Tiger ambush

[Jake79]

Love the first pic..very cool

[c.rainford73]

Are you planning an invasion of some sort.... Love the photos and the subject matter of course!

[Tiggr]

Just living in my own little world Carl
The tanks and the railway enable me to switch off from the madness of the outside world.

[doc larsson]

love it so jealous of the layout

[Tiggr]

And not one allied tank in sight.
Nice of you to let them out in the sun from time to time
Nice collection you've got there.
And I agree, it's good to escape real life

Mick.

I just can't bring myself to buy an allied tank.
They just haven't got it.
In general terms the allied tanks were all about quantity whereas the German armour was about quality.
The other factor was that my late mum was of German descent and lived in the Ukraine when war broke out - not that I agree with the doctrine of their then leader.
My car is German, my railway is made in Germany....

[BarryC]

I just can't bring myself to buy an allied tank.
They just haven't got it.
In general terms the allied tanks were all about quantity whereas the German armour was about quality.

And yet they were the losing side!

Barry

[Tiggr]

They were Barry

On the eastern front they were outnumbered 10 to 1
On the western front they were outnumbered 5 to 1

The other factors which obviously affected the battles were the fuel supply situation and air superiority - especially on the Western front.

It was obvious that there would only ever be defeat for the Germans.

With the exception of a few very late new variants the allied armour was inferior.

[c.rainford73]

I love all tanks..... I've slowly sold off some of my vast German armour and started to assemble some Russian pieces and now my first Sherman variant and now an M1 Abrams too much fun

[BarryC]

Tiggr,

What you say is very true and I do like the look of many of the German tanks.
The Tiger I is my favorite and the picture in your opening post in this thread is a sight every allied tank commander would truly dread! Cool picture as well.

Barry

[Raminator]

I just can't bring myself to buy an allied tank.
They just haven't got it.
In general terms the allied tanks were all about quantity whereas the German armour was about quality.

With the exception of a few very late new variants the allied armour was inferior.

I don't think it's that clear-cut. It's one thing to say that you like the way they look the most, because that's a valid subjective opinion. I don't think you can say that German tanks were measurably better than their Aliied and Soviet counterparts, or that they were of higher quality though. It's a bit of a nebulous concept, and has more to do with the roles the tanks were intended for (theoretically) and the roles they were pressed into (practically). Tank design is always a compromise between mobility, armour and firepower; it's just that the different powers valued different ones at different times.

During all of the Wehrmacht's early "successes" at the beginning of the war (the invasions of Poland, Norway, France and the Low Countries) they were largely equipped with training tanks (the Panzer I and II) and captured tanks (Panzer 35(t) and 38(t)), with small numbers of their nominal complement of Panzer IIIs and IVs. No heavy tanks in sight. Much of this success came down to the Luftwaffe providing air superiority and ground-support for fast-moving armour acting in concert against disorganised enemies. It's all about the concept of the schwerpunkt and using mobility to exploit any breakthrough.

British doctrine at the time had a similar focus on mobility for the cruiser tank role, but also intended for the heavily-armoured infantry tank to create the breakthroughs. Although the infantry tanks were never heavily armed enough for this role, the development of the cruiser culminated with Centurion and the concept of the modern main battle tank by the end of the war. Similarly, the Americans differentiated between tanks and tank destroyers; tanks were supposed to support infantry, while tank destroyers were basically mobile antitank guns. Experience during the war showed the dichotomy was an evolutionary dead-end though, given the programme to upgun the Shermans with the long-barrelled 76.

Later in the war, the Germans' encounters with heavily-armoured Matilda IIs and KV-1s shifts their focus toward heavier and heavier armour and away from speed and mobility. Since it kind of coincides with their losses in North Africa and Stalingrad, I guess the operational and strategic limitations are offset by the tactical gains. I'm talking about more of a loss of mobility on a wider scale, I know the Tiger was reasonably nimble for its weight and the wide tracks gave it good ground pressure.

Think of it this way; if a British armoured division has to march 100 kilometres they just get in their tanks and drive there, arriving with plenty of time for a cup of tea. If a Soviet armoured division has to march 100 kilometres they get in their tanks and drive there too, a bunch of parts might have fallen off their tanks along the way but they probably weren't important. If a German armoured division has to march 100 kilometres, they have to go by train. But to get a Tiger on a train, they need to fit the transport tracks or it won't fit through tunnels. To fit the transport tracks, they first need to remove the outer roadwheels. There's suddenly a requirement for a whole other layer of logistical support because they have neither the fuel nor reliability to move under their own power.

Really, if the Germans were serious about taking out enemy tanks they would have been better off taking the resources they invested in heavy tanks and putting them into assault guns instead. The StuG III was a much more efficient tank killer than the heavies could ever have dreamed of being, in terms of the cost of the unit itself and the cost of the units they destroyed. It's not much good saying a Tiger has a 5:1 or 10:1 kill ratio if it costs thirty times much as a T-34!

Don't get me wrong, I like the way the German big cats look. It's more that I don't think they were quantitatively better than their opponents though, they were just designed with different goals in mind. Apologies too for the wall of text, I haven't been well enough to work on my tanks for a couple of months so I've been doing a lot of reading instead!