Since when did the Tiger have a flame thrower? :o
Having 3 MG’s was common for most tanks by late war standards (coaxial and bow) and with not much of a threat left from the German air force, AA MG’s were mostly used as a ground supression weapon anyway. Tiger only had 2, but considerably more ammunition for them than the Soviet tanks at the time (JS-2), same is true with main gun rounds.
:roll:
i think someone needs to do some reading about tanks…
As a side note, Hitler wanted the Jagdtiger to be armed with a flame thrower :shock: but as far as I’ve read, it was never done.
Not that I can see the point of arming such a vehicle with a weapon like that.
It would be interesting to compare a T-34/85 and a Panther one-on-one both with seasoned crews in a duel in the most clinical sense that doesn’t reflect the T-34’s superor numbers or the mechanical teething troubles of the Panther. :shock:
One on one, and if both tanks are facing each other, the Panther has the edge because of its thick & heavily sloped front hull & turret armour. This sloped armour is one of the reasons why the T-34/85 is more capably armed against the slab-like armoured Tiger rather than the Panther. There are some stories about tankers (especially American and some British) using the Panther’s shot trap (lower part of the mantlet) to deflect shells through the realatively thin armour coving the driver & hull gunner. Make of that what you will :roll:
The 75mm high velocity gun of the Panther should have no trouble knocking out a T-34 of any kind at any practical combat range (discounting any obstructions like trees or camoflague).
In fact the 75mm gun on the Panther could penetrate any Allied tank of ww2. Remember the Panther wasnt a Tiger replacement, it was a PzIV replacement.
The question should be then, which is better the Panther ot the PzIV?
Good point!
I’m not quite sure which tank you could say is “the best”. The Panzer IV was upgraded to having a longer gun with improved AT performance (although weather it was the same as the Panther’s penetration figures is something that escapes me), plus the IV had been in production for some time. Indeed it remained in production through-out the war. It doesnt have the frontal armour thickness of the Panther however (Panther A has 100mm on the mantlet vrs 50mm for the IV F2).
So again it may come down to numbers! Both tanks were capable fighting vehicles, the Panther design incorporated some advanced features. The long barrel IV’s were a match for Allied tanks, but far more numerous. That numerical thing must be considered when you are talking about facing the T-34, weather you class the T-34 as a poor tank or not.
I know this has nothing whatsoever to do with the topic at hand, but, i recently saw Saving Private Ryan and is it just me or do the 2 tiger tanks at the end have T-34/85 road wheels drive sprocket and tracks? I suspect trickery
That would be because the “Tigers” in Saving Private Ryan are T-34/85’s. Same with Kelly’s Heros. To understand why, just ask yourself how many Tiger I’s are left in the world, eveen more importantly how many of these can run at all? Very few indeed. Even simulated war like what Hollywood does would be very hard on these priceless artifacts.
The small vehicle which looks like a crawler motorbike is indeed a real vehicle, and probably an original although I would love to confirm that. It was used as a prime mover for recon and airborne units, pulling light anti-tank guns and associated equipment.
That would be because the “Tigers” in Saving Private Ryan are T-34/85’
Actually those “Tigers” are converted russian T-44s, the T-44 was a russian response to the Panther with but a more well balanced armor distribution.
I’ve only seen the film once and can’t remember the details of the ‘Tigers’, but this site reckons they were 34’s.
http://www.sproe.com/t/tiger-tank.html
The two Tiger tanks featured in Saving Private Ryan are reproductions built on the chassis of Russian T-34 tanks. Operational Tiger I’s are extremely rare, and could not have been used for rigorous film production, let alone a movie in which the plot requires one of them to be destroyed.
The T-34 was chosen because of its overall size and barrel height. The reproductions were based on measurements taken of a Tiger I at the Tank Museum in Bovington, England, and were constructed by Plus Film Services. The upper hull and turret were sized to proportionally match the chassis of the T-34. Band of Brothers, the HBO mini-series produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, used a similar construction process to recreate Tiger I tanks out of readily available T-34s.
The most obvious visual difference between a real Tiger I and the reproductions are the tracks, which do not feature the Tiger I’s overlapping wheel design. Although the front of the tank features the appropriate machine gun and driver’s viewport, these two features are a source of great controversy.
The small machine gun of a Tiger I was normally manned by the tank’s radio operator, but the gun is fired only briefly during the Battle of Ramelle—blink and you’ll miss it (screen capture 1 | screen capture 2). The machine gun on the second Tiger can be seen to move slightly just before it is destroyed. It is possible that both tanks had limited ammo for their machine guns, or that one was out of ammo and the other damaged, or that both tanks had injured radio operators. An operational machine gun on just one of the tanks could have made for some dramatic moments. As it is, the limited machine gun fire in the film is so brief as to be non-existant (and one wonders if it was a post-production CGI effect).
The driver’s viewport on a Tiger I featured 6 layers of armored glass, as well as another sheet just behind them. These systems would have prevented Captain Miller from simply sticking his submachine gun up to the port and spraying the inside of the driver’s compartment with bullets. Curiously, just a fraction of a second before the second Tiger is destroyed by a P-51, the driver’s viewport is shown as having been replaced with a flat, unconvincing piece of material with what looks to be the driver’s port painted on! This can only be seen for a few frames (see screenshot number 8,) and is more than likely the result of whatever work was done to rig the tank for an explosion.
Another inaccuracy is the fact that the paratroopers easily open the tank commander’s hatch, which would have been locked from the inside in order to prevent the enemy from using such an easy way to kill a tank crew. There is some criticism that the tank commanders are seen with their hatches open, thus exposing themselves to enemy fire, but this is actually a common way in which a tank commander would operate his vehicle, as it afforded him the best view of the battlefield. Obviously a tank commander had to use caution as to when and where he could safely open the hatch.
Both Tiger tanks feature the insignia of the I SS Panzer Corps, a unit that would not have been near the Merderet River on June 13th, 1944.
Because of the limited number that had been constructed, and the disposition of German forces on June 13, 1944, the date of the Battle of Ramelle, it is highly unlikely that any Tiger I tanks would have been in or around Ramelle at that time. The use of the Tiger I in Saving Private Ryan has much more to do with its reputation and popularity than historical accuracy.
The two Tiger I replicas from Saving Private Ryan were stored at The Tank Museum in Bovington, England for a time, but they have apparently been sold and removed from the museum. It looks like one of the tanks may have found its way to the United States, as one was reportedly used for a reenactment of the Battle of Carentan in Monterey, California by the World War II Research and Preservation Society. An article on the reenactment indicates that the Tiger tank is owned by Joe Fazio of San Francisco.
Building ‘Tigers’ for Saving Private Ryan at Plus Film Services.
Well, that is funny because I was pretty much convinced that it a T-44.
I thought that they used other tank bodys to convert them into Tigers.
Henk
One of the T-44 rebuild as “tigers”.
Very ugly looking, for more go in there.
That does not look like a Tiger to me, gees those guys did not have a clue to how one look. 
Henk
more “bad” Tigers on the chassi T-44.
This vehicle was made in MosFilm in 1975.
Yes they are bad Tigers, the large differences between the real Tiger and the crapy Hollywood and Soviet Films fakes are quickly visible for the trained eye…like the mines… …better used a stug or Hetzer wich are more common and available, like in “Band of Brothers”
Aniway like a I said the T-44 was a more balanced design than the Pz V Panther, the only advantage of the german MBT was in the AP capabilities.