The most lethal tank in ww2

Hi Lyndon

Well the 122mm wasnt a bit more powerfull than the 88mm L/56 gun on the TigerI...(very few guns were).......

If one tested the russian 122mm gun and the U.S. 90mm M3 gun at the same hardness steel that the 88mm L/56 gun was tested against you will see that the 88mm L/56 actually beats them both.....

U.S. tested thier guns against very soft steel compared to the German test steel.... the russians were abit closer to Germans in the hardness of thier test plates.......

American scientists worked out on paper that the 88mm L/56 gun shouldnt be able to pierce the new front glacis plate of the Sherman at a distance of 3000m when using APCBC rounds, because they expected the germans were using the same hardness steel for thier testings.
Well they learned the hard way that it only took 1 frontal hit by the 88mm L/56 using a APCBC round at the range of 3500m to completly Pierce the frontal armor of the improoved sherman front glacis plate...

I cant remember where but not so long ago i found this really smart calculater where you could type in the hardness of the test plate, for example typing in the hardness of the German steel test plates, and then typing in the penetration of the gun, and then comparing it with the U.S. gun tests by typing in the hardness of U.S. steel test plates.... really really interresting calculater.......
wish i could find it again, but since i last formated my PC i havent had any luck........

regards, KBO

 

Sadly I can't claim this as an original quote.

But it is wholly appropriate to this thread, so I will requote it, but am unable to give credit to it's originator.

" The most lethal tank of World War II is the one that is firing at YOU "

 

That was a good one David

KBO

 

Lyndon. You can sit on that hill in a Tiger all day, all night and tomorrow. Be my guest. I am going to beat you because while you are dominating that postage stamp of land in front of you I am ripping the guts out of your rear area. You will run out of gas sooner or later.

The Tiger was an excellent tank. But it had its faults, all you have to do is exploit them and it becomes ineffective. I read of many instances of T-34s going around Tigers and putting a round into the engine or through the side at close range.

The T-34 is better suited for mobile warfare than the Tiger. Flexibility is what wins wars not brute force.

 

Bolo,

The Tiger was perfectly suited to it's defensive role later on in the war and it also proved very capable in the offensive operations it took part in during 1943(Kalmyk Steppe,Kharkov,Kursk). There were other offensive operations in 1944 when it proved fully capable(Cherkassy pocket relief effort etc). The Tiger wasn't as 'immobile' as the myth suggests, particularly the Tiger I wasn't.

The Tiger had a 10 to 1 kill ratio against enemy tanks. I think that says it all.

 

KBO,

I've read your previous posts on the subject. Most interesting. I tend to agree with you. I found it quite strange that that all these allied guns were suposedly as good if not better than the Tiger's 88 L/56 yet the Tiger still kept on knocking out the latest examples of allied and Soviet tanks right up to the end of the war and was still seen as a deadly opponent.

 

Whoever said that the Tiger I would beat the Pershing at a long-range engagement because of superior optics is wrong, simply because the Pershing has twice the armour of the Tiger I; the 88mm wouldn't be able to penetrate that outside of ranges where it would be vulnerable to the 90mm gun. For the King Tiger, whole other standards need to be used.

As for the most lethal tank, I can't choose between the Churchill Crocodile (fairly invulnerable, with both a reasonable gun and an awesome flamethrower), or just the Panther. When it comes to potential, technological achievement, and ratios like power/weight and armour/speed, I'd choose the Panther. But this is about killing.

 

Roel you must remember that if the 88mm L/56 gun and the 90mm M3 gun was shooting at the same hardness steel plate, then the 88mm L/56 gun was just as powerfull as the 90mm M3 if not better........Thats a Fact.......

USA tested thier guns against the standard 235BHN steel plates , whereas the germans tested thier guns against a standard of 375BHN steel plates, thats an pretty big difference...

The penetration stats you get for the 90mm M3 gun you cant compare with any german gun, since german guns were tested against much harder steel plates.....
And thats not the only difference, because the U.S. also counted thier gun tests in yards meaning that 2000y=1830m, and that has also to be taken into considderation, since germany counted in meters......

1. Example: 88mm L/56 using APCBC shoots at a 30* sloped armor plate with the hardness of 375BHN, at the range of 2000m, it penetrates 87mm...

2. Example: 90mm M3 using (late APCBC) shoots at a 30* sloped armor plate with the hardness of 235BHN, at the range of 1830m, It penetrates 105mm.....

So you see if both guns were shooting at the same target at the same range then the 88mm L/56 gun would probably outgun the 90mm M3 by a margin, but it would outgun it, thats for certain........

The only way for the 90mm M3 gun to outgun the 88mm L/56 gun is if it used HVAP rounds, but these rounds were less lethal against tanks since they didnt explode after penetration, meaning extreemly decreased target damage......


