Using sloped armour would have meant the Tiger would have to go back to the drawing board - it had nothing to do with the layout of the factory in Kassel (or any other factory.)
Not acording to those who had to build it.
Sure you've got stats, but they don't fit into the debate with any meaning. They are selective and do not encompass the whole story. Stats are great, but only if they mean something, and only when they are used within proper context.
My point was untill you demonstarte *why* you think as you do im unable to understand the grounds of your argument.
10 hours of service for every 1 in the field, for a tank that was rarely on the front lines is a poor track record. Why are you comparing it to the Sherman, I don't understand? The Germans didn't make Shermans.
Because your makeing the point that the Tiger was mechanicaly unreliable, ive already compared it to other German models to show it wa snot, it was in servoice more than them, since i already know the allied servicbility numbers, and most know the mechnicly reliable Sherman, what most dont know was it was in service less than the Tiger who was not as mechanicly sound.
Well, I am sorry you feel that way, but I really think you should try and use your "stats" within context, instead of using them as absolutes. I don't doubt that your figures are accurate, but they attempting to draw concluios from those figures.
Thats exactly what i have done, i have assumed a certain knowledge of readers to be sure, and not been all inclusive to be sure but ceratinly given enough explationary data to support my posistion,, but im not here for peer review or even sure im talking to someone versed in the subject matter.
Why not take your own advice?.
You didn't make that clear before - in fact you stated that wading equipment was standard for the Tiger, when in fact it wasn't.
I assumed anyone reading and inttrested would know the reference, since i had to expalin still further to you i see my mistake, should stick to feldgrau.
Standard factory production issue with aceptence for service includes the snorkel one per AFV, this was discontinued when found not to be used in field service, and the snorkles were transfered to stores and made available from stores on as as needed basis instead.
Your answer should have been yes. Sloped armour was (and still is) more efficient than non-sloped armour, in terms of both weight and protection offered to the vehicle. When was the last time we saw an MBT with non-sloped armour?
No my answer was correct as to the point being presented. Your putting a different point than our Polish friend, but still getting the wrong conclusion, slopped armour was not new in 1942 the Russian BT series had been decimated with slopped armour by the Germans, and its not the only answer now either as the same laws of pyshics still apply, the extra protection of the slope, whatever the angle of slope is on the target is dependnt on the angle of the incomming round, and the size of the round, either can nullify any extra material penetration required of the target. So yes and no is still the correct answer to your question, yes in some circamstances it offers the optimum protection but not in all circumstances, APDS for instance negate the any benfit of slope. Todays MBT are are poor comparison, the Tiger was repalced by a sloped version of itself, not because the Tiger I was badly designed, but on hand and ready for production and sorely needed, in 42 it did not need slooping armour, what it had made it the best AFV on the field of combat and would remain so for 12-18 months. Its not what we have today but what was around in late 42 to late 44 thats important to its cost effectiveness, and comparison, it did after all slaughter all slopped tanks in that period in was pitted against, untill surpassed by even more techncaly advanced machines later in the war. And that ignoring the whole deflection aspect of sloped armour btw.
Kind of an odd way to form an argument. The Henshcel tank factory at Kassel-Mittlefield was but one of only 12 panzer manufactures in all of Germany. It is interesting that you state it represented only 0.01% of German industrial capacity, yet the USAAF deemed it important enough to be a priority target during the Strategic Bomber Offensive. How many times was the factory specifically selected as a target in comparison to the other 12 tank factories in Germany? I find your 0.01% very sketchy and probably without merit, but I'll give you the chance to show us that Henshcell and Sohn represented such a small part of the German war economy, and an insignificant contribution to the production of armoured vehilces over all.
I aluded to this in an erarlier post, during normandy the western allies experienced the 90 tigers effects, this prompted the USAF to bomb the only factory producing Tigers, 106 per month June-Aug, 36 per month Aug-Oct 44 was the result. USAF added it as a priority target as a result of fighting against it by the western allies whose CoS asked for it to be added as a target to includded as one of the highest priority, it is the only German AFV factory specificly targetted by the SB campaign and the only one asked to be included by the combined chiefs staffers during the NWE campaign. pre invasion kassel was bombed, but the tank factory was not the target.
