Mr. Copson is asked whether the Tiger was the "most feared". He gives a long answer 5:10 talking about its cost, its reliability, the difficulty of maintenance etc. etc. But why? None of these aspects are relevant. Allied tankers didn't KNOW these facts, for the most part. And even if they knew them, what difference would they make? You "fear" a tank when you believe it's in your vicinity, because it might shoot you. The knowledge that its mechanics have a difficult job, or that arguments about fund allocations rage in Berlin, doesn't change that. He's answering a different question to what was asked. And then... he says "eight thousand Tigers". There were 1350, and even that number is double-counting components that got recycled.
@@barryfrancis7421 But how do you measure "fear"? Surely it means the emotions that Allied tankers had, not anything the Germans felt. And only the Germans knew how many broken-down Tigers were sitting behind the lines. That factor couldn't come into play for Allied tankers.
He wasn’t asked if it was the most feared, he was asked if it deserved the title. He answered the question he was asked. The 8,000 Tiger comment was odd though. I doubt he meant it, he should know the real numbers. I would guess it was a slip of the tongue.
The most effective tank/tank killer the Germans had was the Stug III. Most produced, cheapest to build, easiest to service, lowest profile, most tank kills.
@@carl5381 if you have more of something and engage something else with it, you are going to get more kills with it. But was it the most effective or prolific?
There were no Tigers in the US sector of the Normandy campaign, but GIs swore they'd seen them. They were probably Panzer IVs with Schürzen and spaced turret armour.
I think that shützen (skirts) was a very innovative idea to give a slightly under armored but very reliable tank an extended lease on life! With the unintended benefit of the allies seeing it as a Tiger!
The US also faced virtually no SS units in Normandy either. Nearly all the elite SS units faced off against the 2nd British Army which included the Canadians as well as country’s troops.
@@timonsolus No. It was an answer to the Soviet AT Rifle which could penetrate the sides and rear of the Pz III & IV. It had nothing to do with protection against hollow-charge weapons.
And one of the other issues with the Tiger is how difficult it was to recover if disabled or broken down. You can find pictures of a Tiger being towed by two or three big Sdkfz 9s.
Usually the Germans were in retreat, allies advancing. It's more difficult to retrieve and repair a broken tank if your troupes have retreated past it . The allies on the other hand , if a tank needed repair , it just had to wait till the repair facilities had advanced to it
@@Suchtel10Nope. The exchange rate was closer to 1-2. In fact, there were quite a few engagements where the tiger was destroyed before managing to hit any allied armor whatsoever.
if you look at a frontal view of a Panzer IV G/H with the added side-skirt armour on the turret they - very superficially - look like a Tiger if you have bad visibility, far away or didn´t look long enough ... it easily can be mixed up with a real Tiger. So they probably said ... if in doubt, lets assume its a Tiger, lets go somewhere else ^^
And Allied pilots in the Pacific saw Zeros every time they saw a single-engine fighter (the Zero was numerous but most were of course other types). German pilots always saw "Spitfires". Every single Axis anti-tank gun in Africa was "an 88" even though most of them were 37 and 50mm units. TLDR: situation normal.
I think he combined the Panther and Tiger 1 production numbers. 6557 Panthers, 1368 Tiger 1. To be fair to him, either of these brought about the same amount of fear to crews.
@@davidmacy411To be fair this guy works at the Tank Museum and should know better. I’m just a tank buff and I was shocked when he said 8,000 Tigers (not Panthers). I had to replay it. The Germans would have loved to have that many Tigers.
@ATOMTAYLOR a Tommy Cooker is half a petrol tin filled with sand which has been soaked in kerosene. It's a British Army extemporaneous solution to lack of ready fuel in the Western Desert.
I think he combined the Panther and Tiger 1 production numbers. 6557 Panthers, 1368 Tiger 1. To be fair to him, either of these brought about the same amount of fear to crews.
The Tiger was also designed so it couldn’t fit on German rail transporter wagons until you took a day taking off the outside wheels possibly during an air attack. I also read the Churchill Crocodile was the most feared tank German units ran from it.
Wasn't the wheels it was replacing the tracks with transport tracks. a bigger limit was how many 60 ton capable bridges there were once dismounted from the train.
It was never a tank that they could have used in large quantities. It was designed as a heavy break-through and infantry support tank. It was designed for specialist units all along. They always needed a cheaper and faster tank which could be produced in larger quantities, and which would have better operational mobility.
Chris is correct. I travelled from Australia to Bovington to see the Tiger but also to see the other fantastic bits of kit there. Very memorable. Even my wife was into it! Gotta be happy with that.
reliable in the extreme - the russians loved it so much they asked us to extend production - and when the russians invaded manchuria they prioritised Sherman and Valentine because they were so reliable and perfect for use in remote theatres.
Very useful for light recce with the Soviets, hardier than a T-70, but relatively quite mobile. Performance in difficult ground holds it back, but handles quite nicely through the gears.
No fear of the 88mm gun among allied tank crews is the narrative being sold here. My Father only served as tank recovery and transport and even he feared it for what he would inevitably find and have to deal with inside every tank hit by it.Not necessarily penetrated.
Normandy is weird because anything with a muzzle brake with sufficiently scary effect was lumped into the 8,8 cm. You can see this with how the British reacted to 21st Panzer's S307 Pak and Becker's other vehicles based on Renaults and Hotchkisses with the 15 cm.
@@yashkasheriff9325 At the type of ranges that an 88 could obliterate an allied tank and its crew they wouldn't have had time to decide the difference even if they actually saw it.
A Tiger would take out four Shermans , the problem for the Germans was the Allies and Russians produced way more Shermans and T34s than four to one Tigers , also add in air superiority, and German lack of fuel
@@dewdew80there were three encounters between M4’s and Tiger I’s post D-Day. More if you count Firefly’s. For the standard M4, once the Tigers came out ahead, once the M-4’s, and the other was inconclusive.
@@veetsv1597 through process of elimination many historians believe that three instances may actually be real encounters with Tigers out of a heap of rumored encounters. Those three instances do not have conclusive evidence.
76mm 17 pounder could penetrate 150mm of steel at 1000 yds, better than the 88mm on the Mk VI (with a full powder charge). (Around Nov-44, the powder was reduced 25% due to the shortage of nitrogen to make explosives.)
The interviewer needs to factor in the reliability as well as the cost, and then consider the industrial capability of the competing nations. For example, you can build 40 Shermans for the price of 10 Tigers, but 5 of those Tigers might break down on the way to the battlefield so in reality you have 5 tigers versus 40 Shermans. And then when you consider the industrial might of the US, they didn’t build 4 Shermans for every Tiger they actually built 33 Shermans for every Tiger.