And lastly the Pershing had 102mm of armor at front whereas the TigerI had 110mm of armor at front, and the front armor on the Tiger was actually so hard that eventough it was not sloped it would make 17pdr APDS shells bounds off even at the clossest ranges.......so no the Pershing didnt have more armor than the TigerI, it was actually the oppisite...... and saying that the Pershing would have twice the armor is way off......

Regards, KBO

 

Yes well the allies didnt test thier guns against the same quality steel as the Germans did, so it would be impossible to compare penetration stats for the 90mm M3 with the 88mm L/56 unless they would be shooting at the same target......and if this was done then the 88mm L/56 gun would come out on top.........
This is why the TigerI was one of the most deadly opponents you could meet right up to the end of the war, and especially when the TigerI got the new Rangefinder equipment it became really really lethal at extreem ranges...
this explains some of the 3500m kills made by the TigerI....

regards, KBO

 

KBO,

I have to say that in support of your points I have found very little photographic evidence where the front plate and mantlet of the Tiger I is cleanly penetrated. There are a few such pictures but all in all it seems to have been a very rare occurence. Even the turret side wasn't penetrated easily on the Tiger I.

Throughout 1943 and much of 1944 I would go with the Tiger I as the most lethal tank. I'd put it over the Panther. Late 1944 and 1945 I'd obviously go with the King Tiger. I don't think there is any real serious doubts about the merits of these choices.

 

The Pershing's 102mm armour on the hull was sloped at 44 degrees. This just about the doubles the amount a shell would encounter when coming straight at this tank. Where the Tiger has a good 110mm armour on the hull, this is barely sloped and therefore it is nothing more than 110mm. The Pershing in reality has about twice the armour.

Therefore the guns may be equally matched but this would mean that the Pershing could knock out the tiger from the front at twice the distance.

 

Aren't we all sick of these questions already???? What is next, the tank with the best transmission system in WWII??
:bang: :bang: :kill: :kill:

 

If the Pershing had twice the armor that doesnt mean it could knock out the TigerI at twice the distance since the Tigers armor was much harder than that on the Pershing...

KBO

 

Well, something comparable.

 

I would have to say the P-38.

Oh.... we're talking about tanks!

Then in that case, the T-34 hands down. I've posted my reasons before. No need to again.

:smok:

 

The T34 as the most 'lethal'?????

Well, if you are talking about 1941 and 1942 then you might have a point but from 1943 onwards the T34 (in both it's 76mm and 85mm versions) simply wasn't the most lethal tank around ever again.

 

Excuse me but... isn't the Pershing a post-war tank? Because i have always read it's importance was it set the way to design the M-60, but nothing more. So, if we are talking about the Pershing tank, we should also talk about the JS-3 tank, which had more armour than any other (250 mm max armour), it featured the famous dome design, and had an improved 122 mm gun. When the JS-3 faced the Shermans and other British tanks in the Middle East, it just wiped them out!
And the Tiger had definitely more armour than the Pershing, that's for sure, but we must consider the Tiger's armour wasn't slopped. The JS-2's armour was, and it was a little bit thicker than the Tiger's.
And well, if I had to choose one tank... I would say the JS-2, that was also able to beat the Tiger and even the Konigstiger! Good luck!

 

No, I am talking about the tank as a whole. Somehow, I got the impression we were talking about the best tank. How many T34's were produced? How many Tiger 2's?

Nothing could stand against the Soviets. Take the casualties they would, but nothing, and I do mean nothing, stopped them for long. It's just like all the American tank bashing I see here. Simple fact is nothing stopped us. I wish Patton would have had his way in 1945. We would have had a Soviet vs USA war. What a contest! Germany? Just a second rate player.

At Normandy, I believe, if memory serves me correct, that Panzer Lehr in all her glory, lost 50% of its tanks before it ever reached the battlefield.

All you German Tank supporters can go on and on about how superior German tanks were in WW2 but it means little. One has to look at the whole picture of combined arms. In that, nothing held a candle to the Americans and the Soviets.

Once 1941 was over, so was the war. It was just a matter of time.

:smok:

 

Well Greg, you are right: watching the whole picture, it's evident that the Soviets and Americans' superior production capacity won the war, designing tank maybe as not as good as the German ones, but useful on the battlefield.
But that doesn't mean that the german tanks were bad, and we are talking about quality here. Besides, quality and quantity aren't necesarilly oposed: the T-34 was an excelent tank, and the soviets managed to make more than 50,000!! The JS-2 was great too (I said it was the best) and 2,500 were produced during the war, and that's a number. The point is that tanks should be made thinking both in quality and easy production, but not only in one of those things.

 

If this is about quality I think that the T-34 is still the best, especially the T-34/85.

Quantity has a quality all its own. You can worship the Tigers all you want in the end who was occupying whos cities? All of that "quality" was wasted effort and only served to prolong the inevitable end.

I'll repeat myself, quantity has a quality all its own.