Tiger II (King tiger)
Tiger II is the common name of a German heavy tank of the Second World War. The official German designation was Panzerkampfwagen VI Ausf. B and the tank also had the ordnance inventory designation SdKfz 182. It is also known under the informal name Königstiger (German for the Bengal Tiger), often literally translated as King Tiger and by the British as Royal Tiger.
The design followed the same concept as the Tiger I, but was intended to be even more formidable. The Tiger II combined the heavy armor of the Tiger I with the sloped armor of the Panther. The M4 Sherman was unable to penetrate the front even at point blank range and the M26 Pershing and IS-2 had to come within 1300 m and 200 m respectively.[1] The Tiger II weighed 68.5 (early turret) to 69.8 (production turret) metric tons, was protected by 150 to 180 mm of frontal armor, and was armed with the 88 mm KwK 43 L/71 gun. The chassis was also the basis for the Jagdtiger turretless tank destroyer.
The very heavy armor and powerful long-range gun gave the Tiger II the advantage against virtually all opposing Allied and Soviet tanks. This was especially true on the Western Front, where the British and U.S. forces had almost no heavy tanks with which to oppose it.
Due to its sheer size and power, the King Tiger was photographed extensively, mostly for propaganda use.
Development
Initially two designs were provided, one by Henschel and one by Porsche. Both used a turret design from Krupp; the main differences were in the hull design, transmission and suspension.
The Henschel version used a conventional hull design with sloped armor resembling the layout of the Panther tank. It had a rear mounted engine and used nine overlapping road wheels per side, mounted on transverse torsion bars, in a similar manner to the original Tiger. To simplify maintenance, however, the wheels were overlapping rather than interleaved as in the Tiger I.
The Porsche hull design had a rear-mounted turret and a mid mounted engine. The suspension was the same as on the Jagdpanzer Elefant. This suspension had six road wheels per side mounted in paired bogies sprung with short longitudinal torsion bars that were integral to the wheel pair; this saved internal space and facilitated repairs. The Porsche version had a series-hybrid power system where the gasoline engines powered electrical generators which in turned powered electric motors which turned the sprockets. This method of propulsion had been attempted before on the Tiger (P) (later Elefant prototypes) and in some U.S. designs, but had never been put into production. The Porsche suspension would later be used on a few of the later Jagdtiger tank hunters.
Henschel won the contract, and all Tiger IIs were produced by the firm. Two turret designs were used in production vehicles. The initial design is sometimes misleadingly called the "Porsche turret" due to the belief that it was designed by Porsche for their prototype. In fact this turret was simply the initial Krupp design for both prototypes. This turret had a rounded front and steeply sloped sides, with a difficult-to-manufacture curved bulge on the turret's left side, to accommodate the commander's cupola. Fifty early turrets were mounted to Henschel's hull and used in action. The more common "production" turret, sometimes called the "Henschel" turret, was simplified with a flat face, no shot trap (created by the curved face of the initial-type turret), less-steeply sloped sides, and no bulge for the commander's cupola.The track system used on the Tiger II chassis was a unique one, which used alternating "contact shoe" and "connector" links—the contact shoe link had a pair of transverse metal bars that contacted the ground, while the connector links had no contact with the ground.The Tiger II was developed late in the war and made in relatively small numbers. Like all German tanks, it had a gasoline engine. However, this same engine powered the much lighter Panther and Tiger I tanks. The Tiger II was under-powered, like many other heavy tanks of World War II, and consumed a lot of fuel which was already in short supply.
Mechanical problems
As a result of the abandonment of post-production testing and preliminary trials, the tanks had numerous technical issues. Notably, the steering control would often break down under the stress of the vehicle's weight. In addition, not only were the engines prone to overheating and failure, but they also consumed large amounts of fuel, attributed to the use of the 690 hp Maybach engine from the far smaller Panther tank. The engine had to constantly run at full power just to get the tank moving. Henschel & Son's chief designer Erwin Aders explained that "The breakdowns can be attributed to the fact that the Tiger II had to go straight into series production without the benefit of test results." The engine and drivetrain was overburdened by the weight and would have required more testing to work out problems, a common problem among heavy tanks that pushed the limits of powerplants and transmissions. A version of the Maybach HL230 engine with fuel injection was designed that would have improved power to about 1,000 PS (986 hp, 736 kW), Henschel proposed to use it for future production and retrofitting to existing Tiger IIs, but the deteriorating war situation meant the upgrade never left the drawing board. Other suggested improvements included a new main weapon, possibly of 105 mm calibre, but again this never got beyond the proposal stage.
