Who says the Allies can't make monster tanks

[SonGoku]

Guderian, probably the best & most practical panzer leader out of all generals; thought it was better to mass produce the STUG- using PzIII chassis and PzIV as the main tank than wasting the resources on the monsters, history has proven him right.
Better to have 10,000 STUG and 5,000 Pz IV than 6,500 unreliable Panther, Tiger, King Tiger and all other idiotic ones.
And the thing was the STUG and Pz IV (when armed with the KwK42- 75mm) were good enough to take on most allied tanks, also very cheap, decent on and off road mobility and speed, much lower fuel consumption (very important).

The Panther was unreliable because it was rushed in. After the issues with the suspension, engine and transmission were fixed it was a deadly efficient tank. Hitler should have waited 6-8 more months to let his engineers sort out the problems and THEN send the Panther to the front. Same goes for the Tiger. It was rushed in but when the problems the design had when it was first used were sorted out the Tiger was highly efficient in killing poor Shermans and T-34s. And for a design that could not be upgraded that much as the Panzer IV it was a success.

What killed the german tankforces was that the enemy had more tanks and personell to man them.

A different approach could have been to amass all the Tigers in 4-5 Tiger-Panzerdivisions (HArm Divisions in HoI III - I love them :3) as spearheads instead of just give every single panzerdivision only a few Tigers and have the incompetent Himmler most of them in his toy army. Imaging the units of Rokossovsky's Belorussian Front in Summer '44 facing the well hidden, nearly invulnerable sledgehammer to beat the crap out of their T-34/76/85s and Is-2s. Having 400-500 operational Tigers on the Ostfront is not that far fetched if the Tiger was only used there and not clustered all over the european theatre.

€:

The Tiger II is just a different matter. It weighs almost as much as two Panzer IV H and ate a lot of resources, maintainance capacity and fuel. It could not cross most bridges - especially in France and Italy - and if the engine broke or the tracks in combat, well - 80 tons immobile metal with a smoking engine are not useful when facing an enemy tank. Even if that monster was even more deadly than the Tiger I consider the Tiger II an overall design failure. Its flaws offset its main advantage: The 8,8 cm L71. That gun was just perfect in killing every enemy tank - including heavily armored tank destroyers.

These problems also count for the Ferdinand/Elefant, the Maus prot and the various design studies we can play in WoT (Löwe, E75, E100, Vk 45.02 A/B, etc).

 

[Waffen9999]

I know - why are you telling that to me?

Because the way you described it, made it sound like you weren't sure.....

 

[1alexey]

Honestly, It would be so much better, If the tech tree would have TigerII(and similar) as super-heavy tanks, and leave the Mouse and similar crap out.
It would take some effort to structure German tech tree, but they had plenty of tanks that could become 1943 heavies, and it would at least make the decision to make super-heavy tanks far more plausible, as 70-tonne tank is far more practical than 188 tonne, at least in Western Europe, they learned to use 70-tonne MBTs, eventually.

The case could even be made, that if for some miraculous reason Germany would be in a state to make serious offensives in 1944-1945, such tank could be practical as it was pretty darn good at killing stuff and tanking shots, and it`s reliability and range would be far less of an issue as Germans would be the ones picking up the battlefield, not having to react to enemy, where mobility is truly essential.

 

[scroggin]

The Tiger II is just a different matter. It weighs almost as much as two Panzer IV H and ate a lot of resources, maintainance capacity and fuel. It could not cross most bridges - especially in France and Italy - and if the engine broke or the tracks in combat, well - 80 tons immobile metal with a smoking engine are not useful when facing an enemy tank. Even if that monster was even more deadly than the Tiger I consider the Tiger II an overall design failure. Its flaws offset its main advantage: The 8,8 cm L71. That gun was just perfect in killing every enemy tank - including heavily armored tank destroyers.

Just curious how would the Tiger II have gone against the centurion if the war had lasted a little longer? What would the different variants of the 88mm gun have done to a centurion?

 

[1alexey]

Just curious how would the Tiger II have gone against the centurion if the war had lasted a little longer? What would the different variants of the 88mm gun have done to a centurion?

Centurion Mk 1 was rather weak, with just 17 pdr and 80mm of sloped armor, it was more or less equivalent of Panther in both gun, protection and weight.

Centurion Mk 3 is outside of game`s time frame, afaik(1950+).