The trouble is that we can all say that on paper that this weapon is better than that one or it’s got a better killing range etc,etc but the proof is how did they actually do in any situation, take the Fairey Swordfish ,an aircraft that was outdated when it entered service ,it had virtually no protection and a top speed of best 130 mph.But un escorted for the loss of only 2 planes out of an attack by 21 aircraft all unescorted they put the main Italian battle fleet at Taranto out of action for a time, something that on paper they should never have been able to to
There is almost no chance on earth that Joe Ekins made that shot form that range. I cannot understand why the Brits are so reluctant to admit that it was the Canadians?
Its in the interest of the fanboys to cause confusion over Wittmann's demise. Any non-fanboy who starts arguing that Allied unit A didn't do it but Allied Unit B did it just plays into their hands.
I think it's more the dogged belief that you needed a 17 pounder to penetrate the armour of a Tiger. Most people don't realise that the 75mm would do a number on the Tiger at around 500 feet.
With respect to Wittmann, I seem to remember both Joe Ekins and the fellow from the Canadian Sherbrooke Fusiliers said they could never be certain if they destroyed Wittman's tank. Both Ekins and the Canadian guy said his tank would have simply been "another enemy tank" and that they didn't even know who Michael Wittmann was at the time. The idea the Canadians may have hit Wittmann seems to be based on likelihood as they were positioned within 150 metres of where Wittmann's tank was destroyed.
Tiger-too heavy for bridges, too expensive,tranny not fit for purpose, underpowered engine, fuel guzzler. Also it used petrol (gasoline) which was in short supply in Germany from 1942 onward.
5:16 hi, sorry to correct but the Tiger I has a 700HP engine for 57 tons of weight and the Panzer IV a 300HP engine for 25 tons. So both has about 12HP/ton.
Surprisingly mixed quality of information from Mr. Copson. Incorrect quantity indication of tiger production and no information about the completely different action doctrine of a Tiger compared to a Sherman, T34 or Panther. Keyword heavy breakthrough vehicle. The Tiger was never designed to be used like a Panther or Sherman. As far as the production costs are concerned, a tiger adjusted to todays scale at 3.7 Mill. € cost each, half about the cost of a M1 Abrams and significantly less than a Leclerc or Leopard. Does NATO make about the same mistake here?
"Disproportionately said to catch fire" is absolute horseshit. You can compare the burn rates of M4, T-34, and Pz IV, and see they're all comparable, but M4 always comes out ahead in the end because the crew is far more likely to survive, fire or no, which was touched on. But it was no more or no less likely to catch fire from a hit than any other tank of the era, and less likely than some others that receive more praise. Panther, for example, had a particular type of lubrication oil that pooled on the hull floor and was flammable. Ferdinand overheated its engine/transmission and caught fire just trying to top a hill. Another bit about the name "ronson" or even "zippo" was that flamethrowing variants of the M4 were known by those names.
Fletcher never went out and updated things or would not do additional research even if… the information existed at Bovy in the files that would explain things. Instead he went off the top of his head from stuff he’d dug into in the 80s 90s.
I’m glad he touched on the P47, according to German soldiers they feared allied AirPower more then anything else. Allied tank crews would probably disagree with the rest of the show however.
My late father in law served with the 50th Northumberland Infantry Division from 1941 - 1946 and landed with The Green Howards on Gold Beach on D-Day. He told me that almost every German tank they saw from 6 of June onwards was perceived to be a Tiger. Most tended to be upgunned and up armoured Mk IVs.
No evidence of that. Most red army tank crews never saw an M4 so they wouldn't have any basis for preferring one over the other. The red army loved their M4s but used them exactly how they used their T-34s. There was no preference one way or the other.
The thing about what would have happened if we had Centurion in 1940 has got me thinking about something else. Imagine if the RAF and Air Ministry had actually listened to and supported a man called Frank in *1929* who had ideas for a new type of engine...
I believe that the BIGGEST drawback of the T-34 was the lack of radios for tank to tank communications. Imagine having to use semaphore flags in a moving tank battle!
And a lack of an internal intercom. And the lack of a turret basket. And the two man turret on the 76. And the horrendous visibility on the obr41 and obr42s. The T34 had a few good features let down by many, many bad ones.
@@apyllyon As far as I know no 76 model had a three man turret, that was exclusively the 85 which was introduced in 43. The later models of the 76 were fitted with a cupola for the commander which somewhat alleviated the horrendous visibility of the earlier models.
The T-34 was designed from the outset to have a radio in every tank. A shortage of equipment meant that most T-34s in the early years lacked radio, but by 1943 most had one.
Small details - talking about a T-34 and show a KV-1 .. little details. British France 1940 and showing a Crusader Mk 1 .. details. And I am no rivet counter!
The Sherman Firefly wasnt just an upgunned Sherman. It made it a serious contender against any German tank. In all reality, Wittman wasn't a tactical genius. He was reckless, and arguably not very good. But he benefitted from having a vastly OP tank. Ths first time he encountered an allied tank with equal firepower, he was taken out.
100%, though not completely unskilled he was pretty reckless and probably a fanatic. At the boccage and hedgerows the Western allies figured out the recipe, you could always count on German counter attacks, so they set up for it and hammered them with artillery and hit them at the flanks, which accounted for a lot of the available big cats. The Canadians in particular got quite good at it, as was the case with Wittman, 400-500 meters from the side.
I usually dismiss clicky thumbnails, but yours is worded just right. I like Hanson's take on the effect of Dunkirk on British armor. I was an American armor soldier long ago. I am not alone in my respect for the Centurion. What a beast. I remember days at the museum at Ft Knox and seeing the cutaway of the T34. The idea of sighting through the barrel, as was done with the earliest model, made us roll our eyes in disbelief.
The ShermaM4a3e8 was much better than the Tiger 1&2. It was much faster to produce, could be modified to serve multiple roles, and had a much better turret (traverse stabilization, faster traverse, etc).
"Tiger can knock out a sherman 1,5 km away"...LOL This "expert" has 1,5 km forgotten... A Tiger was able knock out a sherman up to 3 km!!! And 8000 Tigers? Mmmh, maybe all Tigers I and II and all Panthers... Great "Expert"...rofl
The fact is that tank vs tank combat on the Western Front amounted to 15% of all engagements for Allied tankers. What percentage of that 15 percent was Tiger 1's? This obsession with Tiger vs Sherman is ridiculous. Never mind the problem with comparing a medium tank to a heavy tank. Also, not necessarily a myth but a misconception, Tiger 2 was not a development of Tiger 1. Tiger 1 was a stop gap temporary solution to the development of Tiger 2 being delayed. Tiger 1 was actually very crude. It is a monolithic slab of metal with square corners and a turret shaped around a gun.
