopped. The Panther, for all its problems, was a far better vehicle and already incorporated the features that would have been necessary to upgrade the Tiger I.

-dale

[mensch]

most feared tank on the battle field was naturaly the Hotchkiss Germanboy, it rendered the Allies in a state of laughter that they could not break, naturally the Axis troops were on them before they new it.. pitty realy it was such a good tank too, but nooo they had to make more of those tigers and panthers. (the french realy new what they were doing when they build this thing)...

[demoss]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Niklas Johanson:

"Tiger!"

The most feared thing an allied commander could hear from his front-line troops.

Yet, the tiger had a motor that was much to weak to carry the giant on anything but plain roads.

Does this show in the game?

And how bad-ass is the Tiger II in the game ?

-Niko<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The Tiger is on the slow side.

As for the Tiger II, I only encountered it once, and got a frontal (turret) kill with a Sherman 76 (not Firefly). It was probably a tungsten round, of course. It had nailed a Stuart and one Sherman already (and scared the **** out of a Scott), for what it's worth.

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-Doug

[Jeff Heidman]

The thing you should realzie about sloped armor is that you are giving something up for it.

By sloping the armor, you are decreasing the amount of useable volume inside the hull. Not as big a deal in a turret, but still a factor.

You gotta fit a lot of stuff inside that armor. The more you sploe it, the less space you have for that stuff.

Jeff Heidman

[Guest Germanboy]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by mensch:

most feared tank on the battle field was naturaly the Hotchkiss Germanboy, it rendered the Allies in a state of laughter that they could not break, naturally the Axis troops were on them before they new it..<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

AAR - engagement in French town of Jolie Frolic, written by Cpt. J.Lewis 210th Engineer Coy.

Early in the morning we spotted Germans counterattacking with what we at first thought was tank support. As it turned out it was actually a bunch of geriatric French Hotchkiss thingys. Our outpost line was overrun while lying in their foxholes helpless with laughter. Some of them have been put in for Yellow Hearts for wetting themselves with laughter. If not for the complete lack of humour of Sgt. Bill Bailey (father German, mother Danish), the company would have had it. Sgt. Bailey quickly threw his messkit at the head of the first German TC, making him abandon the vehicle. This caused the other TCs to button up, making messkits useless. Cpl. Miller, a die-cutter from upstate NY found out with typical American ingenuity (unfortunately not modeled in the game) that jamming toothpicks into the drive sprockets of the Hotchkiss would disable the thing. As soon as this became clear the Hotchkisses were soon disabled. The remaining infantry was driven off with little loss, mainly because of unrealistic decisions by the game designers about running HMG teams and setting houses on fire from backblast.

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Andreas

[mensch]

you forgot one famous story from Panzer Kommander Hans Richtmann,

"We were advancing with panzer gruppe "Lachen" and they were doing a fine job neutralizing the British when we thought, wow great tanks these Hotchkisses… kommander Krupp was putting an order for 30 more but that aside, we saw a design flaw. You see it was hayfever time and well…, to our amazement the first five tanks in the lead just fell apart.. well not realy the seemed to just blow up as if pumped up with air! Seeing this (British) they quickly recovered and counter attacked capturing the full panzer gruppe. We thought wow it must be a super weapon the British had that made our tanks just explode! Later found that the if the driver sneezed the armour plating just few off the thing! after that campaing in 44 we decided to cut off all noses of hotchkiss drivers"

"…we were still finding a problem with that toothpick problem, you see when we decided it had the same effect of those damn russian 14.5mm AT rifles, so we thought hey let put a skirting on these babies! needless to say that was another disaster in 44 as we attached the skirts we found that the weight of them was to much for them, falling in on the tank and crushing the crew… maybe these tigers are a better, but capturing troops when they are laughing is much more enjoyable then if they are stiff frozen in terror as the tigers roll in... Gruppenfruher Meyer has an idea of painting smilies on the tigers to make it easyer on the Allies, I hope that proves not to be another mistake Öbergruppenfruher Papnase is not pleased with our ideas, I mean we feel sorry for them and its so damn hard to pick up a scared stiff trooper!…"

(text from diary of Kommander Hans Richtmann)

[Guest Mirage2k]

When discussing feared armored weapons of WWII, I must say that I'm amazed no one has mentioned the pros and cons of the varieties of Kitchen Sink models to appear after the start of the war, when both Allied and Axis engineers raced each other to develop more durable plaster, ceramic, and chrome finishes. IIRC a troop carrier version of the Kitchen Sink appeared in the German Army in August of 1944, dubbed the "Bathtub of Death" by American GIs.

-Andrew

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Throw me a frickin' smiley people!