Overall, the Tiger II was a formidable tank in spite of its problems. The Tiger II's 88 mm armament could destroy all Allied armour at a range far outside the effective range of the enemy's armament. Also, notwithstanding its reliability problems, the Tiger II was remarkably agile for such a heavy vehicle. Contemporary German records indicate that it had a lower ground pressure and was as maneuverable as the much lighter Panzer IV. Also, like the Tiger I, its sophisticated suspension design provided excellent flotation, giving the tank a very smooth ride and making it an excellent gun platform.
Statistics from March 1945 compare the availability of Tigers compared to other tanks: 62% of the Panzer IVs, 59% of the Tigers and 48% of the Panthers were by this period of the war available.
Production
1,500 Tiger II were ordered, but the production was more than halved by Allied bombing and total production reached only 487 units (1943 - 3, 1944 - 377, and 1945 - 107 produced). Full production ran from early-1944 to the end of the war.
Other specifications
- Gearbox: Maybach OLVAR EG 40 12 16 B (8 forward and 4 reverse)
- Radio: FuG 5, Befehlswagen (command tank) version: FuG 8 (Sd. Kfz. 267), FuG 7 (Sd. Kfz. 268)
- Ammunition: 88 mm — 80 rounds (Porsche turret), 86 rounds (Henschel turret), 7.92mm — up to 5,850 rounds
- Gun Sight: Turmzielfernrohr 9d (TZF 9d), early on the TZF 9b
- Armor layout: (all angles from horizontal)
- Hull front, lower: 100 mm @ 40°; upper: 150 mm @ 40°
- Hull side, lower: 80 mm @ 90°; upper: 80 mm @ 65°
- Hull rear: 80 mm @ 60°
- Hull top: 40 mm @ 90°
- Hull bottom: 40 mm @ 90° (front), 25 mm @ 90° (rear)
- Turret front: 180 mm @ 80° (Porsche turret: 60–110 mm, rounded)
- Turret side: 80 mm @ 69° (Porsche turret: 80 mm @ 60°)
- Turret rear: 80 mm @ 70° (Porsche turret: 80 mm @ 60°)
- Turret top: 44 mm @ 0–10° (Porsche turret: 40 mm @ 0–12°)
Combat history
The first use of the Tiger II in combat was in Normandy on 18 July 1944 with the 503rd Heavy Panzer Battalion (schwere Panzerabteilung 503). It was first used on the Eastern Front on 12 August 1944 with schwere PzAbt 501 in the fighting at the Soviet Baranov bridgehead over the Vistula River. Eleven Tiger IIs were lost between 11 and 13 August when confronted by the Soviet T-34/85, IS-2 and inconvenient sandy terrain.Later, the Tiger II was present at, among others, the Ardennes Offensive, the Soviet offensive into Poland and East Prussia in January 1945, the German offensives in Hungary in 1945, fighting to the east of Berlin at the Seelow Heights in April 1945 and finally within the city of Berlin itself at the very end of the war.The Sherman-equipped 4th/7th Royal Dragoon Guards claimed to be the first British regiment to knock out a Tiger II, on 8 August 1944, in France.
Soviet wartime testing of the Tiger II
During August 1944, a number of Tiger II tanks were captured by the Soviets near Sandomierz and were soon tested by the Soviets at their testing grounds at Kubinka.[1] The tests revealed the tanks to be severely defective: the transmission and suspension broke down very frequently and the engine was prone to overheating and consequential failure. Additionally, the Soviets discovered surprising deficiencies in its armour. Not only was the metal of shoddy quality (a problem not particular to the Tiger II—as the war progressed the Germans found it harder and harder to obtain the alloys needed for high quality steel) but the welding was also, despite "careful workmanship", extremely poor. As a result, even when shells did not penetrate its armour, there was a large amount of spalling, and the armour plating unfailingly cracked at the welds when struck by heavier shells, rendering the tank inoperable. The testers concluded that the Tiger II posed a lesser challenge than the much lighter and cheaper Tiger I, and were puzzled at the German decision to produce it.
However, there has been a lot of debate about the validity of these Soviet tests. They were carried out by firing a large number of shots at very close range (each penetration weakens the armor so further penetrations become more likely) on a sample of only one tank. Additionally, the Soviets had no means of correctly maintaining the tank's transmission. The 503rd SS Heavy Panzer Battalion (sSSPzAbt 503) scored approximately 500 kills in the period from January to April 1945 on the Eastern Front, for the loss of 45 King Tigers (most of which were abandoned and destroyed by their own crews after mechanical breakdown or for lack of fuel).
Surviving vehicles
As it was produced late in the war, far more Tiger II examples survived than did the Tiger I, though the latter was produced in four times the number of the former. The only operable example is displayed in the Musée des Blindés, Saumur, France. It has the production turret and is accessible to public on payment of entrance fee to museum. Other survivors include:
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