No, it wasn't crude. You think a machine that complex and effective is crude because of the shape? That's like calling a square body pickup crude compared to a curvy one. Squared shapes are not without advantages and sloped are not without drawbacks.
SS 101 were the first in action. They lost 4 Tigers in that engagement. SPz Abt 503 first entered action on July 16. By July 20 they had been reduced half its original strength. The Tiger was far from being a 'devastating' weapon in NWE.
Agreed. The Tiger WAS the most feared tank in WW2. Wether this was rational or warranted didn’t matter, fear is irrational, so not sure you busted this myth at all 🤷♂️
The T-64 never saw combat in the 1960s. It had a true advantage over the M-48, Leopard 1, AMX 30 and Centurion. Not so much regarding the M-60 and Chieftain. From 1966 to 1972 the T-64 was hidden from the West and NATO.
@@Tiberiotertio but you, armchair expert as well doesn't know what the T34/85 are. Maybe you confuse them with the T34/76 like the ignorant armchair expert you are. 😂😂😂
@@ferallion3546 And he used Stug tactics to great effect with his Tiger 1. That's one of the main reason why he was able to get his tank onto target so quickly.
@@paulrasmussen3858 Find me a reference to his Stug claims then you can play with the big boys. Note that both Gary L Simpson and Franz Kurowski made up pretty much everything they wrote about Wittmann's career prior to June 1943. They are not valid sources. Your turn.
The fear among WW2 crews of Shermans exploding was real, even if the Ronson myth came later. My grandad was a tank driver with the 7th Armoured. He mentioned it to me that they tended to explode and blow their turrets, and was thankful that he was never assigned to one. Likey a rumor that started from early Shermans with dry stowage.
I think it's better than nothing, but I also think its kind of a stupid idea. How do you train infantrymen (who will rarely see a tank, in the Japanese army) which rivet to push? So you're being shot at, you're stressed AF, you haven't slept through the night in weeks, and you have to remember which of dozens of identical-looking rivets to press on. No thanks. Better to have something really easy to see, like the postwar 'doorbell' the Czechs put on their T-34-85s, or even better, put a phone on the back, like the US Army did in the field in WW2 and at the factory postwar.
For a historian and tank expert this chap's British underskirt hangs out way too far. This was supposed to debunk that the Tiger 1 was the most feared tank in WWII. First he basically admits it but then supposedly debunks it based on complexity and cost to produce. Sorry but that is two completely different aspects.
It is sort of true that it was the most feared. Allied commanders didn't fear it because it was too scarce to impact most battle results. Most allied tank crews and infantry never saw one so there wasn't much fear there either. On the other hand if you were one of the lucky tank crews to meet one on the battlefield there was almost nothing scarier.
Hanson should have followed up with Copson to get him to correctly answer the question on the Tiger - none of what he mentioned, while in fact true, is an answer as to whether the Tiger was the most feared. Disappointed with the interaction. In fact he didn't correctly answer the question about the Sherman either - the armament changes to the Sherman are irrelevant to whether it catches fire or not. I always remember Karl Malden talking about the Shermans catching fire in the movie "Patton" - Omar Bradley was the military consultant on that movie and would have been in a position to correct that statement if it wasn't true to some degree.
@@michaelkenny8540 you obviously missed the reference to Omar Bradley being either an accomplice to perpetuating the myth or letting it slide because there is some truth to the story but you do you.
@@robertdickson9319 I missed nothing but you obviously missed me saying anyone who thinks Hollywood is a reference is deluded. Please come back when you grow up.
The most feared tank was the one you were up against until it`s been dealt with period , it matters not how superior the hardware , it matters how good the people fielding that hardware are
I read/heard the USSR built to the expectation of a piece's life expectancy... A few days during combat...a few months if not in combat. Making it perfect took too much time. See the Tank Museums tour of their T34. 55k produced in WW2.
Maybe if youre in the rear with the Generals, 4 Shermans maybe would make some kind of sense. However if youre actually fighting then it's the Tiger ever day.
The fact remains that the greatest tank aces of WW2 all used Tiger 1 and 2. Kurt Knispel had 168 confirmed kills. By contrast, the best Allied tank ace Dmitriy Lavrinenko had 57. The best western tank ace had 18.
Also they were know to the Germans as Tommy Cookers, possibly the Ronson Myth came later, but, is it a Myth, the Germans definitely did call them Tommy Cookers.
I got it. It was not the Tiger that was a better tank, it was the Sherman. It was not Wittman, it was Lafayette. It was not the T34, it was the Sherman
And still the vast majority of WW2 was fought on the Eastern front. The T 34 did good for a really crude thing. I was in a museum in Russia were they said that T 34 only had to last a few hours, but did not mention the crew. Obviously they were right.
I think what most people overlook with the German heavy tank development was that the Russians were rolling out the IS 3 that would’ve crushed the previous German armor !
I guarantee you that the Tiger Tank was indeed feared by most GI's and others. My father fought in the battle to take Cherbourg and he was very firm in their fear of Tigers because they knew how dangerous they were. And there were some around in the Normandy Campaign. Read Currahee by Don Burgette
No Tigers in The American sector in Normandy. It is possible some Tigers at the very western part of the Commonwealth sector might/may have had some slight contact with US forces but that is about it.
@@johnhallett5846 Then you are dumb. The locations and movements of the 3 Tiger Abteilung (sSS Pz. Abt. 101...... sSS Pz. Abt. 102 & sPz. Abt. 503) in Normandy are well documented and it would be easy (for even a simpleton but not for you?) to do a basic Google and see how far away those Tigers were from the US sector. The closest would be Caumont (for myopic US readers that is 13 miles east of St Lo) and it is 1000% certain no Tigers anywhere remotely near Cherbourg.
As there were no tiger equipped units in that sector,, and no German debrief reports of tiger crews facing the US forces,, it could well be a case of ,,tiger fever,, which is what this thread is all about after all
@rossanderson4440 17 pounder ,I stand corrected Don't drink and dial! Still a Tiger twatter. The Sherman ,regardless of its shortcomings was an agile bugger in urban theatres, strap a 17 pounder to it!
and ? You want a medal or something .. I noticed moving Panzer 3's also in the T34 section .. but i don't need medals or a chuffdee badge so i didn't bother mentioning it
Mr. Copson is asked whether the Tiger was the "most feared". He gives a long answer 5:10 talking about its cost, its reliability, the difficulty of maintenance etc. etc.
