Tiger I is the common name of a German heavy tank developed in 1942 and used in World War II. The final official German designation was Panzerkampfwagen Tiger Ausf. E, often shortened to Tiger. It was an answer to the unexpectedly formidable Soviet armour encountered in the initial months of Operation Barbarossa, particularly the T-34 and the KV-1. The Tiger I design gave the Wehrmacht its first tank mounting the 88 mm gun, which had previously demonstrated its effectiveness against both air and ground targets. During the course of the war, the Tiger I saw combat on all German battlefronts. It was usually deployed in independent tank battalions, which proved to be quite formidable.
While the Tiger I was feared by many of its opponents, it was over-engineered, used expensive and labour intensive materials and production methods, and was time-consuming to produce. Only 1,347 were built between August 1942 and August 1944. The Tiger was prone to certain types of track failures and immobilisations, it was however, generally mechanically reliable but expensive to maintain and complicated to transport due to its overlapping and interleaved road wheels. In 1944, production was phased out in favour of the Tiger II.
The tank was given its nickname Tiger by Ferdinand Porsche, and the Roman numeral was added after the later Tiger II entered production. The initial official German designation was Panzerkampfwagen VI Ausführung H (‘Panzer VI version H’, abbreviated PzKpfw VI Ausf. H), but the tank was redesignated as PzKpfw VI Ausf. E in March 1943. It also had the ordnance inventory designation SdKfz 181.
Today, only a handful of Tigers survive in museums and exhibitions worldwide. Perhaps the most notable specimen is the Bovington Tank Museum's Tiger 131, currently the only one restored to running order.
| Panzerkampfwagen Tiger Ausf. E | |
|---|---|
| Type | Heavy tank |
| Place of origin |  Nazi Germany |
| Service history | |
| In service | 1942–1945 |
| Wars | World War II |
| Production history | |
| Designer | Henschel & Son |
| Designed | 1941 |
| Manufacturer | Henschel |
| Unit cost | 250,800 RM |
| Produced | 1942–1944 |
| Number built | 1,347 |
| Specifications | |
| Weight | 56.9 tonnes or 62.72 tons |
| Length | 6.29 m (20 ft 8 in) 8.45 m (27 ft 9 in) (gun forward) |
| Width | 3.55 m (11 ft 8 in) |
| Height | 3.0 m (9 ft 10 in) |
| Crew | 5 |
| | |
| Armour | 25–120 mm (0.98–4.7 in) |
| Main armament | 1× 8.8 cm KwK 36 L/56 92 rounds (106 and 120 rounds for some modifications) |
| Secondary armament | 2× 7.92 mm Maschinengewehr 34 4,800 rounds |
| Engine | Maybach HL230 P45 (V-12 petrol) 700 PS (690.4 hp, 514.8 kW) |
| Power/weight | 12.3 PS/tonne |
| Suspension | torsion bar |
| Operational range | 110–195 km (68–121 mi) |
| Speed | 38 km/h (24 mph) |
The Tiger differed from earlier German tanks principally in its design philosophy. Its predecessors balanced mobility, armour and firepower, and were sometimes outgunned by their opponents.
The Tiger I represented a new approach that emphasised firepower and armour. While heavy, this tank was not slower than the best of its opponents. However, with over 50 metric tons dead weight, suspensions, gearboxes and other such items had clearly reached their design limits and breakdowns were frequent. Design studies for a new heavy tank had been started in 1937, without any production planning. Renewed impetus for the Tiger was provided by the quality of the Soviet T-34 encountered in 1941. Although the general design and layout were broadly similar to the previous medium tank, the Panzer IV, the Tiger weighed more than twice as much. This was due to its substantially thicker armour, the larger main gun, greater volume of fuel and ammunition storage, larger engine, and more solidly-built transmission and suspension.
Armour
The Tiger I had frontal hull armour 100 mm (3.9 in) thick and frontal turret armour of 120 mm (4.7 in), as opposed to the 80 mm (3.1 in) frontal hull and 50 mm (2 in) frontal turret armour of contemporary models of the Panzer IV. It also had 60 mm (2.4 in) thick hull side plates and 80 mm armour on the side superstructure and rear, turret sides and rear was 80 mm. The top and bottom armour was 25 mm (1 in) thick; from March 1944, the turret roof was thickened to 40 mm (1.6 in). Armour plates were mostly flat, with interlocking construction. The armour joints were of high quality, being stepped and welded rather than riveted.
The nominal armour thickness of the Tiger was reaching up to 200 mm at the mantlet.
