As I was looking through "Panzer" by Horst Scheibert, a book of photos broken down into sections covering a majority of Germany's tanks, I noticed that a number of the early and mid production Tigers were missing their front, outside road wheel. There were pictures of nine different tanks, all functional, that had this road wheel removed. Does anyone have any insight to this? Was it intentional or do think this was a mechanical issue? (:-)

I once read somewhere that this was done to cut down on the mud building up and throwing a track....I'm not into German armour really so maybe someone who is will have a better answer for you.

That's it. I just read this on the following website:

http://www.tiger-tank.com/secure/history13.htm

"Snow, ice and mud were Russia's allies They had a serious effect on the Tiger, clogging the suspension and tracks.

Things got so bad that tanks often operated without the leading, outer road wheel which caused endless problems because of the way it overlapped the drive sprocket."

this is what it said. i learn something new every day

Snow, ice and mud were Russia's allies They had a serious effect on the Tiger, clogging the suspension and tracks.

Things got so bad that tanks often operated without the leading, outer road wheel which caused endless problems because of the way it overlapped the drive sprocket.