Originally posted by Bodhi
KV-1 would be a nice alternative.
THe funny thing is this. I have read an awful lot about the Tiger series. Carius, Wittman (war interviews), and many others had lots to say about the great attributes of the Tiger, especially that it was tough, could take almost anything to the front, and that the "mechanical unreliabilty" was just not true. They also shed some interesting light on the bad attributes, such as the lack of a decent tow vehicles forcing tigers to tow other tigers that caused strain on the tranny and subsequent failures, the inability to go onto soft ground, the lack of thick top armour (this is how Wittman got nailed by a Typhoon and the Western Front achieved most Tiger kills this way) and that the Tiger had poor outside visibilty, along with component replacement being severly diffciult owing to the necessity to remove the turret to do tranny and drive train work.
Most everyone thinks that the Tiger is a wonder weapon, and I disagree 100%, it was a good weapon when employed with heavy infantry support, and for ambush as it's range (with ability to penetrate) far exceeded anything until late in the war. But, it was also vulnerable from the rear, the sides could be penetrated and air attack proved to be it's nemesis.
All in all the Tiger is a good weapon, and it's weapon should penetrate ANYTHING on the ground in AH with impunity, but it does not, as those who know it have found out, probably for game play reasons, and the lack of killabilty from the top is probably another reason of playability.
A few points I'd like to add.
The 80mm side and rear armor of Tiger I is only 20mm thinner than its front armor. So any great vulnerability from the sides isnt that much greater than the front. In this respect the Tiger is far superior to lets say Panther which has very strong frontal armor but rather weak side and rear.
The Tiger turret top armor was thickened to 40mm. Oddly enough according to the data I have this wasnt to defeat air attacks, it was a counter to soviet artillery which was able to crack the thinner plates by dropping in fire on the tanks. Its intresting how you meantion Tigers and infantry support. Infantry got spooked and lost confidence when a great invulnerable Tiger was knocked out by artillery and this was apparently one of the key reasons the roof was reinforced. It was so common that the troops even came up with a fancy german compound noun for this type of reaction.
Nobody knows for sure what killed Michael Wittman's Tiger 007, there are both RAF Typhoon and Sherman Firefly partisans here. It's very likely that Wittmans late model Tiger had the thicker top armor.
There are some reports that air attack claims against tanks are wildly overstated and that the US military found little evidence of great numbers of tanks killed from the air after the normandy fighting.
Yep the turret removal for transmission service was a pain, especially since it required that huge gantry setup.
As far as Tiger I being a wonder weapon, perhaps the best comment on that was something I saw like this from 1944.
"No longer could a Tiger I drive up to a ridge line to observe the enemy with impunity as it would likely be on the receving end of a killing 122mm JS II russian heavy tank rund"
When introduced in late 1942 the Tiger 1 was practically immune to the common tank guns in all reasonable ranges but of course that did not last for long.
Finally you mentined KV1, this certainly had many of the steotypical traits of Tiger especially when faced with 37mm and 50mm armed Panzer III in 1941.. The stories of single KV1 or KV2 holding up entire panzer divisions for days..
But it was very slow, very unreliable, very heavy and only monted the 76mm gun and it was ultimately supplanted by the T34. Much in the same way Tiger I was outdone by Panther IMO..
Oh yea and about the JS II russian heavy tank.
The front armor would be all but impenetrable to all the ccurrent AH2 guns - even the Tigers at everyuting except very very close range. The side armor would be as thick or thicker as Tiger I frontal armor. It would be very slow and sluggish, slower than Tiger. It would only hold 38 rds of 122mm ammo. This was 2 part ammo, with seperate shell and propellant charge so reloading would be very slow, even slower than the T34 we have now. Its gun would allow Tiger 1 frontal kills at ranges exceeding 1000 meters.
