king tiger or sherman? (old school)

8THIDJackson

k tiger or sherman?? like the sherman, its faster and its got a flamethrower inside, but its got a crappy canon

JaCkSoN-

jpwolf

one on one, tactics equal, cannon wins

kuhlewulf

I hate to say it but the US tankers in the Sherm's were lucky the Germans didn't cross train, and ran out of gas.

James

Whats next? A ban on automatic transmissions?

Gibbs505

The tigers, eithr one, ATE shermans for lunch.

The nickname the shermans crewsa had for their tank was "Ronson".

That was the brand name for a popular cigeratte lighter of the time. The Gremans called the sherman "Tommy Cookers"

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

DancesWithSheep

Cannibalism or freeze-dried foods? (the thinking man's larder).

gruntled

The German panzers had the advantage in armor & armament but they were underpowered & prone to mechanical breakdown. They also had the major problem of trying to hide them from our aircraft.
When considering our armor you must take into account that they had to be loaded on ships, taken across the ocean & then landed from relatively small vessels.
In the final determination it would not be unfair to consider the
T-34/85 to perhaps have been the best comromise of them all. Good gun, good armor, reliable, easy to repair, diesel engine, great roadability & simple to train people to use & maintain. May not have been equal to the later German panzers one-on-one but they usually had a big advantage in numbers.

nord

King Tiger - Powerful gun, thick hide, diesel, excellent radios, imposing in just about every way. But... Prone to breakdown, somewhat difficult to repair, few in number, and not designed for operations in the confines of western Europe. Just too big!

Sherman - Lackluster gun, thin hide, gasser, mediocre radios, and electric turret. But... Fast, easy to repair, better suited to the terrain of France, Belgium and western Germany, and LOTS OF THEM.

T-34 - You might say a crude vehicle with most of the attributes of the Tiger and Sherman combined. Communications were poor at best, but this may have been the most successful tank of the war.

In many ways the Russin MBT's of today are merely a variant of the T-34. Better all the way around, but built on the principle of simplicity, ease of maintenance, and reliability... And numbers.

On the other hand it might be said that our M-1 is a well-developed Tiger sibling. A fast, reliable, hi-tech machine with a powerful gun and the ability to strike under conditions that are impossible for others. So far the M-1 has proved itself the best of the best.

Nord

Iconoclast

The King Tiger, with its 128mm cannon, was huge, clumsy and heavy. Easily outmaneuvered and vulnerable to air attack, it was of limited value, but any AFV which came into its sights was toast . . . which creates its legend, but that's all it was, a legend. Actually, I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Panzer V, the Panther. It doesn't have the cachet of the Tiger in myth, but it was much faster / more maneuverable, well armored and overall the best tank produced by any combatant in WW2. In fact, they remained a serious MBT well into the 1950s. The T34/85 was another excellent tank. The Sherman was better than anything the Japs, Italians or frogs fielded and on a par with the better British tanks. But it was out-classed by even the later versions of the Panzer IV in a one - on - one fight. Fortunately for us, the Germans had limited resources to supply and maintain their armored units due to the air war. So they were generally outnumbered, short of fuel and subject to air attack. The decision to defeat Germany first was crucial to the Allied victory in WW2, as was the massive force of the USSR. A German armaments industry relatively unhampered by the USAAF & RAF raids might have turned out enough technically superior weaponry to carry the day. Except for infantry weapons (Garand v. M98) and heavy bombers, the German weapons were technically superior to those of the Allies in virtually every category. As I've said before in this forum, the argument can be made that we were lucky to have a madman such as Hitler opposing us. The German military had predicated its war plans to launch hostilities in 1942-4 (depending on the source of the data). A more calculating leader, staying clear of Poland and the USSR, keeping Mussolini in check in the Balkans, prepared to launch amphibious operations against Britain, putting Germany's economy on a war footing immediately after the declaration of war (as the Allies did) instead of waiting five years, etc., would have been an even more formidable danger.

ndbilly

Didn't the Germans develop a prototype of a "Super Sized" Tiger? Never made but a few of them. So heavy that it could only manuever on paved roads or concrete? Anybody?