But why? None of these aspects are relevant.
Allied tankers didn't KNOW these facts, for the most part. And even if they knew them, what difference would they make? You "fear" a tank when you believe it's in your vicinity, because it might shoot you. The knowledge that its mechanics have a difficult job, or that arguments about fund allocations rage in Berlin, doesn't change that.
He's answering a different question to what was asked.
And then... he says "eight thousand Tigers".
There were 1350, and even that number is double-counting components that got recycled.
Great. Your comment is better than the video itself.
I beg to differ, the reliability aspect is a factor if the tank is broken down some miles from where it's needed.
@@barryfrancis7421 But how do you measure "fear"?
Surely it means the emotions that Allied tankers had, not anything the Germans felt.
And only the Germans knew how many broken-down Tigers were sitting behind the lines. That factor couldn't come into play for Allied tankers.
He wasn’t asked if it was the most feared, he was asked if it deserved the title. He answered the question he was asked. The 8,000 Tiger comment was odd though. I doubt he meant it, he should know the real numbers. I would guess it was a slip of the tongue.
Exactly!
The most effective tank/tank killer the Germans had was the Stug III. Most produced, cheapest to build, easiest to service, lowest profile, most tank kills.
The Stug III was very effective. It was basically the Volkswagen Beetle of tank destroyers.
Most tank kills? Where did you get that statistic? Warthunder?
It was never a tank. It was an assault gun, repurposed as a tank destroyer. A means o getting a long 75mm gun into a Panzer III chassis.
@@seanmurphy7011it’s actually a fact. STUGs are responsible for the most allied tank kills according to the Bovington Tank Museum researchers
@@carl5381 if you have more of something and engage something else with it, you are going to get more kills with it. But was it the most effective or prolific?
The movie Kelly's Heroes demonstrated that the Tiger 1 was completely impervious to paint shells.
This one was a T34 made to look like one, but a fine job if not an expert! I did suppose at first it was a real Tiger they had found somewhere!😁
But not to gold :P
The Tiger tank used in Kelly's heros, was in fact a T34 tank modified to look like a tiger, the same T34 - Tiger tank was used in saving private Ryan
@@Castlelong333 Are you sure there was what, 30, maybe more years between the movies. And Kelly's was made in Yugoslavia.
@@sjoormen1 ya I am pretty sure, have a good look at the two film clips with the T34 - tiger tank they are the exact same
There were no Tigers in the US sector of the Normandy campaign, but GIs swore they'd seen them. They were probably Panzer IVs with Schürzen and spaced turret armour.
I think that shützen (skirts) was a very innovative idea to give a slightly under armored but very reliable tank an extended lease on life! With the unintended benefit of the allies seeing it as a Tiger!
@@janmale7767 actually that supplemental armour was designed to stop anti-tank RIFLE bullets.
@@sirridesalot6652 : And bazookas.
The US also faced virtually no SS units in Normandy either. Nearly all the elite SS units faced off against the 2nd British Army which included the Canadians as well as country’s troops.
@@timonsolus No. It was an answer to the Soviet AT Rifle which could penetrate the sides and rear of the Pz III & IV. It had nothing to do with protection against hollow-charge weapons.
And one of the other issues with the Tiger is how difficult it was to recover if disabled or broken down. You can find pictures of a Tiger being towed by two or three big Sdkfz 9s.
How was the josef stalin II or KV 1 pulled when broken down. How did the russians go about that...
Usually the Germans were in retreat, allies advancing. It's more difficult to retrieve and repair a broken tank if your troupes have retreated past it . The allies on the other hand , if a tank needed repair , it just had to wait till the repair facilities had advanced to it
T-34: "Quantity is also a quality"
The quote, attributed to Joseph Stalin, is “Quantity has a quality all its own.”
So said Stalin.
this tank was halfarsed German. the gun certainly was
@@achimotto-vs2lb But costed only a quarter. Four T-34s for the price of one Tiger. That's how you win wars.
48,000 man hours to build an M-4, 300,000 man hours to build a Tiger1.
Without air support a Tiger can destroy more than ten sherman, but the US had a much bigger industrial capacity.
@@Suchtel10Nope. The exchange rate was closer to 1-2. In fact, there were quite a few engagements where the tiger was destroyed before managing to hit any allied armor whatsoever.
@@phoenix211245 What did i say? Without air support. But from 1943 onwards Tiger could not fight without danger from air strikes
About 500 for a T34.
@@TheLucanicLord Even for the Russians would that be too cheap.
This myth is not busted.The allies saw tigers any time they spotted a german tank. The fear of the tiger were very real.
if you look at a frontal view of a Panzer IV G/H with the added side-skirt armour on the turret they - very superficially - look like a Tiger if you have bad visibility, far away or didn´t look long enough ... it easily can be mixed up with a real Tiger. So they probably said ... if in doubt, lets assume its a Tiger, lets go somewhere else ^^
They thought everything was a Tiger
He said the fear was real so…
Remember... he is speaking from the convenience of an Ivory Tower my friend... framing and perception are amazing things
And Allied pilots in the Pacific saw Zeros every time they saw a single-engine fighter (the Zero was numerous but most were of course other types). German pilots always saw "Spitfires". Every single Axis anti-tank gun in Africa was "an 88" even though most of them were 37 and 50mm units. TLDR: situation normal.
At 8:08 -> "....you're looking at 8 thousand Tigers..." ??? The number of produced Tiger I and Tiger II together was around 1900 total.
Yes. I was surprised he said that too.
Perhaps he was thinking of the Pz.IV?
I think he combined the Panther and Tiger 1 production numbers. 6557 Panthers, 1368 Tiger 1. To be fair to him, either of these brought about the same amount of fear to crews.
@@davidmacy411To be fair this guy works at the Tank Museum and should know better. I’m just a tank buff and I was shocked when he said 8,000 Tigers (not Panthers). I had to replay it. The Germans would have loved to have that many Tigers.
@@michaelc2254 this so cold museum makes lot's of mistakes in nollage overall..been doing that for long time now...
There is a lot of misinformation in this video. Try again with accuracy.
"8000 Tigers" That's news to the rest of the world.
Yup and he was oblivious to the fact that the Germans called the Shermans Tommy Cookers.
@ATOMTAYLOR a Tommy Cooker is half a petrol tin filled with sand which has been soaked in kerosene. It's a British Army extemporaneous solution to lack of ready fuel in the Western Desert.
yeah, he's probably thinking of Pz IV production.
