It was also slow and used enormous quantities of fuel, something the Germans did not have in needed quantities. This meant that the Germans could not build very many of them. It was a massive and complicated weapon, required enormous quantities of material, time, and labor to build. The Tigers had, however, serious weaknesses not apparent to the tankers and infantrymen that had to fight it. And here the Tigers (but not the Panthers) failed. Important elements of tank design, however, are maneuverability and speed. This made it unstopable in battles with Allied tanks.Īllied tankers saw the Tigers as virtually indestructible. The Tiger I had incredible frontal hull armor 100 mm (3.9 in) thick and frontal turret armor of 120 mm (4.7 in). The long-barreled 88-mm gun was a fearsome tank destroyer. The Mk VI Tiger I and the Mk VII Tiger II were especially feared by advancing Allied infantry encountering them. The fearsome Tiger tanks were heavily gunned and armored, but not very mobile and could not be produced in numbers needed by the Germans. The most famous German World War II tanks are probably the massive Tigers.
The problem for the Germans was that they faced artillery and air power that was more than capable of stopping them. There were few tanks that could go toe to toe with a Tiger. It could not fit across many bridges in the Ardennes. What worked well on the flat plains of the East was a problem in the heavily wooded Ardennes with narrow bridges. Fuel shortages forced the Germans to abandon Tigers during the Battle of the Bulge.
It was a massive and complicated weapon, required enormous material and time to build. World War II German Tanks: Mark VI and VII Tigersįigure 1.-The Tiger tank was an impressive piece of equipment, not something one would want to encounter on the battlefield.
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