BirthME, Doulas

The decision was based on a maneuverability test, and on the fact that the Henschel prototype was more conventional: cheaper and easier to produce than the extravagant Porsche design. The armour though does not hold up to its historical value because the direct competitors of this tank were designed to counter the tiger (IS, T29, etc.). The Henschel prototype received the designation VK 45.01 (H). In May 1941, the German general staff demanded a new Kampfwagen Kanone (Tank Gun) specification for the Tiger; it had to be capable of penetrating 140 mm thick armor at a range of 1,000 meters, without specifying that the caliber had to be 88mm. We're Redditors with a passion for gaming, tanks, and everything in between! Another fact that helped the Tigers a lot was the "shatter gap" effect which affected allied ammunition, a most unusual situation where rounds with too-high an impact velocity would sometimes fail, even though their penetration capability was (theoretically) more than adequate. Hulls, turrets, and other contract items and assemblies were brought into the assembly building where final machining operations and detail assembling were done. The long and powerful 88 mm KwK 36 L/56 could out-range and out-shoot nearly all Allied tanks, and this allowed the Tiger I to stand off and engage targets as it chose. Christopher W. Wilbeck, in "Sledgehammers: Strengths and Flaws of Tiger Heavy Tank Battalions in World War II", citing the Tigerfibel (the Tiger's manual), states that the final cost of the Tiger's production was much higher - 800,000 Reichsmarks, and 300,000 man-hours were required to produce one single Tiger. It took me several games to get the top radio and tracks, and several more to get the top engine. The weight of the Tiger (the combat weight was 57 tons) was too much for the German transmissions available at the time. The length of the shell from where the breech sat in the turret the shell was longer than the entry of the breech to the turret aft. cit.

This process led in a heavy logistical burden on the Tiger units, as they had to necessarily maintain two sets of tracks for each tank (WILBECK, Christopher W., op cit). cit. The overall ratio for all Tiger battalions is a respectable 5.74 to 1 kill ratio. Thomas L. Jentz, in "Germany's Tiger Tanks: Vol.1 - D.W. to Tiger I" (Schiffer, 2000), presents a list of official names given to the Tiger I, ordered by date, from 1941 to 1944:
In 80 percent of the cases, shots from the same range hitting the side of the hull toward the rear of the tank resulted in the fuel tanks exploding. Both Tigers were hit (mainly by 76.2 mm armor-piercing shells) 10 or more times at ranges from 500 to 1,000 meters. The Tiger I, with its 88 KwK 36 L/56 gun, coupled with superior optics, could accurately hit targets at ranges the enemy could not even aim at.

In fact, at certain conditions of shots overmatching the plate, the cosine rule is broken and the plate resists less-well than the simple cosine relationship would predict (LOS thickness is greater than effective thickness). Not a single Tiger was still operational on the evening of 14 January. However, its interesting to note that according to the kill/losses achived by the Tiger battalions, the overall ratio was 5.74 to 1 (WILBECK, Christopher W., op cit). The Gr.39 HL (Hohlgranate) based on the hollow charge principle (HEAT), was less accurate and much less destructive than the APCBC rounds, but could be carried in place of the HE rounds and used either to combat armor or as effective high-explosive ammunition against soft targets.
Rail movement of Tigers, however, involved more complications, because special cars were required to transport Tigers, and the tracks were too wide for rail transport: narrower ones were fitted for normal road and railway transport, where the outer set of road wheels was also removed. These tables should be used only for comparison of the relative vulnerability of the opponent's tanks. It was also difficult to transport, and vulnerable to immobilization when mud, ice and snow froze between its overlapping and interleaved road wheels in winter weather conditions, often jamming them solid. From April 1944 on, the monocular Turmzielfernrohr 9c (sighting telescope) replaced the binocular Turmzielfernrohr 9b. However, there were certain factors that stopped this proposal from being carried out. The Tiger's engine, the Maybach HL 210 P45, was a V-12 water-cooled gasoline engine with a capacity of 21.33 liters and a power output of 650 bhp at 3,000 rpm. The outcome was low operational mobility as a result of those problems, which meant that Tiger units frequently had a very limited radius of action. This phenomenon plagued the British 2 pounder in the desert, and would have decreased the effectiveness of U.S. 76mm and 3" guns against Tigers, Panthers, and other vehicles with armor thickness above 70 mm. On a side note I have Enhanced Gun Laying Drive and Vertical Stabilizer on my IS-3. While the Tiger I was feared by many of its opponents, it was over-engineered, using expensive materials and labour intensive production methods. With the exception of British guns, the data on the penetration tables above were extracted from a "Wa Prüf 1" report dated 5th October 1944, which relate the relative ability of the major opponents to penetrate the Tiger and vice versa.

The German doctrine of that time focused mainly on the offensive.