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Why the Tiger II Failed So Hard | Unbelievable true stories | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: Why the Tiger II Failed So Hard
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The German Tiger 2 (King Tiger) tank was a technologically advanced but ultimately failed "wonder weapon" due to severe design flaws, logistical nightmares, and strategic miscalculations that outweighed its impressive armor and firepower.
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The Tiger 2 was probably the best and
worst tank Germany ever built. It had
incredible armor and firepower, but it
came with a long list of serious
problems. So, how did something that
looked unbeatable end up failing so
badly in the field? We'll try to break
that down in this video. Let's set the
stage. By the end of 1943, Germany was
in a rapidly worsening military
position. On the Eastern Front, the Red
Army had reversed the momentum at
Stalingrad and was now pushing west with
increasing speed and strength. Soviet
armored formations were growing in size,
but also in quality, introducing new
models like the T-3485 and the IS-
tanks, which were now more than enough
to challenge German armor. Meanwhile, on
the Western Front, the Allies had
successfully invaded Italy, and it was
clear that a cross channel invasion into
France was only a matter of time.
British and American tank development
was also accelerating. And although
their tanks weren't necessarily superior
one-on-one, the numbers, air support,
and mobility they brought with them made
German armored forces increasingly
vulnerable. The German workhorse Panzer
4 with its improved 75mm gun was still
relevant on the battlefield, but it was
becoming outdated. The Panther was
supposed to replace it, but it had
notorious reliability problems and was
stretched thin across multiple fronts.
The Tiger 1 was built in insufficient
numbers to actually make a difference.
You see, the Germans approached this
problem completely opposite to the
Soviet Union, for example. They found
something that worked and was good
enough, the T34, and then focused on
pumping out as many as possible. The
Germans, on the other hand, instead of
pumping out upged Panza 4s, wanted
something to restore fear and respect to
their armor. So, they ordered the
development of a new heavy tank. The
requirements were ambitious. It needed
to be far better armored than the Tiger
1, carry a more powerful version of the
88 mm gun, and also incorporate design
improvements based on combat experience.
Hitler took a personal interest in the
project, which meant that development
would be influenced by political and
ideological factors as well, as if they
weren't already having enough trouble
with resources and the Allied strategic
bombing campaign. Hitler, in his
fashion, wanted another wonder weapon
that would symbolize German superiority
and turn the tide of the war. that would
become the Tiger 2, later known to the
Allies also as the King Tiger. It was
developed under intense pressure with
limited resources and in an increasingly
chaotic wartime environment. Still, the
designers attempted to meet every
demand, combining the thickest armor
ever seen on a German tank with one of
the most powerful anti-tank guns of the
war. At first glance, the King Tiger was
everything German crews could have hoped
for. The gun was a major upgrade. It was
the same 88 mm caliber like on the Tiger
one, but this was the KWK 43 L71, a much
longer barrel with a more powerful
cartridge. This gave it an extremely
high muzzle velocity of around 3,400 ft
pers and of course drastically increased
armor penetration. To put that into
perspective, the Tiger 1 could penetrate
120 mm of sloped armor at 100 m, more
than enough to make every Allied tank
crew worried. Now, the Tiger 2 could go
through 200 mm under the same
conditions. However, the difference
really shows at long range. At 2,000 m,
the Tiger 1's penetration dropped to 84
mm. The Tiger 2 could punch through 132,
meaning it could penetrate more at 2,000
m than the Tiger 1 could at just 100.
This meant it could destroy any Allied
tank at ranges where their fire would be
irrelevant. Then when you combine that
with the frontal hull armor that was
sloped and 180 mm thick, you get
yourself a nightmare to fight against if
you were an allied tanker. That sloped
upper glacis made it nearly impossible
for any Allied tank of the time to
penetrate it headon. In fact, there are
no known cases of Tiger 2 being
destroyed by frontal shots from enemy
tanks or anti-tank guns. Every recorded
tank kill came from side or rear hits.
The armor on the turret was weaker by
comparison, especially on the sides and
rear, and that created a major
vulnerability. Since a significant
portion of the ammunition was stored in
the turret itself, a penetrating hit
from the side could ignite the ammo and
quite ruin the day for a German crew.
Later in the war, they deliberately
reduced their ammunition loadout by
about 20 rounds in order to stop storing
shells in the turret. Now, on paper, the
Tiger 2 seemed like it was going in the
right direction. Well, not quite. Its
appearance didn't solve any of the
deeper problems the Germans had,
technical, logistical, and strategic.
The first obvious thing was its weight.
It was the heaviest operational tank of
the entire war, weighing around 70 tons.
But to power that kind of mass, the
Germans didn't design a new engine.
Instead, they used a slightly upgraded
version of the same Mayback F12 that was
already in use in the Panther and Tiger
1, now pushed to around 700 horsepower.
That engine had always been borderline
underpowered in 20 ton lighter tanks.
And now in the Tiger 2, it was clearly
overstressed. Each bridge crossing was a
gamble, and bridge reinforcement units
had to travel with them. It wasn't rare
to see a Tiger 2 destroy the bridge and
fall into the river. The engineers had
to work around the growing problems of
wartime Germany. Material shortages,
production delays, and simultaneously
constant pressure to deliver results
fast. So many design compromises were
made. Tanks were rushed through
production with some parts hand fitted
instead of standardized. This meant that
maintenance in the field was harder than
it should have been, and replacement
parts weren't always interchangeable.
