I'm thinking of doing a dio with a U.S. AFV ambushing a king tiger. What would have been a likely U.S. adversary to kill a king tiger under normal circumstances? Would it have been sherman's in packs or a pershing or what?

I believe a killing shot on a King Tiger was a very close range shell fired by a Sherman from behind within 400yds. I wouldn't be surprised if it was closer though.

Yeah, everything that I've seen seems to confirm that. I'm trying to see if there were any special tactics or weapons used that would make a dio more interesting. do you know how they deployed the shermans?

Or, at the risk of being called a smart ass, a P-51 Mustang?



:-)

Killing a tiger?

A rocket armed T-Bolt

A M10 TD

A sloppy german driver

:-)

Maybe a M36 Jackson GMC 90mm. Not many modelled compared to say, the M10. Up gunned to boot.
How about the ambush on a broken downKing tiger, or no fuel left? Heard they were good at that

In the case of the Irish Guards, ramming then bringing up a Firefly to finish the Tiger II off.

http://mmcalc.tripod.com/Shermans/Ballyragget/Ballyragget_at_Goodwood.html

Don't think there was very much contact between US tanks and Tiger IIs.

I read somewhere that you needed 3 Shermans to engage a Tiger, and you should count on losing 2. This might have been Tiger I's though.

I believe that hitting the tracks of the Tiger II was more effective. As an ex-tanker I can assure you that lack of mobility would unnerve any tanker, specially with enemy infantry around.

Charles

What damage can ramming a tank do?

I can't really imagine that it could nock out a tank, maybe it could give the crew a headache?

For the diorama: I'd go for the M36 with it's 90mm gun!

Martin

From different records about tiger (both I and IIs) the main reasons to Knock Out seems to be (in no speciffic order)

1) Mechanical breakdown - lack of fuel

2) Immobilized by terrain - lack of time/resources for recovery

3) Enemy artillery/AT guns

4) Enemy tanks/aircraft.

One german was once asked: "What was the best allied tank" ? - answar: "The RAF..."

:-)

It seems that a lot of these monstertanks simply was left behind due to mechanical breakdown, lack of fuel and lack of recoverypossibility and in lesser degree enemy tanks.

If a M10, M36 or Pershing got the first shot, they would stand a fair chance og killing the big cat, except at the front.

Also the M10?

It's 3" gun wasn't that different from a normal 76mm Sherman gun or I am wrong here?

Martin

what about a time portalled challenger II, abrams, leclerc or leopard ?

:-) :-) :-) :-)

It depends which king tiger you are doing and when.

US forces didnt encounter king tigers until the winter of 1944, (they didnt see tiger 1s until a couple of months into the normandy campaign) because the Germans were concentrating most of their armour on the Caen area.

British forces fought king tigers in normandy, mainly the porsche turret ones.

From photos it appears most were destroyed by typhoons rather than tanks or AT guns.

A 75mm armed sherman or cromwell would have struggled to penetrate one, but a firefly/challenger/towed 17pdr could have done it pretty easily. Once APDS ammo was issued in the autumn they could penetrate the frontal armour from range too.

If any were left by the time the comet appeared that could have done it too.

As for US forces, again aircraft would have taken most out, but an M36 or pershing could do it. M10s and towed 3 inch guns could but didnt have the range of the 90mm gun.

Infantry could easily get a mobility kill with a PIAT or bazooka. Given the poor mobility of the king tiger, it would have been fairly easy for infantry to get close enough.

Since you're doing a diorama, what are you intending to show? The victor driving up to its kill? Otherwise, effective combat ranges would be very long to depict in a reasonable diorama.

I think it would be hard to depict an interesting diorama with 400 scale feet of distance between your M10/M26/Firefly and the target Tiger II.

Shrivenham's Tiger II was lost to a Cromwell which smashed one of the Tiger's sprocket rings, bringing the tank to a halt.

One of the Porsche-turret Tiger IIs used in Normandy was allegedly lost to the detonation of a 2" mortar bomb on some nearby ammunition (it's the one with the turret pushed off its race, the picture turns up quite frequently). I'm not vouching for the accuracy of the story though.

And the RAFs contribution to tank busting was probably more in the line of destroying fuel and ammunition carrying lorries than hitting tanks.

And the footage of soviet tank ramming? - from the feature film about Kursk with dressed-up T-34s rather than real life, I suspect.

