Most survivable tank

Regarding the Tiger and how it coulkd be killed by tanks it was supposedly "immune" to...

The Russians hunted Tigers successfully with Valentines! They liked the Valentine for this because it was just so quiet on the battlefield.

 

You highly doubt the Jentz books on Tigers?

No source is ironclad, but if the starting point of a discussion is to simply dismiss any source that disagrees, what's the point of continuing said discussion?

At the least, if you're going to attempt to refute accepted sources, it might be prudent to provide some of your own.

 

First hand accounts are interesting and entertaining, but we should remember that they are subjective as well.

 

And Belsar says-


"First hand accounts are interesting and entertaining, but we should remember that they are subjective as well. "

I think we are encountering an example of what I was talking about in a thread a bit back "How we come to know what we know." Not to pick on anyone but some people believe what they believe out of bias or simply from not going the extra mile in research. In the near ten years that I have spent coming to forums and re-educating myself on WWII I have learned a lot. I'm not ashamed to say much of what I learned came from knock down drag outs with other posters that I have come to realize know far more than I, Mr. Kenny, for example and others. It's been a good experience.

 

There is quite a difference between someone who says they saw a UFO in a secret desert base, and someone who can produce paperwork which proves they were in the correct place at the correct time. If this Colonel had been talking about the Gulf war still would have been less than credible due to his remarks. If he could produce hard evidence, then it would be acceptable, but his word is not.

 

I disagree with this completely.[/QUOTE]

Just because you are louder does not make you correct.

How exactly do you disagree with the Tiger being more survivable than a Panther and KT?

When it comes to Stadia sights, your own stats prove me correct. German sights with coincidence rangefinders have nearly 20 times the accuracy at 2000m.
It does not matter if the Russian sight could be adjusted to 5000m, if it makes 1/20 shots at less than half the range. Do you really think that a Russian tank from WWII is going to be able to do better with a sight which is markedly inferior? You cant counter an argument that a sight is crap by listing a superior sight which is obviously inferior to one with a proper range finder.
What point were you trying to make? Even at 1000m the German stats are nearly as good as those of the Russians at 500m, the high 90's.

Your claims that someone is shooting something at 1000m is another example of citing something which counters your own argument. The velocities of Soviet tank cannon can be less than half that of a common hunting rifle. Not only that, but your own claims of hitting at 1000m are counteracted by your own numbers of soviets only hitting 35% at 500m.
If that wasnt bad enough, hunters use rifles of 4x the zoom of soviet tank scopes, and they use match ammo which does not exist in Russia. They also know the exact distance, because its a range for gods sakes. How the hell could they not hit?

Your story of the Sherman WP round cracking the Tiger is incorrect, I just happened to have read that story and the tank was not damaged and was returned to the US for testing. The only part of that story which was true was the confusion of the tank crew due to the smoke.

Im not going to do all the work for you, they are on the first page of results when you search for them. Go do it yourself. Im here to make people think, if they would do the most basic of research instead of digging for only what supports their arguments, they would still be saying the same thing, just knowing its wrong. Maybe you already know its wrong.

When it comes to Panther and Tiger Mobility, you can see a video of the M3 lee being compared to a Panther in tests. The M3 has identical performance to the M4 sherman, and so would have also been defeated quite easily. This is a very well known propaganda film and can be found easily on youtube. Perhaps you should have spent the time double checking your info before posting "oh rly" like a schoolgirl.

If you had bothered to check out what I was saying about the 152, you would have found on the first page of google results, a picture of a Panther which survived a 152 round penetrating the side of the turret and not destroying the tank.

In fact, you make it seem like all tanks brew up if someone sneezes. Thats funny, because even after Otto Carius had all those tigers disabled, not a single man was killed. Must have really had god on their side to not have anyone killed in every tank which was knocked out.
They had more people killed be being run over by tanks than by the enemy.

When it comes to the "exploding caps", the Germans were the only ones who atually got them to work reliably. Thats why you see most German tanks are captured intact after being penetrated, while Allied tanks tend to be complete wastes.
The 152 and 122 had contact rounds, and only 3kg at max of HE. If the detonator is broken or removed, the round then has a much better AP capability. It would be fair to compare them to the same size naval rounds with delayed fuses, which penetrate about 2" at 6000m, and up to 4" at close ranges. This is sufficient to deal will the MKIV and stug from the front, and to penetrate the much lighter side armor of the Panther. A Tiger would have to be completely flat at point blank range to the side to be penetrated.
Just as comparison, if the 122 and 152 were such great tank killers, then how is the comparible 105mm which was fitted to thousands of Sherman even inferior to the 75mm? Just because a gun is large does not mean it can bash through armor.