I think he combined the Panther and Tiger 1 production numbers. 6557 Panthers, 1368 Tiger 1. To be fair to him, either of these brought about the same amount of fear to crews.
@@davidmacy411 then he could have added the 450ish Tiger II on top xD
Interesting what he said about crewing a T34. That explains why many Soviet tankers preferred their lend lease Shermans.
that is not true laddy
The Tiger was also designed so it couldn’t fit on German rail transporter wagons until you took a day taking off the outside wheels possibly during an air attack. I also read the Churchill Crocodile was the most feared tank German units ran from it.
Wasn't the wheels it was replacing the tracks with transport tracks. a bigger limit was how many 60 ton capable bridges there were once dismounted from the train.
Crocodiles are easy to distinguish from the other types of Churchills, they always had a trailer in tow, the fuel tank for the flamethrower.
Tiger had a tactical advantage, but srategically a drain. Wars are in the end won by logistics.
The Germans did this over and over. V1 and V2 costs compared to how many fighter aircraft. Having a strategic bomber, etc.
The Tiger cost only 50% more than a Panther. It was meant to be a small production run specialised breakthrough tank and it worked.
@@williamzk9083 It worked? Talk about rewriting history. lulz
I think James Holland says that over half of Tigers lost were simply abandoned by their crews.
It was never a tank that they could have used in large quantities. It was designed as a heavy break-through and infantry support tank. It was designed for specialist units all along.
They always needed a cheaper and faster tank which could be produced in larger quantities, and which would have better operational mobility.
The vast majority of the Sherman tank crews never faced a Tiger or a Panther tank .
Most of their losses came from anti tank weapons .
Chris is correct. I travelled from Australia to Bovington to see the Tiger but also to see the other fantastic bits of kit there. Very memorable. Even my wife was into it! Gotta be happy with that.
Get yourselves up to Cairns the armour museum up there is doing great work.
You lucky bugger! I hope to get there one day.👍😁🇦🇺
The Valentine should get an honourable mention, surely?
reliable in the extreme - the russians loved it so much they asked us to extend production - and when the russians invaded manchuria they prioritised Sherman and Valentine because they were so reliable and perfect for use in remote theatres.
Very useful for light recce with the Soviets, hardier than a T-70, but relatively quite mobile. Performance in difficult ground holds it back, but handles quite nicely through the gears.
Many models of it and many adaptations. It did its job well.
@@ianhowdin993 Which isn't what history indicates.
@@ianhowdin993It wasn’t
No matter what my favorite is still matilda 2...Colin Forbes and his Tramp in armor might do something with that but still...
Great book!
Wow, I read that yonks ago. Loved it!
The Matilda II was a great tank in Europe and North Africa in 1940 and 1941, and was still very effective against the Japanese in 1943-45.
@@timonsolus The Queen of the Desert.
good book that. Still have my paperback copy
No fear of the 88mm gun among allied tank crews is the narrative being sold here.
My Father only served as tank recovery and transport and even he feared it for what he would inevitably find and have to deal with inside every tank hit by it.Not necessarily penetrated.
German 75/L70 found on the Panther and Jagdpanzer IV would do the same thing.
Normandy is weird because anything with a muzzle brake with sufficiently scary effect was lumped into the 8,8 cm. You can see this with how the British reacted to 21st Panzer's S307 Pak and Becker's other vehicles based on Renaults and Hotchkisses with the 15 cm.
@@yashkasheriff9325
At the type of ranges that an 88 could obliterate an allied tank and its crew they wouldn't have had time to decide the difference even if they actually saw it.
A Tiger would take out four Shermans , the problem for the Germans was the Allies and Russians produced way more Shermans and T34s than four to one Tigers , also add in air superiority, and German lack of fuel
The fate of most Tigers was to break down before they ever ran into those four Shermans.
"A Tiger would take out four Shermans" How did they manage that when there are no confirmed encounters between Shermans and Tigers?
looking equipment in a vacuum like that is the problem, its called combined arms for a reason
@@dewdew80there were three encounters between M4’s and Tiger I’s post D-Day. More if you count Firefly’s. For the standard M4, once the Tigers came out ahead, once the M-4’s, and the other was inconclusive.
@@veetsv1597 through process of elimination many historians believe that three instances may actually be real encounters with Tigers out of a heap of rumored encounters. Those three instances do not have conclusive evidence.
I believe the Germans did call the sherman the tommy cooker though
76mm 17 pounder could penetrate 150mm of steel at 1000 yds, better than the 88mm on the Mk VI (with a full powder charge). (Around Nov-44, the powder was reduced 25% due to the shortage of nitrogen to make explosives.)
The Centurion is my favourite, although it just missed WW2.
Comet was mine. A really good tank
The interviewer needs to factor in the reliability as well as the cost, and then consider the industrial capability of the competing nations.
For example, you can build 40 Shermans for the price of 10 Tigers, but 5 of those Tigers might break down on the way to the battlefield so in reality you have 5 tigers versus 40 Shermans.
And then when you consider the industrial might of the US, they didn’t build 4 Shermans for every Tiger they actually built 33 Shermans for every Tiger.
After some teethening-problems the Tiger1 was quite reliable.Unreliability of Tiger 1 is annother myth.Panther had more issues(weak drivetrain f.e.)
@@hansulrichboning8551 References to back that statement up?
The thing is that the Germans didn't have enough manpower for "quantity has a quality of its own"
Similarly, those comparing the Spitfire to ME109 hardly ever mention the 3:1 cost of production.
@@sotroof Or enough fuel and oil to run them all if they did have them.
8000 Tigers? Thought there were only 1500.
You are right, I think it was 1200-1300 Tiger I and 400-500 Tiger II
1,346 production Tiger I and 489 production Tiger II.
this is just fake expert from tank museum
Yeah, he’s got the production of the Tiger mixed with the Panther.
@@blitzkopf7267 Indeed. What was the name of your book again? I seem to have forgotten.
The trouble is that we can all say that on paper that this weapon is better than that one or it’s got a better killing range etc,etc but the proof is how did they actually do in any situation, take the Fairey Swordfish ,an aircraft that was outdated when it entered service ,it had virtually no protection and a top speed of best 130 mph.But un escorted for the loss of only 2 planes out of an attack by 21 aircraft all unescorted they put the main Italian battle fleet at Taranto out of action for a time, something that on paper they should never have been able to to
I recall reading that when they attacked the Bismark the German's fire control system didn't work because it was not designed for aircraft that slow.
There is almost no chance on earth that Joe Ekins made that shot form that range. I cannot understand why the Brits are so reluctant to admit that it was the Canadians?
