In other words all the veterans stories how they encountered terrible Tiger tanks but somehow managed to take it out by clever tricks is utter fantasy. As well as Tiger fanatics who think Tigers caused terrible losses to American shermans or other tanks.
It seems that in all cases American vets were actually fighting against Panther tanks or panzer IV and not Tiger I..
You really should do a little research before you disparage combat veterans and make accusations regarding the truthfullness of their stories. You are correct that very few Tiger Is operated in US sectors and as a result there were few encounters between US tanks and the Tiger I. However the Tiger I was not the only model Tiger Tank fielded by the German Army in WWII. Had you spend the 5 seconds to google "Tiger Tank" you would have learned about the existence of the more powerful Tiger II which was used in relatively large numbers in US sectors. For example US forces faced 150 Tiger IIs during the Ardennes Offensive (a/k/a the Battle of the Bulge) in Dec of 1944. You also would have learned of another Tiger variant the JagdTiger which was a Tank destroyer mounted on a stretched Tiger II chassis and was equipped with the most powerful gun installed on an AFV in WWII, the 128mm . A battalion of these under command of Otto Carius were deployed against US forces as well.The point is when your hear or read accounts of US tankers encountering Tigers there are some cases of the tanks being misidentified but in most cases they are referring to the Tiger IIs, not the Tiger I.
The "Tiger fanatics" are correct. With and estimated 15-1 kill ratio on the Eastern Front and 10-1 on the Western front the Tigers inflicted heavy causalities on most types of Allied tanks.Fortunately they were mechanically unreliable,lacked mobility, their excessive weight often meant that Tigers with repairable damage could not me recovered and repaired, and Germany did not have the resources to logistically support the Tiger units and properly train their crews.As to Tiger I inflicting terrible losses on Shermans, the US was not the only country to operate Shermans, and the Tiger Is did inflict heavy losses on British and Canadian Shermans.
It is historically incorrect to have a Tiger I in this movie. There is an operating Tiger II in a museum in France, that would have been a much better choice.
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Hotrodder
7 years ago
Numerical superiority and the ease which knocked out tanks could be replaced was of little comfort to the crews that had to face Tigers and Panthers. Thankfully the Tigers were so few that it was a relatively rare occurrence. There are recorded instances of Allied tank crews simply abandoning their tanks when confronted by a Tiger. I for one find it difficult to condemn them. Even with regular German armour it was a struggle, the German tank crews were still well trained even at this late stage of the war and the attrition rate was high for the Allies but they as I said earlier had more tanks to replace those lost and less problems with manpower shortages. Simply put if the Germans lost a tank they found difficulty in replacing it and its crew.
Trust me. I know what I'm doing.
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Dave-R011
7 years ago
Actually, in most cases they were indeed misidentifying Panzer IVs and Panthers as Tigers. As for 150 King Tigers in the Bulge, there were only two Heavy Tank Units with about seventy Koenigstiger between them. I'm also quite dubious about that ten-to-one figure. Most Tigers were lost without firing a shot due to breakdown and few engagements seem to have been that one sided outside the ones in Normandy where charging British, Polish, and Canadian tanks were roughly treated indeed by well sited Panzers and AT guns in flanking positions.
As for using Bovington's Tiger I instead of Namur's Tiger II, they used what they could get. Bovington let them usde their vehicle. Namur did not. They're lucky they didn't have to use a VISMOD or repaint a Challenger. Nor is using a Tiger I ahistorical. Tiger Is were still in service until the end of the war, though obviously in much reduced numbers. It is quite feasible for a US tank unit to have engaged one even if it did not happen in real life. After all, none of this happened in real life.
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