Tiger Specifications

[Pongo]

M8 can only kill them cause the tiger starts rocking so bad.
Panzer IV H should not be something that a tiger 1 ignores frontaly. It can in the game.

[Tony Williams]

Originally posted by MiloMorai
some historical fact:

One of, if not, the first Tiger knocked out and captured by the British in Africa was hit with 57mm AT rounds. One can view this Tiger at Bovington.

Detailed data on 57mm/6pdr penetration is here: http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/Molins.htm

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion
forum

[Urchin]

I've killed Tigers in a Panzer at less than 1,000 yards shooting into their front armor.  On the other hand, I have never ever killed a Tiger with an M8... I've pumped 50 rounds into the rear end of a couple of them once someone else disabled thier turrets, and nothing.  This is from literally point blank range.  

I did find some penetration data on the 37mm gun the M8 uses- even shooting AP rounds the M8 could not penetrate any armor on the Tiger at any range (except for the top armor, which would likely take a bit of work).  So it does appear that the M8 is modelled correctly vis a vis the Tiger.

[rshubert]

I finally got a response from the folks at the RAF museum, and here is the gist of it:

From: Guy Revell [mailto: guy.revell@rafmuseum.org]
To: rshubert@excite.com
Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 14:46:22 +0100
Subject: Reply from RAF Museum Re: Hispano 20mm cannon AP properties

RAFM/32/6/GR

Mr. R. Shubert
Newburgh
Indiana
47630
USA
28th May 2003

Dear Mr. Shubert,

Thank you for your enquiry which was received on 14th April 2003. You wished
to receive information relating to the armour piercing properties of the
20mm Hispano-Suiza cannon as fitted to RAF aircraft of the Second World War.
The penetrative effects of the gun were obviously dependent on the
ammunition type used, but the thickest armour that I can find reference to
as being pierced by a 20mm round is 18mm. This is obviously short of the
25mm mentioned in your enquiry.

The 20mm cannon was originally intended for air-to-air combat work, and
ground strafing was a secondary consideration. Indeed it was not until June
1940 that the Air Staff started to look at the potential of attacking tanks
with aircraft and 20mm was declared to be too lightweight. It was this which
led to the development of the 40mm Vickers 'S' gun for use on the Hurricane
IID which entered operational service in June 1942. I hope that I have been
able to assist you with your research.

Yours sincerely,

GUY REVELL

[Arlo]

Originally posted by Fridaddy
The main problem I have had is there is no way AH can (without massive recoding of the program) allow for hits to do damage in the area hit. IE I have hit a Tiger in the treads w/ a 37mm. In RL it would take out the tread and immobilise (sp) the tank, not here. Also in the same engagement I hit the barrel, that would destroy the barrel, again not here.
 

Which is curious since I can target a wing root or the tail of an aircraft and do damage to a specific area. *scratches head*

[Chairboy]

Very odd indeed, seeing as how the only effective way to use the M8 against heavy armor is to target specific areas (like the turret, engine compartment, etc.

I think the poster that suggested AH doesn't model location specific damage is quite mistaken.

[Urchin]

I'm not sure it is THAT specific.  For instance, hitting one of the wheels with a 37mm AP round from an M8 would probably (I hope) immobilize the Tiger.  At least if it was one of the big ones (and no, I ain't got a clue what they are called).  However, you can shoot those all day long and it may take 10 rounds to knock out the tread, or it may never happen at all.  

Similarly, you can aim a round at the barrel of the gun and more than likely not disable it, since it is counted as part of the turret and the M8 cannot penetrate the turret armor from any facing.  I've never disabled the turret on a Tiger with an M8, and I've tried numerous times.  I disabled the engine once, but even that shouldn't be possible if the penetration data I found for the 37mm on the M8 is accurate.

[Staga]

Urchin because of those overlapping roadwheels the weight of the Tiger was spreaded in wide area and losing the outer wheel (maybe inner one too) wasn't anything you couldn't handle.

Actually the outer wheels were removed and thinner transportation tracks were installed when tank was moved by train or in road marches.

