The Tiger, though, was not intended as a match for those tanks, but to be superior to them. The vehicle itself was created as a relatively hasty development spurred by the shock of encountering the Soviet heavy tank KV-1 and medium tank T-34 following Operation Barbarossa (the invasion of the Soviet Union) in 1941.
The Tiger I, or ‘ Panzerkampfwagen Tiger Ausführung E’ (Pz.Kpfw.Tiger Ausf.E), was born in May 1942, but its conception and development can be traced directly back to 19 with work on a 30-33 tonne tank by the firm of Henschel und Sohn in Kassel. The White shield on the front left corner identifies this vehicle as ‘131’ which had been captured in Tunisia and brought back to the UK for extensive examination.
The Tiger as described in a British School of Tank Technology (STT) Report 1944. Yet, despite its flaws and problems, the tank remains a potent symbol of WW2 and, for many, it is the tank which served as their introduction to the world of armored fighting vehicles. It is a tank with many flaws and one whose mystique, even back in WW2, was out of all proportion to its utility and service as a combat vehicle. It is the one tank most people can name, even if they have little or no real interest in tanks.įrom the early days of combat against this tank in WW2 until the present day, the fame of the Tiger spans, in equal amounts, its real development history, combat performance, and fandom. Nothing epitomises armored conflict to the general public like its massive structure on the battlefield.
There is no other tank in AFV history which has captured the popular imagination more than the Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger Sd.Kfz.181 of WW2.
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