 

[SonGoku]

Just curious how would the Tiger II have gone against the centurion if the war had lasted a little longer? What would the different variants of the 88mm gun have done to a centurion?

The 8,8 cm L71 was pretty damn strong (202 mm penetration on 100 meters and ~150 mm on 1500 m). But as I said the Tiger II is just a rolling bunker unable to catch up in speed with a Centurion. If the commander of the Cenutrion has any brain it should be possible to get away with killing/disabling the Tiger II. If the Tiger however is well hidden and spots the Cenutrion first - the 8,8 has ended the lifes of so many tanks and crews before...

 

[varsovie]

But as I said the Tiger II is just a rolling bunker unable to catch up in speed with a Centurion. If the commander of the Cenutrion

The tiger is always cited with very good agility and speed comparable to other German AFV. Even wikipedia list its top speed higher than the centurion.
It was a big tank with enormous fuel consumption (thus low range) and prone to breakdown at first, but the speed wasn't a crawl.

 

[scroggin]

The tiger is always cited with very good agility and speed comparable to other German AFV. Even wikipedia list its top speed higher than the centurion.
It was a big tank with enormous fuel consumption (thus low range) and prone to breakdown at first, but the speed wasn't a crawl.

Yes I noticed that wiki put the centurion's speed quite a lot slower than the TigerII . Both Tiger I+II were actually fairly agile tanks for their weight.
It would have been very interesting if the british had been able to bring the centurion out in 1944. But then rushed designs didn't tend to be reliable

 

[SonGoku]

The tiger is always cited with very good agility and speed comparable to other German AFV. Even wikipedia list its top speed higher than the centurion.
It was a big tank with enormous fuel consumption (thus low range) and prone to breakdown at first, but the speed wasn't a crawl.

For the Tiger that is true. It was quite fast for a heavy back then. But the Tiger II... well... Wikipedia says its top speed was roughly 40 km/h. I'm pretty sure they achieved that speed at the Henschel plant were these monsters were manufactured. In combat situations I guess it was not faster than 25-28 km/h and could be outflanked by medium tanks easily (and that's what happened to the Tiger II often).

Tbh, I didn't realize that the Centurion was that slow. What were they thinking when they designed that tank? :facepalm:

 

[Henry IX]

Moar armour = moar good

 

[1alexey]

People should remember that tanks of the time moved much slower outside roads. 10-15 km/h was rather norm even for even medium tanks.

Comparing (top) road speed is quite useless.

 

[George Parr]

Honestly, It would be so much better, If the tech tree would have TigerII(and similar) as super-heavy tanks, and leave the Mouse and similar crap out.
It would take some effort to structure German tech tree, but they had plenty of tanks that could become 1943 heavies, and it would at least make the decision to make super-heavy tanks far more plausible, as 70-tonne tank is far more practical than 188 tonne, at least in Western Europe, they learned to use 70-tonne MBTs, eventually.

That sort of makes sense in theory, but it doesn't really reflect the way Germany used the tank. If you use the Tiger II as a super-heavy, the player will be able to build both the Tiger and Tiger II at the same time, as they are different tank-variants for the game. The Germans however, stopped producing the Tiger and let the Tiger II play the exact same role as the Tiger did.

And quite frankly, the difference in weight between the Tiger and Tiger II is less than the difference between Panzer IV and Panther, both in relative and total numbers. In fact, the Panther is almost as heavy as the III and IV combined and very much comparable in weight to what has been classified as Soviet heavy tanks. The Tiger is a whole lot closer to the Panther than the IV is as well.

 

[varsovie]

People should remember that tanks of the time moved much slower outside roads. 10-15 km/h was rather norm even for even medium tanks.

Comparing (top) road speed is quite useless.

True, that's why both German and Allied tests showed the Panther and Tiger had actually more mobility than the (much lighter) Sherman and cross-country speed rated at 20km/h. Thank advanced suspension and large tracks.
Of course operational mobility was less because of lack of fuel (like all German AFV) and spare parts, frequent breakdown at first during teetering period (was corrected) but mostly lengthy maintenance time not always possible thus high breakdown , size and weight* and even Allied air interdiction**.