The 0.01% of German capacity cite comes from Rohland, head of the Geramn Main Committe for tanks, which provided for German industry the targets (what the varouse dept said they needed, and AH said they could have, ie munitions 40% of all expenditure, 30% Lw, and so on down to Tanks with 5% or so, and allocted the resources to achieve them,the Sept 42 target plan for the next 2 years was to provide 600 panthers, 50 tigers, 600 AG/SPG, 150 Lt tanks pcm target for industry and allocted the finance and resoutces to see it through, only to have AH change it to 900 AG/SPG and 900 panthers and Tigers combined. Rohanland argued you simply cant squeze more production from Henshel, it has no excess capacity, its working 24/7 and cannot increase production of Tigers as there is no spare capacity, and gave its capacity, and instead said to expand production numbers requires another factory to meet the proposed demand, the cost of which and time to construct was rejected by the MONTAN GmbH, (Whermachts investment holding branch who oversaw finaces of whermacht projects), so the only increrase possible would be in the normal expeded range of reduction time due to experience, ie 3000,000 man hours per Tiger in 42, to 280,000 in 43 and that was the only forsable practible means of expanding Tiger production at the plant.
Simple question, since Germany built more than 12 tank factorys during the war, where did all the pre war tanks come from?, or is 12 a number you just felt like shareing?.
Weird, according to German figures, the front-line inventory of tanks available for service was relatively stable almost the entire war - peaking in the summer of '44 @ 7447 for all three fronts. What surpirses me is that you lambaste Cerogach without considering the fact that although the production of German tanks did peak in 1944, the Germans were fighting on three fronts. German tank production, or availabilty never ever had a chance of keeping up with the increasing length of it's front lines, and thus any argument that cites the increase in tank production, without considering the increased demand for said vehicles is rather short sighted, no?
Whose figures?, the Germans are in the Bundesarchive, copies in washington libary of Congress on micro flim, and extracts of them avalaible in many books, one is Das deutsche riech und der Zweite Weltkrieg 9 vols, and has all the war time production, losses, all the data any statistican could want, one dealls with panzertruppen stengths at given points in time as provided by the Ins general of OKH. Heres some examples from it, ill use Tooze book for a scan for you.
second point, the question was put that Germany panzer strength fell during the war, you claim it was fairly stable, i find both claims to be against the German records, and discount them as rubbish. My reply to his claim was not based on production numbers but on actual numbers the Ins general cites as haveing, so im unclear where i gave you that impresion.
lastly your using front line strength, and claim it to be stable throughout the war, while at the same time telling me that fighting on 3 Fronts at the end of a long extended supply line was going to mean those numbers were not going to be as i posted, yet you here claim them to be stable througout the war. I posted numbers from the OKH Ins Gen reports, summary table given Panazerwaffen strength at points in time, it includes all panzers in service everywhere, these are the numbers i gave, which would be different from front line strength, anyone inteligent would understand the figure youve seen is going to be different from the full number that includes those held in depot for issue, accepted into service and in transit, in worshops and so on, which is what i give and commented on that grew throughn the war and didd not dimish as our Pole claimed, that OKH summary also has breakdown flow charts etc, the types of tank, its condition and so on, what your "front line inventory" number shows is that during the war front line strength was extremly elastic (down after major ops for instance) and absolutly not stable at any extended period during the war except for the phony war period. Look at Jetnz flow charts for panzer front line strengths, you do have the basic books right?, what you see is eratic front line strength throught the war, but always rising year on year from 39-44 and falling in 45.
OKH Figures.