Its in the interest of the fanboys to cause confusion over Wittmann's demise. Any non-fanboy who starts arguing that Allied unit A didn't do it but Allied Unit B did it just plays into their hands.
I think it's more the dogged belief that you needed a 17 pounder to penetrate the armour of a Tiger. Most people don't realise that the 75mm would do a number on the Tiger at around 500 feet.
I don't think the ,,Brits,, really care as long as somebody got the bugger,
The Tiger was actually visually designed to be imposing. Seems to have worked.
"Press the rivet to talk to the crew!"
"Do you have the slightest idea how little that narrows it down?"
Not to mention that iirc a crewmember had to exit the tank in order t o talk to the infantryman.
@@sirridesalot6652 Still better than nothing.
@@sirridesalot6652
Or they could open a pistol port or that nifty little hatch on the back of the turret, and talk through that instead.
Didn't the Germans call the Sherman tank, Tommy Cookers.
''Ronson" after the cigarette lighter that lit the first time!
@@mikebarnes7734 did you even watch the video😂
yes until a British firefly sherman turned up with the British 76mm gun they had no problems with tigers !!
Yep.
The Brits called them Tommy cookers too.
With respect to Wittmann, I seem to remember both Joe Ekins and the fellow from the Canadian Sherbrooke Fusiliers said they could never be certain if they destroyed Wittman's tank. Both Ekins and the Canadian guy said his tank would have simply been "another enemy tank" and that they didn't even know who Michael Wittmann was at the time. The idea the Canadians may have hit Wittmann seems to be based on likelihood as they were positioned within 150 metres of where Wittmann's tank was destroyed.
They were closer , and on the side that wittmans tank was said to be hit
Tiger-too heavy for bridges, too expensive,tranny not fit for purpose, underpowered engine, fuel guzzler. Also it used petrol (gasoline) which was in short supply in Germany from 1942 onward.
what do expect back then ? some people
The T34 at times also, didn't have the greatest quality control either. Going into battle with things missing or put together right.
carrying a spare transmission on the back of the early ones GAWD
Of the 50,000 Shermans produced, only 11,000 were destroyed during ww2.
I wonder if those were total destruction or knocked out in battle but many were recovered and repaired.
only?
5:16 hi, sorry to correct but the Tiger I has a 700HP engine for 57 tons of weight and the Panzer IV a 300HP engine for 25 tons. So both has about 12HP/ton.
I would think the Churchill tank, although slow had the ability to punch through
Surprisingly mixed quality of information from Mr. Copson. Incorrect quantity indication of tiger production and no information about the completely different action doctrine of a Tiger compared to a Sherman, T34 or Panther. Keyword heavy breakthrough vehicle. The Tiger was never designed to be used like a Panther or Sherman. As far as the production costs are concerned, a tiger adjusted to todays scale at 3.7 Mill. € cost each, half about the cost of a M1 Abrams and significantly less than a Leclerc or Leopard. Does NATO make about the same mistake here?
Obviously NATO is producing overly heavy, overly complicated, overly expensive designs and they are stupid.
What NATO needs is more tankettes!!!
true. The Tiger was a breakthrough tank. The German equivalent to the Sherman was the Panzer IV...and then the Panther.
Never forget the massive numbers of trucks sent to Russia under Lend-Lease to support the offensive and defensive operations.
"Disproportionately said to catch fire" is absolute horseshit. You can compare the burn rates of M4, T-34, and Pz IV, and see they're all comparable, but M4 always comes out ahead in the end because the crew is far more likely to survive, fire or no, which was touched on. But it was no more or no less likely to catch fire from a hit than any other tank of the era, and less likely than some others that receive more praise. Panther, for example, had a particular type of lubrication oil that pooled on the hull floor and was flammable. Ferdinand overheated its engine/transmission and caught fire just trying to top a hill. Another bit about the name "ronson" or even "zippo" was that flamethrowing variants of the M4 were known by those names.
Sir John Monash 'invented' combined arms blitzkreig at Hamel in WW1, which was well observed by the Germans
No he didn't.
Yes he could fly as well without a plane, all tactics ascribed to him had already been perfected by the British Army.
The irony is that a vast amount of the myths and misinformation came out of Bovington in the first place.
This
Interesting. Can you elaborate?
@@iantaylor3393yeah, curious here too
How dare you...
Fletcher never went out and updated things or would not do additional research even if… the information existed at Bovy in the files that would explain things. Instead he went off the top of his head from stuff he’d dug into in the 80s 90s.
I’m glad he touched on the P47, according to German soldiers they feared allied AirPower more then anything else. Allied tank crews would probably disagree with the rest of the show however.
And artillery; biggest complaint amongst the German army was that even a US noncom (sgt or cpl) could call in arty if a situation needed it.
These "experts" seem not to have heard of Kurt Knispel.
I worked with a bloke who served in the the Guards tank battalion he said they were called Ronson lighters by the crews
My late father in law served with the 50th Northumberland Infantry Division from 1941 - 1946 and landed with The Green Howards on Gold Beach on D-Day.
He told me that almost every German tank they saw from 6 of June onwards was perceived to be a Tiger. Most tended to be upgunned and up armoured Mk IVs.
No that would be the US industrial capacity.
Soviet crews preferred the Sherman over the T-34 as well.
They loved the radio system, that's for sure.
they didnt but ok.
No evidence of that. Most red army tank crews never saw an M4 so they wouldn't have any basis for preferring one over the other.
The red army loved their M4s but used them exactly how they used their T-34s. There was no preference one way or the other.
I just saw a documentary on the British Comet which came in late, about post D-day. Fast, well armoured and big gun.
The thing about what would have happened if we had Centurion in 1940 has got me thinking about something else. Imagine if the RAF and Air Ministry had actually listened to and supported a man called Frank in *1929* who had ideas for a new type of engine...
The Tiger tank had one great advantage when it broke down the factory mechanics could walk to it.
I believe that the BIGGEST drawback of the T-34 was the lack of radios for tank to tank communications. Imagine having to use semaphore flags in a moving tank battle!
And a lack of an internal intercom. And the lack of a turret basket. And the two man turret on the 76. And the horrendous visibility on the obr41 and obr42s. The T34 had a few good features let down by many, many bad ones.
@@emceedoctorb3022 the 34/76 did receive a 3 man turret late 42-early 43, produced by a specific arsenal, and later expanding to multiple factories.
@@apyllyon As far as I know no 76 model had a three man turret, that was exclusively the 85 which was introduced in 43. The later models of the 76 were fitted with a cupola for the commander which somewhat alleviated the horrendous visibility of the earlier models.
