Missing Links Article The Tiger Tanks

This article is about how well the german tank aces used a single tiger tank in combat.

During the fighting in Normandy in 44 the german armoured divisions were hard pressed, constantly under attack by roaming fighters and being plagued by the shortage of fuel. But some of the tank commanders like Michael Whitman were able to make these problems less of a disadvantage by using their vehicles to it's fullest extent. The tiger tank with it's thick armour and it's highly accurate 88mm was a perfect lone hunter in the wide open fields and hedge rows of France. It was able to utilize it's high muzzle velocity to fire from a fixed position and kill tanks before they realized what hit them.

The tigers main flaw was it's size and barrel length which proved to make it nearly useless in town fighting as the battle in Falaise proved. Also it was slow and loud making it an easy vehicle to detect if it was approaching, the vehicles appearance on a battlefield was as much of a physiological weapon as it's gun was a real threat to anything that moved against it. Modified tigers such as the wading tiger equipped with a snorkel gave a slight slight degree of maneuverability but unfortunately for the Germans not enough of them were put into service.

From the first tigers made to the last tiger models we see a degree of improvements, such as in the early version and the mid version we see a slight lowering of the turret and in some cases an upgraded engine, in the late version there is again a slight modification, it's suspension resembles more of a king tigers than the early of mid production tigers. It is argued if this affected it's performance. The copolla's of the mid and late versions were lowered and given periscopes and a machine gun, this is very similar to the panthers copolla. Over all the tiger "family" evolved over time almost right up until the end of the war. Each modification solved problems but at times gave others, mainly in the transmission and engine