Oct 1939 2,712
Jan 1942 4,891
June 1944 11,105
Table A4. Armaments position of the Wehrmacht
Numbers of weapons: % Increase:
,
May June January Firepower Firepower
194° 1941 1942 per man, per man,
over over over May 194° June 1941
October June January October May June over October over May
1939 May 194° 1941 1942 1939 194° 1941 1939 194°
Rifles K 98 2,569,3°0 3,228,5°0 4,372,800 4,717,5°0 25.7 35.4 7.9 7.1 13.8
MP 38 and 4° 5,711 27,800 166,700 2°5,45° 386.8 499.6 23.2 315.0 4°3.9
MGs 1°3,3°0 15°,4°° 2°3,25° 206,500 45.6 35.1 1.6 24.1 13.6
2 centimetre Flak 3° 895 1,487 2,153 2,69° 66.1 44.8 24.9 41.6 21.7
3.7 centimetre Pak 10,560 14,257 15,522 13,348 35.0 8.9 -14.0 15.1 -8.5
Light mortar 5,062 9,957 16,129 15,579 96.7 62.0 -3.4 67.7 36.1
Heavy mortar 3,959 7,°91 11,767 11,719 79.1 65.9 -0.4 P.7 39.4
10 centimetre
Nebelwerfer 179 288 1,112 953 60.9 286.1 -14.3 37.2 224.5
Light Infantry Gun 18 2,931 3,365 4,176 4,022 14.8 24.1 -3.7 -2.1 4.3
Heavy Infantry Gun 33 367 491 867 866 33.8 76.6 -0.1 14.1 48.4
L. Howitzer 16 u. 18 4,919 5,538 7,°76 6,772 12.6 27.8 -4.3 -4.0 7.4
H. Howitzer 2.,434 2.,383 2,867 2.,746 -2.1 20.3 -4.2 -16.5 1.1
Heavy artillery 21-42
centimetre 47 163 442 548 246.8 171.2 24.0 195.7 12.7.9
Infantry ammunition,
million rounds 6,665 8,459 9,774 7,176 26.9 15.5 -26.6 8.2 -2.9
Pz. U. Pak shells,
million rounds 36 77 79 69 115.4 2.0 -11.7 83.6 -14.3
Artillery shells, million
rounds 29 57 9° 64 94.7 58.2 -29.7 66.0 32.9
PzKampfW I 1,3°5 1,266 966 817 -3.0 -23.7 -15.4 -17.3 -35.9
PzKampfW II 991 1,110 1,159 996 12.0 4.4 -14.1 -4.5 -12.3
PzKampfW III 151 785 1,44° 1,866 419.9 83.4 29.6 343.2 54.2
PzKampfW IV 143 29° 572 511 102.8 97.2 -10.7 72.9 65.7
PzKampfW 38 t 122 238 754 434 95.1 216.8 -42.4 66.3 166.2
Total light tank 2,296 2,376 2,125 1,813 3.5 -10.6 -14.7 -11.8 -24.8
Total medium tank 416 1,313 2,766 2,811 215.6 110.7 1.6 169.1 77.0
Half-tracks 5,200 7,997 15,642 19,129 53.8 95.6 22.3 31.1 64.4
Wehrmacht strength 4,556,000 5,766,448 7,3°9,°00 7,648,000 26.6 26.8 4.6
Army numbers 3,7°6,000 4,347,000 5,200,000 5,428,000 17.3 19.6 4.4
Sources: Kroener, in DRZW 5/1. 731, 826, 834,959; Mueller, in DRZW 5/1. 554-5
(In late 41 Henschle expands its production capacity by 100,000 sq feet of factory space, all sub production was centalised at the factory rather than subbed out to sub contrators elswere, and introduced a 24 hour rota for its now 7800 staff, formally under half that, all other German factorys dont adopt the 72 hour work week untill end of 42 begging of 43).
So ill take the word of the Ins General of the whermacht over armour strength returns as being accurate rather than yours, his figures show it peaked at 9,702 in mid 44, but i expect yours is for 3 fronts and is derived from a different acounting method, probably adding up on hand and in stock for 3 fronts, which i would expect would be different.