Installing wider tracks:

[davidpt40]

I did find some penetration data on the 37mm gun the M8 uses- even shooting AP rounds the M8 could not penetrate any armor on the Tiger at any range (except for the top armor, which would likely take a bit of work). So it does appear that the M8 is modelled correctly vis a vis the Tiger.

Actually someone posted a while ago a story about an M8 destroying a tiger in real life.  Fired a shot from less than 50m at rear of tiger and the tiger caught fire.

[Rutilant]

For certain, there is some sort of variable or control that dictates the survivability of a Tiger..

You say a rocket can't kill a Tiger.. I've been killed by a single HVAR rocket from a pony, front armor 45 degree angle.

Yet I've emptied 4 RS-182(?) IL-2 rockets on a Tiger, two of which were direct hits, one from the front and one from the side )there were hit sprites) and the thing wasnt even detracked.
I've seen tigers take 2 (count em) 2 Stuka 1800kg bombs.

Some will argue it matters where you hit the tigers.. but bombs have a blast radius, and one of those bombs were about 3 meters off target. All it did was blow a track.

So.. Pyro? HiTech? What gives?

[Regurge]

I've diabled lots of tigers with the M8. 3 hits, point blank and directly into the rear turret does it every time for me.

I've also killed the turret by running circles around them to keep out of the big gun. It took alor more hits but I occasionally got penetrating side and front hits.

[hazed-]

That m8 that killed the tiger set fire to the fuel which on Tigers was notoriously leaky.

The tiger was well known for being almost impossible to penetrate.You can find stories of 75mm shots bouncing off even within 100 yards.
One quite famous Tiger ace managed to kill an entire convoy of shermans. I cant recall the name but I know when the tank was eventually killed the allies found over 120 shots had hit the tiger and all had failed to penetrate.The tiger didnt become infamous for no reason.Another story tells of how a tiger was ravaging a british tank platoon and was only disabled when a incredibly lucky shot wedged the shell under the gun mount and jammed in there thus making traverse impossible and the crew bailed out.
That being said no armour was impregnable.If you go to the Imperial war museum in london you will see a Jagdpanther with incredibly thick armour and right through the side near the engine compartment there are several holes.They look like someone has burned a red hot poker through it.Amazing when you put your hand in and feel the steel.
 The Russians found a simple way to deal with them too and that was a molotov cocktail onto the rear engine compartment, again showing the fuel leakage was an achilles heel for the tigers.They destroyed quite a few this way which led to orders not to use tigers in situations where infantry could get close enough to use them like cities and towns.

[AGJV44_Rot 1]

Wittman hazed, God of all Tankers.

[Raven101]

hey all you guys thing is tiger is killable but not that easy, thing is that it is a tank destroyer,assult vehicle, abush weapon and so on. So thier armored in the front not in the back a 20-37 mil. in the back will cripple it. Because i had ounce been shot there aint good and also playin' Close combat:A bridge too far and Close Combat:The Russain Front. So as my philosophie "Onward Soldier." P.S. good hunt'n.

[Staga]

Originally posted by Raven101

So thier armored in the front not in the back a 20-37 mil. in the back will cripple it.

Dream on. Tigers had 80mm armour in their backs too, only lower hull sides were 60mm but even those areas were mostly protected by overlapping roadwheels (eight axles; three pretty strong steelrims per axle).

U.S 37L/52 cannon (2900fps veloc.) could penetrate 78mm from 100meters at 0 degree impact angle so killing a Tiger with "Greyhound" would be almost impossible.

German KwK40 75L/48 (PzIV-G) with APCBC round could penetrate 109mm from 1000m at 0 degr.angle and 123mm from 500meters so PzIV should be able to perforate a Tiger even from front if range is less than 1km and shot is fired straight against frontal armour (100mm at Tiger).

Anyway AH is a flightsim and it's good at that; if you want to play a game which is using more CPU cycles to calculate penetrations, velocities and damages round is producing than whole AH is taking there's always wwiiol. All you need is at least 1,5GHz computer with 768m-1Gb RAM.