The T-34 was designed from the outset to have a radio in every tank. A shortage of equipment meant that most T-34s in the early years lacked radio, but by 1943 most had one.
@@apyllyon There was never a 3 man turret on any 76mm-armed T-34.
It was a Zippo lighter not a Ronson. Great museum! This guy knows what he is talking about.
If you can source anything to back that statement, please do so.
Otherwise STFU.
As a native English speaker, albeit from another country, I struggled to understand what this guy was saying.
I understood him fine, and learned a lot from him.
Yes, I am from the USA midwest, and do struggle at times with, not so much his accent, but the low volume of his delivery.
@@curtisweaver3682 The actual times radio fella enunciates properly, and uses well defined vowels and consonants.
If you're not from England, you are NOT a native English speaker.
Small details - talking about a T-34 and show a KV-1 .. little details. British France 1940 and showing a Crusader Mk 1 .. details. And I am no rivet counter!
What ppl need to realise is they just didn't have the time to test these machines
After WWII the Tiger was not even considered for the rearmament of the French army, the Panther was.
The T34 most definitely wasn't the first tank to have sloped armour, although it may have been the first to have all it's surfaces sloped.
Man pretended to forget about the lower sides of the tank, then pretended to say something smart on the internet.
The Sherman Firefly wasnt just an upgunned Sherman. It made it a serious contender against any German tank. In all reality, Wittman wasn't a tactical genius. He was reckless, and arguably not very good. But he benefitted from having a vastly OP tank. Ths first time he encountered an allied tank with equal firepower, he was taken out.
100%, though not completely unskilled he was pretty reckless and probably a fanatic.
At the boccage and hedgerows the Western allies figured out the recipe, you could always count on German counter attacks, so they set up for it and hammered them with artillery and hit them at the flanks, which accounted for a lot of the available big cats.
The Canadians in particular got quite good at it, as was the case with Wittman, 400-500 meters from the side.
Four Shermans - as long as one of them is a Firefly!😉
Hmmmm....He'd rather take four Shermans instead of one Tiger. Keep in mind, he's figuring he's not going to be in one of the Shermans.
He's right. That's how armies make decisions, and the reality is it was more like ten M4s or T-34s or one Tiger.
That's just basic tactics.
Under the hot north African Desert sun, any tank with a British crew aboard was a "Tommy-cooker" as a simple matter of fact.
Not in a Honey.
I usually dismiss clicky thumbnails, but yours is worded just right. I like Hanson's take on the effect of Dunkirk on British armor.
I was an American armor soldier long ago. I am not alone in my respect for the Centurion. What a beast.
I remember days at the museum at Ft Knox and seeing the cutaway of the T34. The idea of sighting through the barrel, as was done with the earliest model, made us roll our eyes in disbelief.
Whitmann started off in an Armoured Car (221) in Poland 1939
About preferring the 4 Sherman over 1 Tiger, that would assume that you have 20 trained crew members vs. 5
Probably the right ratio in 1944
Considering the impact of a tank having fewer infantry isn't that out there
Well they did.
The actual ratio was often 20 trained Sherman crewman vs 1 trained Tiger crewman and the 4 barely trained recruits he was stuck with.
We did
The ShermaM4a3e8 was much better than the Tiger 1&2.
It was much faster to produce, could be modified to serve multiple roles, and had a much better turret (traverse stabilization, faster traverse, etc).
"Tiger can knock out a sherman 1,5 km away"...LOL This "expert" has 1,5 km forgotten... A Tiger was able knock out a sherman up to 3 km!!! And 8000 Tigers? Mmmh, maybe all Tigers I and II and all Panthers... Great "Expert"...rofl
The fact is that tank vs tank combat on the Western Front amounted to 15% of all engagements for Allied tankers. What percentage of that 15 percent was Tiger 1's? This obsession with Tiger vs Sherman is ridiculous. Never mind the problem with comparing a medium tank to a heavy tank.
Also, not necessarily a myth but a misconception, Tiger 2 was not a development of Tiger 1. Tiger 1 was a stop gap temporary solution to the development of Tiger 2 being delayed. Tiger 1 was actually very crude. It is a monolithic slab of metal with square corners and a turret shaped around a gun.
No, it wasn't crude. You think a machine that complex and effective is crude because of the shape? That's like calling a square body pickup crude compared to a curvy one. Squared shapes are not without advantages and sloped are not without drawbacks.
Wittman wasn't in a Tiger for all his service, think earlier he was in a PzIII
If not referred to as a Ronson then perhaps the Tommy Cooker label is still valid.
Probably the initial encounters with Tigers were devastating until the allied tankers adapted their tactics to deal with them.
SS 101 were the first in action. They lost 4 Tigers in that engagement. SPz Abt 503 first entered action on July 16. By July 20 they had been reduced half its original strength. The Tiger was far from being a 'devastating' weapon in NWE.
Well the Russians captured a Tiger in its first ever engagement
@@bbcmotd That Tiger probably broke down and its crew abandoned it to the Soviets.
Agreed. The Tiger WAS the most feared tank in WW2. Wether this was rational or warranted didn’t matter, fear is irrational, so not sure you busted this myth at all 🤷♂️
Thank you.
The T-64 never saw combat in the 1960s. It had a true advantage over the M-48, Leopard 1, AMX 30 and Centurion. Not so much regarding the M-60 and Chieftain. From 1966 to 1972 the T-64 was hidden from the West and NATO.
The greatest tank in WW2 was the T34/85. When they appeared in 1944 on the eastern front, the Tigers.....disappeared. 😂😂
All one can say to an armchair "expert" like you 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
@@Tiberiotertio but you, armchair expert as well doesn't know what the T34/85 are. Maybe you confuse them with the T34/76 like the ignorant armchair expert you are. 😂😂😂
Now to the comments section where everyone is an anecdotal expert (but was never even within 100,000 miles of a tank).
Didn't Wittmann command a Stug for most of his alleged 'kills'?
Ya he started out in Stugs.
Alleged??? go out side and play.
@@ferallion3546 And he used Stug tactics to great effect with his Tiger 1. That's one of the main reason why he was able to get his tank onto target so quickly.
@@paulrasmussen3858 Find me a reference to his Stug claims then you can play with the big boys. Note that both Gary L Simpson and Franz Kurowski made up pretty much everything they wrote about Wittmann's career prior to June 1943. They are not valid sources. Your turn.
The fear among WW2 crews of Shermans exploding was real, even if the Ronson myth came later. My grandad was a tank driver with the 7th Armoured. He mentioned it to me that they tended to explode and blow their turrets, and was thankful that he was never assigned to one. Likey a rumor that started from early Shermans with dry stowage.