Oh, and work on your math, a 650m/s round of a F-34 gun does not fly 2000m in half a second.

 

With respect, I recall the Patton walking all over T-55 and Centurion until they were slaughtered in close combat.
The range finders did work sucessfully most of the time, in fact the Patton really made a name for itself until they were devastated in a single battle.
The Centurion is an interesting tank. It does not have a ranefinder, but it does have ballistic matched ammo for its MG, and it has a secret weapon.
The Centurion has a computer which automatically locks the range after it senses three rounds strike the enemy. Obviously a system which only takes a second or two burst of ammo and automatically adjusts is going to kick the crap out of a coincidence rangefinder.
There is one problem with the Centurion though, and it is that the working range of its rangefinder is 1600m. Everything has its tradeoffs, but the Centurion is an outstanding tank at medium ranges, its a world leader. I have no doubt that a single Centurion could dispatch multiple T-55 or Patton at medium range. In fact, the Israelis really raped the Syrians with Centurion.
So, I think its fair to say that comparing a T anything to a Patton because the Patton got bested by a tank which has nothing in common with the T series is not really a fair argument.
I will admit that there are superior systems to coincidence range finding, but when comparing stadia to it, the stadia is a toy.
Its much like comparing a M16 to an AK-47, and then comparing the M-16 to a FN FAL. Not really a fair segway to compare the first two.

I do appreciate the point you made though, dont think Im bashing on you. It is absolutely true the centurion is superior in gunnery.

 

So how exactly do they soviets only get 4% accuracy at 2000m if its so certain?
The muzzle velocity starts at 1000m/s in most tanks of the era you are talking about, while the guns they israelis use are 1300+. Comparison of WWII soviet guns of less than 700m/s velocity is obviously not fair.
Its not like the velocity stays the same either, the flight time to 1500m is really much more like 2+ seconds at 1000m/s initial velocity.
Gravity pulls EVERYTHING at about 10m/s downward, so unless your target is 20m tall, you arent going to be able to hit it by simply aiming a little up or down. Even at 1300m/s, you would have to move roughly twice the height of the tank.
I know, I know, the sights are set to 1500m, but at anything under 1000m would be all funky. 500m would require being more than 10m off, and its not like they can get out and use a ruler. I highly doubt such intelligent people would do such a thing.
I think this is much more a case of the scuttlebutt.

 

Only 3 Tigers were 'returned' to the US.
A Tiger I from the N. Africa
A Tiger II from August/Sept 1944 in France. This tank was abandoned and found upside down with the muzzle brake missing.
A Tiger II from the Bulge fighting and again it was abandoned 'frozen' to the ground.
No hits from WP and thus no link to the WP claims. If you have read otherwise please update me.


I would love to see any photos of Panthers that survived a 152mm hit.
Do you have the links?

You may have intended it as a joke but like a stopped clock you are right now and again.
Allied research showed that most tanks crews were killed OUTSIDE of their tanks.
I.E. It was safer inside that out!

See post 9.

 

The Valentine had either a 2 pounder or 6 pounder, and the 6 pounder was able to penetrate a Tiger at very short ranges. They have in fact done so at under 200m, but there is no real data on them. They didnt really do the data because they werent supposed to be hunted by tanks in the first place, and why even bother if its got to be point blank to the side?
There is one thing that stands out about this though, its that Russians called all German tanks "Tigers", and so if they are saying that they used a 2 pounder to kill a real Tiger, Im calling BS on that.
If the Russians killed Tiger with w 6 pounder, then good for them. As I recall the first Tiger seen by the west was disabled by a 6 pounder to the turret ring. I cannot recall the make of the tank, but it was absolutely British.

 

So when they post sources which counteract their own claims, then I should still consider these sources?
So someone got 8 hits on a Tiger and it was not completely destroyed? Thats 8 times what it takes to return the favor!
So the IS series was so great, it only takes 8 hits to kinda kill a tiger. If thats the source, then I stand behind my claim that they were ineffective.

 

Sorry but that is not true. Gravity accelerates every free object downwards at about 10 m/s/s (or per second squared). That is not the same thing.

 

I believe it was towed 6-Pounders - it is the Tiger (131) currently at the Tank museum in Bovington. (strictly speaking not the first that was seen, but the first that could be inspected in detail)

Edit - it was a Churchill, my mistake

 

More fan-boy garbage. The Tiger was written off and thus was destroyed.
Perhaps you have dreams where legions of the undead drive burnt out Tigers against the Red Hordes and save Berlin?