Specific question is the cost/benifit of a Tiger yes?, M Harrison "The economies of WW2", statistic tabele 17 detailing all particepents expenditure on Rifles/MGs/Machine Pistols/Guns/Mtr/AFV/air etc, German economy spent 5.2% on AFV production of which i gave the break down of the Tiger and gave the 43 year of 7% expenditure which was the peak year geramny spoent on AFV with th AH panzer armamament program, i also citeied Tooze "The makeing and breaking of the nazi economy", which conatins apendix table a6 in which is a detailed brakdown of 41-45 productiopn which is itself drawn fcvrom Wagenfueher 1954 die deutshe industrie im Kriege. Basicly economist have provided the cost/number of every weapon system, all you have then to do is compare them.
Maj J J How in his study of German armour post war for the MOD. Us Studys during the war contain similar, table 1:US soldiers attitudes to eniemies weapons, weapon 88 tops the list as the most frighting, 48% of GI gave it the most frighting, 20% a dive bomber, 13% a mortor, 12% a horizontal bomber, 7% LMG and so on, then most dangerous, 62-17-6-5-4 in the same order. the fear of a Tiger is something no states can show, but in war the fear of a Tiger was worth its weight, every singe ounce of every ton.
You may not like any figures i give you, but they are all from primary data, any conclusion i post based on them is fair game, but when i give a figure, lets just assume its the same as the word of god as far as your concerned.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tiwaz
WW2 production lines could not be easily changed to produce different type of equipment. Thus, manufacturing lines made for Tiger tanks could not have been modified for Panthers easily. It simply was not possible. And Tiger did do very well in tasks it was given. It did not become most feared sight for enemy tankers for no reason or by being a pushover.
The production facilities at Henshcell and Sohn had to be converted to Tiger production from something else though - why stop producing P III's and IV's for several months while the facilites are re-tooled for the Tigers? You're argument works in both directions
Rubbish, they went from heavy RR engines ( Germany produced over 5000 RR engines during the war) to Tigers as being about the only factory capable of doing such high stress lifts, one reason why the factory got the job was it was designed for the heavy lifting required,it went for non slopped armour and straight lifts up/down and was what it was designed for and was simpler/quicker to fabricate stright edges together rather than butresse angles togther lowerd in at the same angle as the slope causing different dynacmics of centresof gravity and load bearing. No factory went straight from light weight to heavy weight panzer production because the structual weight required to lift had to be borne by the building, and only custom built ones could do the job, or to put it simply, put a RSG in your living room and see if your bricks can support you lifting a 60 ton weight from it.
What a bizzare statement? Are you telling us that every Flak 88 in the service of German infantry units was withdrawn once the Tiger was available for front line units in late 1942? That's a mere 4 vehicles to take the place of thousands of AA batteries. Very interesting, and yet I don't know if I have ever heard this before. I can understand AA units being withdrawn gradually to combat the CBO, and being replaced by the pak 75 and pak 88 - but it does not seem logical that 300 or so Tigers on the Eastern Front in 1943 were responsible for the wholesale vacuum of Heavy Flak units from front-line service? Does this make sense?
No, im telling you that months before any were withdrawn, the policy of withdrawing them was adopted and the arguments for doing so were given, Goering staffers wanted the 88 back under LW control ( those in ID acounted for 40% of all 88 and when returned it had 90% of 88 undser its control by 43 and 81% of that was back in the riech)and in the Riech, the Army wanted them to counter the Russian tanks as they were the best counter they had at that time, the Arty wanted to have an expaned AT role for its SPG and to be given a greater remit to fill that role and thus increase its share of the mil pie of resources, they had had great succes in AG with mounting the 75 on the Czech 38 as a an emergency measure, the crews were taken from the art and remain under art control but wanted more of the same and greater autonmy of control of them rather thanbeing integrated as AT into army control. policy choices were and still are taken in expectation of events being as predicted, the on hand numbers of tigers at the time is irrelevent, its the number projjected to be onhand when the poicy is implemented thats important, of course i may have overstated the tigers role in polcy descion makeing, but AH was extremly clear that with its introduction to the ost Front, the conditions would allow the 88 to return to LW control and come back to the Riech.