If rammed from the side, it could cause the tank to throw track which in turn would cripple it by severely restricting its mobility.

Tank tracks and the sprocket works very much like the chain on a bicycle. Knocking into the chain on a bike can cause it not to mesh properly with the sprocket and if you continue movement, you can walk the chain right off of the gears.

Likewise on a tank, a lateral collission could knock the track askew on the road wheels or sprocket. As the tank continues to travel, the track could either walk off of the sprocket or even break.

Breaking track and throwing track is a common occurance on tanks. Having a thrown track in combat can be fatal.

Isn't there a common picture of a defeated King Tiger amidst the rubble of Arnhem?

Mr. Mox and Honeycut are on target. As he as come up recently, I think I will cite Shepard Paine's work: the Eliphant stalled while the horse-drawn wagon trundles by. "May I have your attention, please: Would the real German Army please stand up?"

Slightly , but given the discussion of the effectiveness of tank ramming, I thought people might be interested in this article from The Russian Battlefield website on the subject:
http://www.battlefield.ru/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=173&Itemid=88&lang=en

Not trying to threadjack but these sentences from the last paragraph of the the article Jim linked to (thanks Jim) are classic.
I would think if you were in an Abrams and had to ram another MBT, you did something seriously wrong somewhere along the line...
Quote,
"Should modern tankers be taught ramming tactics? The experience of the Great Patriotic War answers that in the affirmative."

Shaun

How to destroy a Tiger II and depict it in a dio? Why not have a Sherman stopped by the TII and the crew unspecting it;s kill? The shot could have knocked off a track/drive sproket, or it could have peentrated the side/rear armour?

As for the ramming debate? I have seen the video as well, and it certainly looks very "staged" to me, something the Russians have done on many occasions. the reason for the ramming tactics was simple.The 5th Guards Tankl Army was all that stood between the LAH and their objective. If the LAH had gained that objectice, in all likelihood they would have thrown the southern wing of the salient into turmoil and the course of the battle would have been ver ydifferent.

The Russian tankers were ordered to close with the LAH to negate teh greater range of their guns,namely the Tiger I's and the Flak 88's. to that end they were told to fire until their amunition had run out and then as a last resort ram the Germans. There is a very good account of this in "Micheal Wittmann and the tiger Commanders of the LAH", from Wittmann's point of view if i remember correctly.

Hope this helps?

Regards from the Swamp

Hawkeye

Assuming you mean to disable the vehicle by offensive action and not having it run out of gas, throw a track or break down, then just abuot anything could "kill" a Tiger II. It all depends upon where you are aiming.

The lowly 37mm could get a mobility kill by punching holes in the arse end and knocking out the engine.

A 6 pdr/75mm could hole them from the sides at close range and knock out a track at any range it could see the track.

A 75mm could damage running gear from any range.

A 76mm could hole the side armour.

Punching through from the front would take a 90mm or 17 pdr from pretty close range. The 17 pdr could do it further out with APDS, however that wasn't used much and only then towards the very endo of the war.

Unless you had planned an ambush very, very well it was unusual to be able to ambush German armour late in the war as they were almost always retreating and not advancing (although ambush possibilities existed when you were trying to ambush a counterattack after you had taken a German position). Tiger IIs were almost never used in counterattacks because their mobility was so poor and they were ripe for being pounced on as they advanced.

Taking out Tigers was usualy done by the luckiest Sherman in a unit that had usually lost several other members to the Tiger and its supporting friends.

It is a bit of a myth that aircraft in WW II took out a large number of AFVs. The .50 cal MG on US fighters couldn't do anything to any of the MBTs from any attitude. You are left with the chances of a WW II aircraft hitting extremely closely to an AFV with a bomb or actually hitting an AFV with a rocket. Post war evaluation showed that this was a actualy a very, very rare occurance. The big benefit of aircraft interdiction was against the softskins which were extremely vulnerable to the predations of Tiffies & Thunderbolts. Unit supply and logistics trains were destroyed which immobilized the tank units just as effectively as if the Tiffies had destroyed the tanks themselves. Some tanks were hit, sure and we have all seen the pictures, however in actuality, it wasn't a big number. It was the losses to the logistics vehicles and the need for operationa secrecy that really made the Wehrmacht avoid aircraft.

HTH

Paul