Gun
The gun's breech and firing mechanism were derived from the famous German "88" dual purpose flak gun. The 88 mm KwK 36 L/56 gun was the variant chosen for the Tiger and was, along with the Tiger II's 88 mm KwK 43 L/71, one of the most effective and feared tank guns of World War II. The Tiger's gun had a very flat trajectory and extremely accurate Leitz Turmzielfernrohr TZF 9b sights (later replaced by the monocular TZF 9c). In British wartime firing trials, five successive hits were scored on a 16 by 18 in (410 by 460 mm) target at a range of 1,200 yards (1,100 m). Tigers were reported to have knocked out enemy tanks at ranges greater than 2.5 miles (4,000 m), although most World War II engagements were fought at much shorter ranges. Triangulation (range finding) equipment was not yet available, so tank crews had a vested interest in approaching the enemy as closely and as fast as possible.
Ammunition used
- PzGr. 39 (armour-piercing, capped, ballistic cap)
- PzGr. 40 (armour-piercing, composite rigid)
- Hl. Gr. 39 (high explosive anti-tank)
- sch. Sprgr. Patr. L/4.5 (incendiary shrapnel)
Engine and drive
The rear of the tank held an engine room flanked by two separate rear compartments each containing a fuel tank, radiator, and fans. The Germans had not developed an adequate diesel engine, so a petrol (gasoline) powerplant had to be used. Engine was a 21-litre (1282 cu.in.) 12-cylinder Maybach HL 210 P45 with 650 PS (641 hp, 478 kW). Although a good engine, it was inadequate for the vehicle. From the 250th Tiger, it was replaced by the uprated HL 230 P45 (23 litres/1410 cuin) with 700 PS (690 hp, 515 kW). The engine was in V-form, with two cylinder banks at 60 degrees. An inertial starter was mounted on its right side, driven via chain gears through a port in the rear wall. The engine could be lifted out through a hatch on the hull roof.
The engine drove front sprockets, which were mounted quite low. The eleven-tonne turret had a hydraulic motor whose pump was powered by mechanical drive from the engine. A full rotation took about a minute. The suspension used sixteen torsion bars, with eight suspension arms per side. To save space, the swing arms were leading on one side and trailing on the other. There were three road wheels on each arm, giving a good cross-country ride. The wheels had a diameter of 800 mm (31 in) and were overlapped and interleaved. Removing an inner wheel that had lost its tire (a common occurrence) therefore required the removal of up to nine outer wheels. The wheels could also become packed with mud or snow that could then freeze. Eventually, a new 'steel' wheel design, closely resembling those on the Tiger II, with an internal tire was substituted, and which like the Tiger II, were only overlapped, and not interleaved.
To support the considerable weight of the Tiger, the tracks were an unprecedented 725 mm (28.5 in) wide. To meet rail-freight size restrictions, the outer row of wheels had to be removed and special 520 mm (20 in) wide transport tracks installed. With a good crew, a track change took 20 minutes.
Another new feature was the Maybach-Olvar hydraulically-controlled semi-automatic pre-selector gearbox. The extreme weight of the tank also required a new steering system. The clutch-and-brake system, typical for lighter vehicles, was retained only for emergencies. Normally, steering depended on a double differential, Henschel's development of the British Merritt-Brown system. The vehicle had an eight-speed gearbox, and the steering offered two fixed radii of turns on each gear, thus Tiger had sixteen different radii of turn. In first gear, at a speed of a few km/h, the minimal turning radius was 3.44 meters (11.28 ft). In neutral gear, the tracks could be turned in opposite directions, so the Tiger I pivoted in place. There was an actual steering wheel and the steering system was easy to use and ahead of its time.
Fording system
The Tiger tank was too heavy for small bridges, so it was designed to ford four-meter deep water. This required unusual mechanisms for ventilation and cooling when underwater. At least 30 minutes of set-up was required, with the turret and gun being locked in the forward position, and a large snorkel tube raised at the rear. The two rear compartments (each containing a fuel tank, radiator, and fans) were floodable. Only the first 495 units were fitted with this deep fording system; all later models were capable of fording only two meters.
Crew compartment
The internal layout was typical of German tanks. Forward was an open crew compartment, with the driver and radio-operator seated at the front on either side of the gearbox. Behind them the turret floor was surrounded by panels forming a continuous level surface. This helped the loader to retrieve the ammunition, which was mostly stowed above the tracks. Two men were seated in the turret; the gunner to the left of the gun, and the commander behind him. There was also a folding seat on the right for the loader. The turret had a full circular floor and 157 cm headroom.
Cost
A major problem with the Tiger was that it used too many resources in terms of manpower and material. During the Second World War, over 58,000 American Shermans and 36,000 Soviet T-34s were produced, compared to 1,347 Tiger Is and 492 Tiger IIs. The German designs were expensive in terms of time, raw materials and Reichsmarks, the Tiger I costing over twice as much as a contemporary Panzer IV and four times as much as a StuG III assault gun. The closest counterpart to the Tiger from the United States was the M26 Pershing (around 200 deployed during the war) and IS-2 from the USSR (about 3,800 built during the war).
Although a formidable design, the low number produced, shortages in qualified crew and the considerable fuel requirement in a context of ever shrinking resources prevented the Tigers from having a real impact on the war.