And to put everybody in line, even if it's "40km-ish/h top speed on road", the real movement speed of an HARM Btn is way less, here is a translation from the German Tiger training pamphlet I found :

I. Marches
1. As the decisive-point weapon, the Tiger battalion is usually to be positioned towards the front of the order of march.
2.The march routes are to be especially carefully chosen.
3.The Battalion Commander is responsible for thorough scouting. Scouting and construction of bridges, fords and narrows on the line of march are especially important. Exact study of maps and careful interpretation of available aerial photographs, as well as timely deployment of the Scouting and Combat Engineering Platoons, are necessary.
4.During long marches, the Tiger units are not to be integrated into other armored units, for technical reasons.
5.When crossing bridges, the capacity of which is unknown or suspect, the lighter tanks and their combat supplies are to cross before the Tigers.
6.The average speed of the march during the day is 10-15 kmph; during the night, 7-10 kmph.
7.Many maintenance halts are necessary during the march. Maintenance halts are to be ordered after the first 5km and every 10-15km thereafter.
8.Roads with hard surfaces and high crowns are to be avoided.

There's record of Tiger coy. completing about 100km speed march in 10 and half hours without any breakdown. Pretty impressive. But in the west they were often ping-ponged between the hotspots, forced to moved only by night of fear of air attacks on columns, had huge logistical footprints and required heavy recovery vehicles, crew were often too tired and maybe in some case too unfamiliar with the AFV to perform proper maintenance that you don't have time to perform anyway because Patton wants your skin... No kidding a simple thrown track could mean a lost tank.

In combat situations I guess it was not faster than 25-28 km/h and could be outflanked by medium tanks easily (and that's what happened to the Tiger II often).

Tigers were designed with a standoff policy in mind, meaning knocking out the enemy before he can retaliate at long range (over 1km). Sadly they were often used poorly according to their design. Leading an assault into a city or a forest still make the Tiger a formidable opponent, but not in an advantageous position. The Allies tried the flanking maneuver on Tigers, that's why the Tiger were working in team, one shooting, the second little behind waiting to take the enemy in ladening.
What was really outflanked (or bypassed) were the HARM battalions, since the german often concentrated their armors and the HARM do lack strategic speed or operational range to disengage itself. (yes they were zergrushed) German doctrine still though of "exploitation" and "fire brigade", but that both require what HARM really lack, range and autonomy. Even Guderian was always issuing directives that the Tigers should be used only in concentrations, with support and preparation to either fend off an attack, crush fortified positions or kill the tanks so the "mediums" could exploit. Those conditions weren't those Germany could find in 44/45.

[Fanboy]Early war Germany with worse AFV than everybody but better doctrines was kicking asses, late war with better AFV and worse doctrines it was still kicking asses.[/fanboy]


*Factor often exaggerated, the engineer took the average european bridge situation into consideration as the upper weight limit. And even then most bridges too weak for the tank was over small rivers easily fordable (KT could ford 2m deep), the Panther had a watertight engine compartment and few tigers even came with snorkel attachments. If it wasn't enough, the German standard 16ton bridge/pontoon was sturdy enough to accommodate the tank. In general crossing a river was more a tactical problem than a strategic one since tanks were moved via rail.

**The Allied had so much free sky they even canceled the single most awesome canadian AFV.

 

[1alexey]

That sort of makes sense in theory, but it doesn't really reflect the way Germany used the tank. If you use the Tiger II as a super-heavy, the player will be able to build both the Tiger and Tiger II at the same time, as they are different tank-variants for the game. The Germans however, stopped producing the Tiger and let the Tiger II play the exact same role as the Tiger did.

So?
You can produce/stop producing any kind of equipment in HOI4.
Also I don`t see a reason why "Super-heavy" tank would be used in a totally different way from heavy tank.

And quite frankly, the difference in weight between the Tiger and Tiger II is less than the difference between Panzer IV and Panther, both in relative and total numbers. In fact, the Panther is almost as heavy as the III and IV combined and very much comparable in weight to what has been classified as Soviet heavy tanks. The Tiger is a whole lot closer to the Panther than the IV is as well.

There was also Pershing, who had similar weight and it`s classification changed with time.
Also Centurion.

Medium tanks did get heavier over the span of war. Panzer 4 version A weighted only 18.4 tonne. The "final version" Panzer 4 J weighted 25 tonne, a 35% increase. T-34 was intended to replace BT-7, a 14 tonne tank. First prototypes of T-34 were in 19 tonne range. Final version, T-34-85 was 32 tonne, almost 128% increase over the previous generation, and it had same weight as French heavy tank, Char B1.

