But again, that isn't to say the gun didn't have its faults. The Soviets especially learned that lesson the hard way. From long range, the gun was terrifyingly accurate, as the Allies discovered during the German Army's North African campaign. It defeated a fair number of heavy tanks its own size as well. Thousands of Jeeps, half-tracks, and light tanks fell by Tiger crew hands during the war. Sporting an 88 mm main gun and a 7.92×57mm MG-34 machine gun as armament, the Tiger made quick work of lightly armored Allied vehicles. Good for a top speed of around 45 km/h (28 mph) on paved roads.

Though its original Maybach V12 HL 210 engine was a tad underpowered, it was soon upgraded to the lauded Maybach HL 230 with a beefier cast-iron block and 700 horsepower to play with. At roughly 250,700 Reichsmarks a piece, over 1,300 were built between 19.

But even so, the Elefant was less than effective.Īs for the Tiger I itself, it would be wrong to say the tank was a complete failure.

It may have had more to do with Soviet tactics than anything else. Just ask anyone who knows about the Battle of Kursk if you want the textbook definition of a thrashing. It was a role they famously blew chunks at. Many of Old Man Porsche's Tiger Prototypes were later converted to Elefant tank destroyers. It was designed and built by the same Henschel Manufacturing team that beat Ferdinand Porsche for the design contract for the Wehrmacht's main heavy tank. Let's start with a rundown of the basics of the Tiger tank. In the meantime, let's combine some of the information LazerPig admirably gathered with some of our own insights to explain why a good deal of the post-war hype around the Tiger tank is total nonsense. We highly recommend checking out his video on the Tiger Tank when you're done here. He also does it in a hilariously entertaining way. He's a veteran armchair war historian and master wordsmith who backs up his considerably inflammatory opinions on our favorite tanks, planes, and warships with cold, hard, unconcerned-with-your-opinion facts. LazerPig on YouTube is a war-vehicle enthusiast's dream come true. Happily, there's someone out there who more or less did just that. We could spend weeks, heck, even months e-mailing the curators of America's war museums to find all the reasons much of the Tiger's mythos results from gross over-exaggeration. No, seriously, there are people on online forums who think that. Claims that declare things like 'It took five American Shermans to take out one German Tiger' or 'The Tiger could take on a modern Abrams tank and win' still echo across sweaty Reddit threads.

Modern day tiger tank