Wrong the frontal aspect of a IS II could, and did, survive 88 hits.

In much the same way the oh so great Tiger was knocked out by a 6pdr with one shot.
One hit.

 

One non-penetrating hit in fact;

 

Matter not in the least. The hit knocked out the Tiger.
1 hit 1 dead Tiger.

 

To correct myself, it was a smoke round which caused the Germans to flee. Someone just posted about this on the Darkest hour forums including pictures of the tank. The tank was undamaged.
Not that armor cracking did not happen, it absolutely did, just not in this case.
Russian armor cracked all the time, it was 300+ BHN, US armor rarely cracked, it was mid 200 BHN, but German armor ran into both categories.
The one thing that is not desputible is that the Tiger was the only model of German tank to have been produced solely from the best armor. It was not produced long enough to see the change in armor quality.
When the armor quality was different, it was on purpose and so the quality is contained by each model. Later Panthers with the fixed final drive were of markedly inferior quality. These were mainly what was in normady, and therefore you can find dozens of panthers with shattered armor.

So pretty much, yes, it is possible, but incredibly unlikely to do the same thing to a Tiger.
As a very good example, how many Tigers and Panthers do you see shattered by 30/60lb rockets? Nearly none. You do see many of them rolled and tossed around, but the armor does not shatter. Doesnt it seem a little unlikely that if a properly constructed tank can withstand 60lbs of explosives that is can withstand 7lbs in a 152 round? It really depends on the tank being made of the correct armor, and like I said, the Tiger was pristine when in comes to quality.

When it comes to the Panther being penetrated and being fine here is the picutre, notice that the cannon is in the normal position and not in the recoil position as it would be if the cannon was damaged. Damage to the cannon results in it losing pressure and not being able to hold the gun forward in the unfired position. Note the shattering of the sponson


This damage is not exactly impressive, compare it to this 75mm HE shattering the same portion, but opposite side (The penetrations to the front were by a 17 pounder):



I also have a picture of the entire glacis of a Panther messed up by a 17 pounder, so it was technically possible with a later model panther of poor quality.
It may seem like the glacis of a panther is better than the same thickness armor on the size of an unsloped Tiger side, but consider that the armor quality of the Tiger was twice that of these Panthers, and although its sides are flat, they will nearly always be an an angle.
If the Tiger was at 30 degrees, that makes the armor about 1.3 times as effective, compared to about 1.5-1.6 for 60 degrees. Only against uncapped rounds will it be as high as 2.0 or higher. I have the official charts to back that up as well, for 17 pounder and 90mm.
What Im getting to is that if the armor is 1/3rd thicker than this, and of twice the quality, its not going to do much.

When it comes to the crew members being killed outside their tanks, that is absolutely true. The thing was that he was claiming a penetration would be deadly all the time, when we both know they had a huge chance of getting out. They may have been killed after they got out, but they sure enough did get out more often than not.

 

Matters not who posted what. Anyone saying either of the 2 TII's in the USA was stopped by WP is wrong. The Bulge example (the only possible candidate for the WP story) was not hit by WP.

 

You are correct, but this proves my point even further. Even with a flight time of 2 seconds, the difference in trajectory is going to be several dozen meters and so using the same range and simply pointing lower or higher on a 2.3m tall T-55 to make up for the drop or overshoot due to being set at 1500, well.... Its not even remotely possible.
To be even more detailed, at 1500m, if the range setting is off by more than 25m, you will miss a T-55 every time. A t-34 is slightly taller, and so you have to be within about 30m setting to hit it every time at 1500m. Most German and American rangefinders are only good to 40m, and it shows. The German stats show about a 75% accuracy at 1500m.
Comparing accuracy of Russian and German sights is really not a fair fight. It is obvious that the Germans have a magnitude of order advantage with unknown distance firing.
I want to be clear though, the Russian guns can indeed follow up once they find a range. Certain guns cannot, like the F-34 of the T-34, but most others can repeat shots once the range is found. If they are lucky enough to score hit the first time, there is nothing keeping them from firing another 7 shots and hitting all of them.

 

The one I am talking about was from the Bulge. I could be wrong about it being shipped to the US, but it sure as hell was captured intact and unharmed.
I have been looking farther into the WP shell and "killing" Tigers, and as far as I can see all known examples of crews abandoning their tank did not result in damage to the tank.