It is hardly surprising that the next "level" of medium tanks weighted much more than previous, and in line with previous heavy tanks. Soviets were similar, although their infrastructure didn`t really allow to move 60 tonne tanks around well, thus they never went for serious number of those, limiting themselves to less than 50 tonne tanks even during cold war.

 

[Opanashc]

First prototypes of T-34 were in 19 tonne range. Final version, T-34-85 was 32 tonne, almost 128% increase over the previous generation, and it had same weight as French heavy tank, Char B1.

T-34 weighed 26.5 tons when it went into production.

 

[scroggin]

True, that's why both German and Allied tests showed the Panther and Tiger had actually more mobility than the (much lighter) Sherman and cross-country speed rated at 20km/h. Thank advanced suspension and large tracks.

You would never expect the wee bogie wheels on a Sherman or the tiny ones on a Churchill to perform as well over rough ground at speed as the large track wheels on the Panthers and tigers.

 

[George Parr]

So?
You can produce/stop producing any kind of equipment in HOI4.
Also I don`t see a reason why "Super-heavy" tank would be used in a totally different way from heavy tank.

The point is that one is the successor of the other. Production of one was stopped because the other was "ready" for production. They were used in exactly the same way, by exactly the same units. By turning the Tiger II into a super-heavy tank, you pretty much ignore both the way production of the two tanks worked and the way they were used. With the way the game seems to be set up, the divisions will have some sort of heavy tank battalion/company/whatever, and heavy tanks will be given to these units from the stockpile. If the Tiger II isn't a heavy tank but a super-heavy instead, you would need to change the templates of the divisions to get them to use the Tiger II, which also means that any leftover Tigers would be returned to the stockpile because they are no super-heavies. The only other way would be that only new divisions would get Tiger IIs, which makes little sense. This directly contradicts the way the tanks were used and makes it impossible to use both tanks in the same role while production is shifting.

 

[Chromos]

I just want to note that most tanks of that time over 40 tons had big problems with reliability because used designs and used components were not up to carry that much weight. So ~40 was a barrier for the technology of that time. Beyond that weight you had to make much more compromise in terms of reliabilty, speed and additional armour/armament.
That is a reason for the interleaved wheels GER used for its heavies. Sure they use more maintenance and most other nations had not that much experience with such tech as GER had, but they allowed a vehicle to be more heavy with common produced components of that time. That way you could build a TigerII or Jagdtiger and have good cross country ablity.

If you do some research you will find out that all tanks of that time -and some after- did have that big reliability problems because of weight over 40 tons. Even with more classic designs and even the CW designs of IS and US heavies(M-103 anyone?) in th 50'ies had them.. Same to initial KV and french heavies. Without interleaved wheels you need to choose a more classic design wich will have other shortcommings. Pershing and Centurion had them too..
In that regard GER designs were quite fine if you compare that allies had at least the same severe problems without the later production limitations of GER.

Centurion Mk 1 was rather weak, with just 17 pdr and 80mm of sloped armor, it was more or less equivalent of Panther in both gun, protection and weight.

Centurion Mk 3 is outside of game`s time frame, afaik(1950+).

This is another point so many oversee, The famous Centurion was a CW design. The initial design of ww2 was kind of "meh", just a bit better as Black Prince Chruchill variant imho.


Another sidenotes:
Elephant/Ferdinand was done, because there where the old prototype chassis of Porsche Design for TigerI still unused.
So they thought of a usage for them and came out with a heavy TD. In that role "Ferdi" was quite good if used right.
It was more improvisation with what was at hand, then a new design of TD.
More in the way of Marder and such.



About TigerII:
There is not really much info out offcially about like combat reports. At least compared to other tanks.
But it was stated that even that big one was quite mobile if taken care of.
All can imagine that a ISU-152 would be able to at least disable TigerII if they hit them.
But I'm not aware of any battle report about such ever happened.
And outflanking is not that much matter of speed if all involved have around the same cross country speed. You need to have a Hellcat type of tank to get a big speed advantage. But overall more important is battlefield awareness/recon.



And if enemy has fallback positions and is defending his flanks, any outflanking maneuvres soley based on speed will very likely end very quick in disaster.
And GER ususally did cover flanks.. No wonder USA tankers wanted to get stronger(gun/armor) tanks that don't need to outflank, but could get head on with GER tanks.





For allied heavies overall:
Did someone mentioned already the USA design T-29:
105mm gun, 65 tons..

Or T-30:
155mm main gun, 72 tons..

Both ww2 designs because of experience with "GER kitties"..