Sgt george dring would say something different to the tiger, tacking one diwn with a 75mm sherman, by hiting and surpressing the tigers crew.
The signal rivet is very clever, hard to hit or otherwise damage.
I think it's better than nothing, but I also think its kind of a stupid idea. How do you train infantrymen (who will rarely see a tank, in the Japanese army) which rivet to push? So you're being shot at, you're stressed AF, you haven't slept through the night in weeks, and you have to remember which of dozens of identical-looking rivets to press on. No thanks.
Better to have something really easy to see, like the postwar 'doorbell' the Czechs put on their T-34-85s, or even better, put a phone on the back, like the US Army did in the field in WW2 and at the factory postwar.
For a historian and tank expert this chap's British underskirt hangs out way too far. This was supposed to debunk that the Tiger 1 was the most feared tank in WWII. First he basically admits it but then supposedly debunks it based on complexity and cost to produce. Sorry but that is two completely different aspects.
It is sort of true that it was the most feared. Allied commanders didn't fear it because it was too scarce to impact most battle results. Most allied tank crews and infantry never saw one so there wasn't much fear there either. On the other hand if you were one of the lucky tank crews to meet one on the battlefield there was almost nothing scarier.
Hanson should have followed up with Copson to get him to correctly answer the question on the Tiger - none of what he mentioned, while in fact true, is an answer as to whether the Tiger was the most feared. Disappointed with the interaction.
In fact he didn't correctly answer the question about the Sherman either - the armament changes to the Sherman are irrelevant to whether it catches fire or not. I always remember Karl Malden talking about the Shermans catching fire in the movie "Patton" - Omar Bradley was the military consultant on that movie and would have been in a position to correct that statement if it wasn't true to some degree.
When you start quoting Hollywood as a reference you lose all credibility.
@@michaelkenny8540 you obviously missed the reference to Omar Bradley being either an accomplice to perpetuating the myth or letting it slide because there is some truth to the story but you do you.
@@robertdickson9319 I missed nothing but you obviously missed me saying anyone who thinks Hollywood is a reference is deluded. Please come back when you grow up.
If the Tiger was not the most feared tank then what was? Myth NOT debunked.
The most feared tank was the one you were up against until it`s been dealt with period , it matters not how superior the hardware , it matters how good the people fielding that hardware are
According to contemporary German accounts, the Churchill Crocodile flamethrower induced terror amongst troops facing them.
JS-3 that just made the Berlin PARADA 8/45
I heard in a lot of T-34's the crew could see day light coming through parts of the tank.
I read/heard the USSR built to the expectation of a piece's life expectancy... A few days during combat...a few months if not in combat. Making it perfect took too much time. See the Tank Museums tour of their T34. 55k produced in WW2.
Maybe if youre in the rear with the Generals, 4 Shermans maybe would make some kind of sense. However if youre actually fighting then it's the Tiger ever day.
The Matilda II slow, ugly, lousy gun, and good luck stopping it without an 88. The Churchill Crocodile, the personification 'fear'.
A tank/panzers best weapon is its engine according to Heinz Guderian,but what did he know about armoured warfare not having a keyboard to sit behind.
One attribution for the quote used in the video "Quantity has a quality all it's own" was Joseph Stalin.
Gentlemen very well organized and presented. Interviewer, thank you for letting Chris talk without interruption.
The fact remains that the greatest tank aces of WW2 all used Tiger 1 and 2. Kurt Knispel had 168 confirmed kills. By contrast, the best Allied tank ace Dmitriy Lavrinenko had 57. The best western tank ace had 18.
Confirmed by Goebbels.😂
😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅
They didnt had all the kills with a Tiger, they served on PzIV or StuGIII befor they got a Tiger
Also they were know to the Germans as Tommy Cookers, possibly the Ronson Myth came later, but, is it a Myth, the Germans definitely did call them Tommy Cookers.
myth is myth because it is a peace of truth
I got it. It was not the Tiger that was a better tank, it was the Sherman. It was not Wittman, it was Lafayette. It was not the T34, it was the Sherman
And still the vast majority of WW2 was fought on the Eastern front. The T 34 did good for a really crude thing. I was in a museum in Russia were they said that T 34 only had to last a few hours, but did not mention the crew. Obviously they were right.
The guy in the Matilda looks like he just stepped out from the middle ages, 21:49 : )
I think what most people overlook with the German heavy tank development was that the Russians were rolling out the IS 3 that would’ve crushed the previous German armor !
I guarantee you that the Tiger Tank was indeed feared by most GI's and others. My father fought in the battle to take Cherbourg and he was very firm in their fear of Tigers because they knew how dangerous they were. And there were some around in the Normandy Campaign. Read Currahee by Don Burgette
No Tigers in The American sector in Normandy. It is possible some Tigers at the very western part of the Commonwealth sector might/may have had some slight contact with US forces but that is about it.
@@michaelkenny8540 well I will take the word of someone who was there over yours
@@johnhallett5846 Then you are dumb. The locations and movements of the 3 Tiger Abteilung (sSS Pz. Abt. 101...... sSS Pz. Abt. 102 & sPz. Abt. 503) in Normandy are well documented and it would be easy (for even a simpleton but not for you?) to do a basic Google and see how far away those Tigers were from the US sector. The closest would be Caumont (for myopic US readers that is 13 miles east of St Lo) and it is 1000% certain no Tigers anywhere remotely near Cherbourg.
As there were no tiger equipped units in that sector,, and no German debrief reports of tiger crews facing the US forces,, it could well be a case of ,,tiger fever,, which is what this thread is all about after all
Sherman Firefly? Brits put a 14pound twatter in a Sherman and the Canadians, Brits and Polish crews dealt with the bulk of Tigers and Panthers
Try again.
Surely you mean the 17-pdr, or the detuned variant, right?
@rossanderson4440 17 pounder ,I stand corrected
Don't drink and dial! Still a Tiger twatter.
The Sherman ,regardless of its shortcomings was an agile bugger in urban theatres, strap a 17 pounder to it!
The James Dean of tank commanders. 😂 He used The Method Doctrine.
This was great! Thank you very much.
76 mm was a very powerful gun especially tank to tank
The 75 was more of a artillary piece short 75 howitzer
Picture of a KV 1 in the T 34 section!
and ? You want a medal or something .. I noticed moving Panzer 3's also in the T34 section .. but i don't need medals or a chuffdee badge so i didn't bother mentioning it
27:24 Yes, that annoyed me too. 😕
8:10 the "expert" somehow saw 8000 Tigers made during WWII ... time to switch channels
No mention of Kurt Knippel on tank commanders?