pinh cookie

Yes, the attrition rate of King Tigers was relatively low. The 506th and the 503rd had Zimmerit coated tanks through the end of the war alongside newer models. The 503rd battalion was equipped during the changeover in September, 1944, and received a mixed bunch of tanks with and without the coating. They were immediately entrained for Hungary and spent the rest of the war trying to stop the Soviets in Central Europe. The 506th received 45 tanks with the coating in August, 1944, and got 14 replacements without the coating in December for the Ardennes Offensive. They remained on the western front until they were surrounded in the Ruhr Pocket in April, 1945.

tanks

Gerald Owens wrote:

Would you go anywhere near one of those things if you knew it was there and had a choice in the matter? :-D The only thing the Soviets felt really confident in taking one on with was the SU-152 assault gun, assuming they could get close enough to it without being destroyed as they approached it. Even a Stalin II or Pershing tank was a pretty iffy opponent to it. God help you if you were in a T-34 or Sherman. Best to stay a couple of miles away and take it out via either heavy artillery or airstrikes. Although American and British troops used captured Panzerfausts and Panzershrecks to good advantage against German tanks, the Soviets seemed particularly backwards in developing man-portable antitank weapons (Bazookas, PIATs, hollow-charge mines and grenades, or single-shot recoilless weapons like the Panzerfaust) until after the war...in comparison to the other combatants...despite the fact that they lost huge numbers of tanks to them, and technologically they would be pretty easy to copy and mass-produce in volume in a very short period of time. The fact that the Germans were sticking Zimmerit all over the exterior of their tanks to defeat Allied hollow-charge magnetic antitank grenades...that didn't exist...indicates a failing on the whole Allied side, and the Soviet forces in particular. The vast numbers of troops the Soviets could field in comparison to the Germans would have made any sort of a cheap and simple man-portable antitank weapon highly effective. American and British forces might have been very hesitant to close to within a few dozen feet of German tanks to engage them with such weapons except in cases of desperation; but history shows that wasn't the case with Soviet troops...and a massed attack of T-34s, each with around ten troops riding behind the turret.... and each of those troops carrying a Panzerfaust clone strapped to their back as well as their standard weapons, could have wreaked havoc on the panzer forces during the invasion of Germany. Back during the Vietnam War, my older brother was stationed at a fire base near Hue; at night VC and NVA snipers would approach the perimeter of the base and fire into it. They did this at great risk, as the standard response of a sniper's rifle bullet coming into the base was a LAW rocket round heading outward toward the sniper's suspected position. An extrapolation of that concept during the street fighting in Berlin at the end of the war would be fascinating to consider - with a concealed German position that opened fire suddenly getting hit with a massed barrage of around 30-40 Soviet Panzerfaust clones, like a subscale Katyusha attack. :-)

Pat

I've seen a photograph of a King Tiger in the Ardennes which was taken out by a single round fired from a 2" Bazooka. It had a tiny hole in the rear turret side where the ammunition was normally stored. The first Bazookas were loaned to the Soviets so the Germans weren't expecting them on the western front. If they had they would have made suitable arrangements with spaced armour.

A King Tiger could only fire in one direction at a time so surround it with enough tanks and even a 75mm Sherman can take it out. The favourite target of allied gunners was the turrent ring. Once the trunnions were jammed the tank was a sitting duck. The Panther was more feared than a King Tiger. A commander told me he would reckon on losing twenty vehicles before taking out just one Panther.

(kim)

Sounds like a job for a Typhoon or a P-47.

Actually the King Tiger was its own worst enemy. One of the great stories in the "Then and Now" series book on the Bulge was a King Tiger which had just gotten to the crest of a hill via a very icy road and spotted an M10, which it promptly blasted. But tank's gun recoil gave it a shove back down the hill and it wound up with flailing tracks crashing into a barn where it was stuck and later found abandoned.

One thing Tom Jentz doesn't want to contemplate either is the fact of how many German troops and other tanks were lost in the recovery of Tiger I and Tiger II tanks from combat in Russia. One was noted as costing the Germans 200 infantry and five Pzkw. III tanks to get back so they could list "no losses" on rolls.

Personally I think 2nd Armored Division came up with the best way. Find one, pin it down, and then bring up an 8" howitzer to lob rounds until one lands on the top and blows it to bits.

Cookie Sewell

yeah, but it does make one cool looking model. i like the fact it was as lethal to crews as the allies were. and it sure kept the number of good tanks being produced down. imagine the equivalent improved iv's and panthers that would have been built.

The "trunions" in question are the bearings on which the turret rotate. Early British tanks weren't powerful enough to penetrate anything so they just blasted away at the turret ring from all directions and hoped a lucky shot would distort the metal and jam the ring. The tactic worked against a Tiger because it's traverse was so slow to begin with. It didn't work against a Panther as the latter would simply pick off the weaker tanks one-by-one till there were none left.

(kim)

=EF=BF=BD =EF=BF=BD =EF=BF=BD =EF=BF=BD =EF=BF=BD =EF=BF=BD =EF=BF=BD =EF=BF= =BD =EF=BF=BD =EF=BF=BD =EF=BF=BD =EF=BF=BD =EF=BF=BD =EF=BF=BD =EF=BF=BD = =EF=BF=BD =EF=BF=BD =EF=BF=BD =EF=BF=BDThe favourite

Not quite. The turret race is what the turret sits on and is the ball bearing ring on which it rotates. The turret trunnions are the pins which hold the gun in the turret and on which it rotates. There is little chance of hitting the trunnions on a Tiger II as they are very well protected, but the turret race (and the gap between the turret and the hull) are more vulnerable.

Cookie Sewell

Want to see something funny, check out the M1 Abrams braking tests on ice - it slid for around a city block with its tracks locked up. They modified the tracks after that. :-)

Pat

Trunnions generally refers to the mountings the gun pivots up and down on.

Pat

on 4/29/2008 6:56 PM Pat Flannery said the following:

There is a film clip from WWII showing a Sherman sliding sideways (towards the curb and side street) in some European town.

I was just repeating what a British commander told me, I didn't look it up or anything :o)

(kim)