While..

UK Tortoise

and US T-28

where special designs to overcome the GER Maginot line called Siegfried-Linie. A GER propaganda success..

 

[1alexey]

The point is that one is the successor of the other. Production of one was stopped because the other was "ready" for production. They were used in exactly the same way, by exactly the same units. By turning the Tiger II into a super-heavy tank, you pretty much ignore both the way production of the two tanks worked and the way they were used. With the way the game seems to be set up, the divisions will have some sort of heavy tank battalion/company/whatever, and heavy tanks will be given to these units from the stockpile. If the Tiger II isn't a heavy tank but a super-heavy instead, you would need to change the templates of the divisions to get them to use the Tiger II, which also means that any leftover Tigers would be returned to the stockpile because they are no super-heavies. The only other way would be that only new divisions would get Tiger IIs, which makes little sense. This directly contradicts the way the tanks were used and makes it impossible to use both tanks in the same role while production is shifting.

Still better than having the tech nobody will ever use, right?
I also fail to see why can`t heavy tank have Super-heavy tank as successor.
We don`t really know if there will be super-heavy tank battalions, I sure hope not.

 

[shri]

The Panther was unreliable because it was rushed in. After the issues with the suspension, engine and transmission were fixed it was a deadly efficient tank. Hitler should have waited 6-8 more months to let his engineers sort out the problems and THEN send the Panther to the front. Same goes for the Tiger. It was rushed in but when the problems the design had when it was first used were sorted out the Tiger was highly efficient in killing poor Shermans and T-34s. And for a design that could not be upgraded that much as the Panzer IV it was a success.

What killed the german tankforces was that the enemy had more tanks and personell to man them.

A different approach could have been to amass all the Tigers in 4-5 Tiger-Panzerdivisions (HArm Divisions in HoI III - I love them :3) as spearheads instead of just give every single panzerdivision only a few Tigers and have the incompetent Himmler most of them in his toy army. Imaging the units of Rokossovsky's Belorussian Front in Summer '44 facing the well hidden, nearly invulnerable sledgehammer to beat the crap out of their T-34/76/85s and Is-2s. Having 400-500 operational Tigers on the Ostfront is not that far fetched if the Tiger was only used there and not clustered all over the european theatre.

€:

The Tiger II is just a different matter. It weighs almost as much as two Panzer IV H and ate a lot of resources, maintainance capacity and fuel. It could not cross most bridges - especially in France and Italy - and if the engine broke or the tracks in combat, well - 80 tons immobile metal with a smoking engine are not useful when facing an enemy tank. Even if that monster was even more deadly than the Tiger I consider the Tiger II an overall design failure. Its flaws offset its main advantage: The 8,8 cm L71. That gun was just perfect in killing every enemy tank - including heavily armored tank destroyers.

These problems also count for the Ferdinand/Elefant, the Maus prot and the various design studies we can play in WoT (Löwe, E75, E100, Vk 45.02 A/B, etc).

Ok, we both agree that Tiger II and upwards were a total waste esp. those Tank Destroyers.
Now to your point- enemy had more tanks and personnel to man them, the problem was not in personnel, it was in tank production.
Which is coming back to my point, if you go by my theory for the cost in men and material to produce some 6500 Panthers, 1500 Tigers and about 1000 Tiger II + heavy tank destroyers you will get 20000 Tanks/Stugs, maybe like 12500 Stugs and 7500 Tanks. That means that you will have 2.2 times more tanks and guns.
Considering a 25% reduction due to lesser armament etc, you still have 1.5 times the firepower.
Till mid 1944, Germany:Russia kill ratio was approx. 4:1 in tanks. Most of these were with Stugs, PzIII and PzIV, at least 85% (i am adding AT gun kills also, most AT guns were smaller than the famed 88mm AAA gun).
This means you have more tanks and more actual tank divisions, also the fuel consumption being lesser, they can be supplied, no extra equipment needed to tow them (tiger required 2/3 Sdkfz to tow, PzIV was easy to tow and Stugs very easy to tow and great on the defensive due to low silhoutte)
So you use PzIV and stug in a 3:5 ratio, so each division of 150 tanks has some 60 PzIV and 90 Stugs, with PzIV getting the offensive jobs (much lesser in 1943 onward) and Stug being the killer in mobile defensive campaign (1943 onward); this means all enemy tanks except the IS series can be easily killed including T34 and Shermans.