Of course the actual implentation was staggered to take acount of conditions prevailing, availibility of transport back to the Riech being one such, but every 88 was removed by Autumn 43.
Unless I am completely misunderstanding what you have stated above, I beleive erogach maybe correct. Bergetiger's were very rare, if non-existent on the battlefield for recovery operations. Typically, it was another Tiger, or two, that served the recovery needs of the heavy panzer battalions.
Typicaly it was another tank that recovered another tank in all armies, it was just that Tigers had no other choice in the matter, they were needed to be combat ready, not waiting around to be recovered, and you only recover if you retain the ground in the first place. Germany simply did not have the same leave it in the ditch and someone will get a round to it later mentality. 400 Uk tanks (out of 1000 total)broke down in the first 24 hours of 2nd El Alemain, hardly the Uk finset hour in tank reliability, 65% of those was to mines, 37 did so recovering other tanks, REME post battle report on its operations during the engegement, so dont bother argueing with me, i know what i talking about and you have no clue as to tank reliability and availibilty, anyone who does is forced to conclue the Tiger was extremly reliable and avaiable, and no more prone to mines than any other tank, and no more or less likly to be recovered by a tank than any other vechicle, the data simply does not support such claims.
Given a life expectency of weeks in 43, the T34 dont need a recovery vechicle at all then i asume, it did not rate a sandblast, primer and paint job as a cost cutting excercise due to its short life expetency.
Not to dissuade your penchant for statistics, but the "stats" you have provided have been selectively chosen, and are not completely representative of the whole story. Too many things are left out of your simple equations. Cerogach's opinions may not be supported by concrete evidence, but your efforts have been equally futile.
The whole story is very simple, Tigers destroyed in combat more value than they cost to produce, irespective of any other cost benifit they accured, and i agree it is futile to attempt to pass on to some people, knowledge.
Chosen to make a point is why anyone picks a stat, yove provided one that 12:1 is what the Tiger achieved and was not cost effective, simply question, what tank was cost effective then?, and what where its kill/loss ratio?.
GDP in 42 was 4:1 in the Allies favour, ergo any weapon that is produces must match that relative imbalance or its contributing to defeat, since Germany on the attack or defence is generally creditted as killing 50% more than anyone else and derserves ahigh recognition as an effictive instrument of policy, if a Tiger was not cost effective then just what tank was?, and why are the worlds bookshops full of its wartime exploits?.
Sadly you claim what is left out means what i posted is somehow wrong. Demonstrate that to be the case, dont just claim it. I left out the simple fact that acording to the UK OH, "For the BEF, breakdowns acount for 75% of all casulaties", so its clear the BEF had a masive advantage in breakdown and non recovery in 1940 over the Tiger.
From 8-17 Feb 45 the 9th RTR and 147 Regiment fought in the Reichswald, and lost 85 tanks, 17 to enemy action, 13 to turrt failure, 3 to clutch failure, 20 to mechanical breakdown, 32 to bogged down. Does not appear to have improved by 45 either.
So you searched for "tiger tank" on amazon.com, and decided to post these titles for suggested reading? Neither of those books are intended for your casual reader, and neither debate the decision to produce the Tiger. They are technical books only, and offer very little substance to the current debate in this thread.
No, i posted them for the Pole to learn more about something he knows very little about, since ive quoted some info from them here already i believe him doing so would benifit himself. You have read them right?.
The decision to go forward with the produciton of the Tiger (and Tiger II for that matter) was not based on sound judgement - either from an economic standpoint, but more importantly from a military perspective. The tank was not equipped for the type of conditions experienced during the war. Yes, it achieved many local sucesses, but would the outcome of any of the campaigns it was involved in have been any different had the Tiger not taken part?