8THIDJackson

er... a king tiger? hence the name of the post. and whats you guys favorite plane in WWII (im a fanatic) bomber- b-17 fighter- folke wolf its a kraut plane but its fast and its got a canon on it, and its easy to menuever with

JaCkSoN-

8THIDJackson

but if i had to chose and american plane, i love the lightning it can ake a punch and its fast, used with against the japs, and shot down yamamotoes plane

8THIDJackson

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ruger 10 22

i like the p-51 its fast and it really helped with the tank busting, it was so sweet its looked awsome with the d-day stripes on the bottom of it

ndbilly

No, bigger than the King Tiger and never in production.

jonk

Not a fair comparison. Two different classes. A better one would be M26 Pershing vs. King Tiger, or PzKW IVF or later vs. Sherman.

But that said, my thoughts:

The Tiger and King Tiger tanks were designed as breakthrough tanks. In this roll they excelled. They were meant to do just what the name implies- break the enemy line in one or two spots and allow faster cross country medium tanks to pour through. If the Germans had had unlimited fuel supplies for their Battle of the Bulge offensive, things may have gone much worse for the Allies. For a defensive role, either one was a real killer if any enemy vehicles moved into range. However, there were a host of problems. Mainly with the engine. If the Germans had had a reliable engine of twice the power and transmission to boot, the King Tiger would have been unstoppable- except perhaps from the air. I would wager a King Tiger could still be an imposing presence on the battlefield today. other than the engine and fuel situations, problems included supply in general, repair, production, etc. etc. The Panther V was a much better overall tank, as it had the punch to act in a breakout roll and then to advance. If germany had had them in 41...

the Sherman was a great tank in any roll EXCEPT against the Germans. Later versions of the tank had a better gun, but armor was always an issue. But easy to maintain and produce.

The germans (and the US incidentally) did experimetn with super heavy tanks. The poorly named "Maus" comes to mind.

"...hit your enemy in the belly, and kick him when he is down, and boil his prisoners in oil- if you take any- and torture his women and children. Then people will keep clear of you..." -Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher, speaking at the Hague Peace Conf

Xracer

The many faults of the Sherman are well known....but we had lots of 'em, they were fairly quick and maneuverable, reliable, easily repaired in the field, and, while not a super "tank vs. tank" weapon, it was a great infantry support vehicle.

OTH, the King Tiger was virtually useless. So big that most road bridges of the day couldn't support it's weight, it had to be hauled to the battle scene by rail....which was highly suseptible to air interdiction. It was also very complex, required a huge number of man-hours to manufacture, unreliable, and very thirsty....at a time when the Germans were desperately short of fuel supply.

Another of Adolph's "Bright Idea Secret Weapons", like using the ME 262 as a bomber.

The Dunedan

Agree with what others have said; give me a Panther or T-34 any day. The Tiger had the better armament in terms of range and multi-role capability, but the Panther's 75mm HV gun was more than equal to anything else on the battlefield inside 600 meters, which is where much of the figting after D-Day took place. The Tiger was an offensive weapon, which was designed to operate under friendly air cover. Forced into a defensive posture, lacking air superiority, it was a handicap. However, Bastogne showed us what it -could- have done, properly used.
Had the Tiger been deployed under Rommel in N. Africa, where it's longer-range gun could have been truly exploited, things would have been -UGLY- for Monty and Patton, but against Rommel's urgings the Tiger and Panther were pre-allocated to Europe, and Rommel had to face Montgomery's Mathilda formations with Panzer-3 and -4 models, which were totally unsuited to the long range shooting of the desert.

Stand up and fight, or lie down and die; for it is better to burn than to ever fade away.

PATBUZZARD

I would have to side with the King Tiger or any of the Tiger variants for that matter. The Sherman was easily overmatched by the german tanks. As I heard a former tiger commander say on the History Channel, the only reason the sherman was effective is because we had so many of them, the krauts would knock out one and 11 more would roll over the hill. Numbers were the Sherman's best advantage, that and it's ability to run away...

Patrick Buzzard
US Army National Guard
19K-- tanker
"Strike Hard!!"

Gibbs505

The English version of the Sherman with the HV 17lbr (76mm) gun was much better and a match for most german tanks. Still was vunderable though!

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

ndbilly

Thanks, jonk. Knew I had read about those super heavyweights somewhere.

chunkstyle

Don't forget the Russian IS-III ("Stalin")! This super heavy tank soldiered on in the Soviet service well into the 1970's, simply because there was nothing that could replace it. Though built in the exceedingly simple Russian way, further simplified in wartime, this monster outmatched anything the Germans threw against it. The downside, as usual, had more to do with poor tactical utilization and a lack of even barely qualified technicians to service it. Many of the design principles discovered with this machine are still in use today, much the same as the T-34.

"Go to Lakedaemon, stranger passing by;
And say there, that in obedience to her law, here we lie"