But from the top, there was no backing
down. Hitler wanted the King Tiger to be
a symbol of German power. That meant
bigger, thicker, stronger, and more
lethal than anything else that had ever
existed on the battlefield. But as we'll
see, building an impressive tank isn't
the same as building a practical one.
Because so much weight went into
protection and firepower without
improving all the other components to
carry it, the Tiger 2 had poor
acceleration, especially off-road, and
suffered frequent mechanical failures.
The final drives and transmission were
not designed for a vehicle of this
weight. They wore out quickly and failed
completely during long movements, or
more importantly, in combat. Its
suspension used overlapping road wheels
that became a serious liability in wet
or cold conditions. Mud and debris would
get trapped between the wheels, and in
winter, this could freeze solid, locking
up the entire running gear. If one wheel
needed to be replaced, several others
had to be removed just to reach it.
Maintenance crews especially loved this
design. Fuel consumption was also a
major issue, especially for a country
that was actively running out of oil.
The Tiger 2 burned up to 500 L per 100
km. There were constant logistical
problems just moving the tanks to the
front, let alone keeping them supplied
all the time. Because of the tanks
width, it required narrow transport
tracks to be loaded onto rail cars. Once
unloaded, the crew now had to replace
the transport tracks with the wide
combat tracks, which again took hours in
field conditions. Now add to that a
combination of limited spare parts,
fragile drivetrains, and extreme fuel
demands, and on a good day, you would
get only about four out of 10 Tiger 2
operational at any given time. The rest
were broken down, waiting for repairs or
stuck somewhere in transit. Crews
regularly found themselves forced to
abandon perfectly functional tanks just
because they ran out of fuel,
ammunition, or got stuck and could not
be recovered in time. In many cases,
they had to destroy their own tanks to
prevent them from falling into enemy
hands. And they are actually the biggest
cause of Tiger 2 losses, their own
crews. The Tiger 2 first saw combat in
mid 1944, by which point the situation
on both fronts had shifted dramatically.
The allies had landed in Normandy and
Soviet forces were launching massive
offensives in the east. Germany did not
have time for gradual deployment or
careful integration. So the Tiger 2 was
thrown into action under increasingly
desperate conditions. Its first major
use came in the Normandy campaign,
particularly around KH during Operation
Goodwood. The tank's raw firepower and
frontal armor were immediately
noticeable. Allied Shermans, Cromwells,
and Churchills had no real chance of
penetrating the front of a Tiger 2, and
British and American crews quickly
learned to avoid direct confrontations
and relay their position to artillery.
Allied air superiority also meant that
once a Tiger 2 was spotted, it became a
huge, slowmoving target for fighter
bombers armed with high velocity
rockets. Normy's narrow hedge and soft
ground were not suited to a 70 ton
vehicle with poor mechanical
reliability. Many Tiger 2s broke down
before ever reaching the front lines.
Others got stuck in tight urban streets
where they could not traverse their long
gun and got outflanked by the Allied
tanks that did not have such issues. On
the Eastern Front, Tiger 2s were
deployed in several key battles. The
53rd Heavy Panza Battalion, for example,
saw extensive action over 166 days. The
unit destroyed 121 Soviet tanks, 244
anti-tank guns, five aircraft, and even
one train. That proved the Tiger 2 could
do the job very effectively, just when
it worked and had proper support. On the
other hand, the battalion lost 25 Tiger
2s in the same period, 13 of which were
destroyed by their own crews. Then came
the Arden's offensive, Germany's last
major attempt to turn the tide on the
Western Front. Around 150 Tiger 2s were
committed to the Battle of the Bulge in
late 1944. After initially shocking the
Allies, the offensive eventually utterly
failed. They did not manage to capture
the fuel depots they aimed for, and most
Tiger twos, like other German equipment,
were abandoned and destroyed. In the
fall of 1944, one of the major tank
factories was almost completely
destroyed by a bombing raid, halting the
production of around 600 Tiger 2. Also,
manganese was in short supply, and all
late war German tanks suffered from
lower quality armor, more prone to
cracking and splintering, sometimes with
entire armor plates collapsing after
being hit. Because of this, only about
500 Tiger 2s were ever built. 500 Tiger
2s, poorly equipped and virtually
unsupported, although with an estimated
three Allied tanks destroyed per knocked
out Tiger, could not make a dent in the
Allied offensive, let alone stop it and
turn the tide of the war. In the final
months of the war, Tiger 2s were still
deployed in small numbers on both
fronts. Despite being completely
surrounded, outnumbered, and running out
of fuel and ammo, the last operational
Tiger 2s made a horrific last stand in
Berlin. They positioned themselves in
strategic choke points and caused
tremendous damage to Soviet armor trying
to break into the city. So, while the
Tiger 2 delivered undeniable tactical
results under the right conditions, it
rarely operated under those right
conditions. Its best moments came when
it was stationary in an ambush, raining
hell on the Allied tanks until it ran
out of fuel or ammo and was then
destroyed by its crew. The King Tiger
utterly failed because it was deployed
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