Doubtful. It was slow, it was difficult to transport. It required an incredible effort to keep it serviceable - all in all, a logistical problem the Germans probably could have done without. It did not fit into German armoured doctrine that stressed mobility, and it is a wonder why the thing was ever adopted into the panzer force at all.
Except that all of those making those descioons disgareed with you, (especially the German mil who pressed for ther Tiger and were exstatic at what it gave them in 42/44, just like war Uk corespondednts were forbidden to report from NWE on any aspects of Tigers after the reported its effects on morale and battlefields usage by direct orders from Monty, the only US comparable measure was to withhold reports of kamikazi attacks back from the public for as long as possible), and they had forseight not hindisght which your using to qustion there judgment. you do know that every Sherman that was upgraded was shipped back to the states and then returned to the Theatre, and was designed on the specs to fit existing naval transport ship size, just what kind of logistical nightmire was that compared to the problems of the Tiger?, some 10k shermans never saw combat action but spent the war years in transit/storage, but the allies could afford such incompetence, such as haveing an inventory of 22,000,000 jerry cans on 6 June, and only 10,000,000 in August, severly curtailing logistical supply.
It's range was not much furhter than that of a marching infantry division - and they probably would have been better off being allocated to IDs as part of a their organic AT unit.
20klms a day for an ID, a Tiger Bttn does that in under an hour. So you want to have Tigers as AT attatched to every Id, you just lost some of the credability you had built up my friend if you consider that a viable proposistion.
In the war the Geramn ministrys wanted to know how much bang it was getting for its DM, in Autumn of 43, 8000 woked on Tigers, 152,000 on all the other AFV, total 160,000 with tigers taking up such a small % of the workforce allocated to AFV production. simply quastion, is there another example of a weapons sytem produced in ww2 by such a small number of people?, that has become a houshold name?, and a wartime boggy man to those who had to face it?.
What needs to be done, is a comparison between the potential output of the Henshcel & Sohn works at Kassel, to other panzer factories in the Reich. Since Hanny has access to what appears to be a large variety of resources, perhaps he can share some info. What was the Henshel plant producing prior to its conversion to building Tigers? How big was the factory? So many other questions to ask, but I'll leave it at that for now.
Tooze book (The makeing and breaking of the Nazi economy" i mentioned earlier has some of that, i wont give you the amazon link as you can get it yourself from the title.
What needs to be done is for people to get some perspective, just under 500 billion RM spent, 5 billion gets you the V1 and 2 weapons system, which dropped 0.23% of total tonnage dropped by the western allies on Germany in the SB campaign. Typicly 5% per annum goes on all AFVs, 30% to the LW and 40% to munitions and so on. Tigers were so far down the list as to be meangless. yet everyone has heard of them, why?, Because they were an extremly formidable and cost effective component of the German war effort is why.
But more importantly, anyone claiming the Tiger was not cost effeicent needs to learn how to basic maths as no one who can, can form such a conclusion, its really that simple, did the cost to produce equal or not equal what the Tiger was responsible for removing, if it was greater by what order of magnitude was it greater, all these questions have already been asked and aswered by people able to count, leaving arguments like this i had hoped to the dustbin of history. il leave you with Karl Frydag, (senior enginer at Henshel and responsible for the production of the Tiger I there, and sat on the Main Committe for airframes as well, "Tank production and aircraft production are always being compared to one another. They cannot be compared to one another, tank production is dirt,when set against the LW, it terms of value produced or resopurc es consumed, the production of aircraft was at least 5 times more important than the output of tanks." he was scathing to the post war US intergators who were extremly intrested in Tigers.
perational vehicles? Priority perhaps? Disposition of service units? I wouldn't consider your table to be an accurate reflection of the combat readiness of the Tiger tank, considering you are missing a significant chunk of the Tiger's time in field, as well as the various theaters it operated in. Again, if we look to the early deployment of the Tiger in North Africa, we can see how difficult it was to recover under combat conditions, and maintain in preparation for combat. Throughout it's years in service it took approxiamately 10 hours of maintenance for every hour of operation in the field - not a good track record if you ask me. 
