Known variously as the Tiger B, King Tiger, and Royal Tiger, the Tiger II carried a crew of five, had a 600-horsepower engine and a maximum speed of 21.74 miles an hour, and boasted a cruising range of 105.57 miles. The most powerful tank of World War II, a single 67-ton Tiger II could hold up a dozen Sherman tanks, and often did. Tiger Tanks Could Withstand a Dozen Sherman Tanks…

The third-ranking German tank was at least the equal of the Allies’ best tanks, and the formidable Tiger, mounting a high-velocity 88mm cannon, was superior to all armor in the European Theater of Operations. In terms of armor, the difference was daunting, with German tanks frequently outgunning and outmaneuvering the ubiquitous American medium Shermans and the British Army’s Churchills, Valentines, and Cromwells. The Wehrmacht’s machine guns and machine pistols had a higher rate of fire, its multiple-barrel mortars were more effective than the Allies’ single-tube weapons, and its self-propelled antitank guns were better. they discovered, with considerable chagrin, that although they possessed a greater abundance of weapons, some of these were decidedly inferior to those of the Germans. Allies Outgunned, OutmaneuveredĪs their British and Canadian allies had already learned, the GIs and their officers soon came to respect the resolute fighting qualities of their enemy.

With their long range and thick armor, German Tiger tanks would prove throughout the war that one could hold off ten or more M4 Sherman tanks. In combat, however, from the tangled Normandy hedgerows all the way to the gates of the Third Reich, the Americans found themselves learning bitter lessons and losing their innate naiveté. The GIs believed that, man for man, they were better soldiers than their foes and that they had more and better weapons and vehicles. But, like their fathers two and a half decades earlier, they were in for a rude awakening at the hands of the seasoned, ruthless German Army. When American soldiers landed in France in June 1944 as part of the great Allied crusade to liberate Europe, they were well trained, fully equipped, and brimming with confidence.

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