Panzerkampfwagen VI Königstiger
Sd.Kfz. 182 Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger II Ausf. B Königstiger
General characteristics
Crew 5
Length 10.28 m (box 7.62)
Width 3.65 m (3.75 with combat tracks)
Height 3.09 m
Combat weight 70 tons
Armor and armament
Armor 40 to 180 mm
Main armament 8.8cm KwK 43 L/71 (86 shells)
Secondary armament 2 to 3 MG 34 machine guns of 7 .92 mm (5850 rounds)
Mobility
Maybach HL 230 P30 V12 engine
700 hp (514.8 kW)
Torsion bar suspension
Road speed 41 km/h (17 off-road)
Power-to-weight ratio 10 hp/tonne
Autonomy 110 km (80 in all terrain)
The Panzerkampfwagen VI Königstiger, or Tiger II, nicknamed the Royal Tiger, is without question the most powerful mass-produced German tank of the Second World War. It is currently considered quite simply the best heavy tank of this conflict, preceding the Soviet tanks IS-2 and IS-3 and the American M26 Pershing although having a gun of a lower caliber.
The study of this panzer began in May 1941, a year before the entry into production of the Tiger I. From the end of 1942, the project drifted towards a more precise study:a heavy tank which could succeed the Tiger. In January 1943, Hitler, after reading the specifications, imposed for the new tank an 88 mm high-velocity (long) gun, 150 mm frontal armor and 80 mm side armor. Based on the experience of the brand new Panther medium-heavy tank, it was decided that the armor would be sloped and designed in such a way as to present only a single piece of metal shell per element (chassis and turret).
As with the Tiger I, Henschel and Porsche embarked on the project. Porsche studied two designs, one with a central turret and the other, very modern, with a turret very far back on the chassis (like the Israeli Merkava tank in the late 1970s).
But, as with the Tiger, the transmission and chassis concept was too advanced for the techniques of the time, so it was Henschel's design, more conventional, but much more modern than the Tiger, that won the market, in particular because it made it possible to reduce the costs by presenting a certain number of elements also used on the Panther tank. 1,500 were ordered, only 489 were built, in particular because of the destruction by American bombs of the Henschel factory in Kassel.
Initially, the first fifty copies were equipped with the Krupp turret developed for the Porsche model, but the manufacturer redesigned a specific turret, accepting more ammunition, and above all correcting a defect of the previous one. Indeed, originally, the gun mantlet, similar to that of the first Panther turrets, that is to say in a horizontal semi-cylinder, risked causing the destruction of the tank in the event of a shell hitting directly. whip the lower part of this coat, shell which, by ricochet, would thus penetrate the living works of the tank, by the roof of the weakly armored cockpit. The new turret featured a "pig's snout" mantlet, avoiding this problem. But this had the disadvantage of weighing down the already enormous tank, which went from 68.5 to 69.8 tons when changing the turret, that is to say heavier than a modern tank of the Leclerc type.
To move such a mass of metal, the most powerful tank engine of the time itself was a little weak:the Maybach HL 230 P30 12-cylinder 700 horsepower, perfect for the 43-ton Panther, poorly supported the 27 additional tons. To counteract this problem, the engineers coupled it with a very complex gearbox, with 8 forward gears and 4 reverse gears, in order to multiply the efforts and allow the titan to move properly. They also developed a track differential allowing the tank to turn on the spot, a feature still rare at the time, but very useful to compensate for the relative slowness of the turret and the exposure of the front armor in the event of danger spotted in time. . The engineers developed a running gear system which, unlike the Tiger I, prevented the tracks from jamming with mud, ice and rocks. This system, however, proved to be more difficult to maintain. To finish with the undercarriage, as for the Tiger I, two sets of tracks were planned:a pair of 660 mm for transport and a pair intended for combat of 800 mm. These extra wide tracks allowed the tank to hold up well in unstable terrain, such as mud, despite its enormous weight, generating a fairly low ground pressure. However, this did not change much of the fact that the tank was too heavy for the majority of decks of the time, which greatly reduced its tactical mobility.
Two 'Porsche' versions in France, June 1944
A gathering of Königstiger 'Henschel' turret - see the corresponding video in external links
A 'Henschel' version at the Munster museum
But with a ratio of only 10 horsepower per ton, the tank suffered from a cruel lack of mobility, and a daunting consumption. Its speed topped out at 38 km/h on the road, and less than 20 km/h off-road, and its consumption of 500 liters per 100 kilometers only allowed it a short range of 120 km on the road, which was all the more disabling as the Reich was running out of fuel. In addition, the efforts on the transmission due to the weight of the mastodon, as well as the fragility of the too complex gearbox, forced these tanks to experience many breakdowns. They required constant maintenance to function properly.
It was armed with an 88 mm gun 71 calibers in length (barrel 6.30 meters), compared to the 88 mm 56 calibers of the Tiger I. The effective range of this gun was ten kilometers. It could pierce the frontal armor of a T-34/85, a Sherman or a Cromwell tank at 3.5 km, even beyond the range of the guns of these tanks. The gun's sighting optics were also up to these extraordinary ballistic characteristics. As an indication, the gun of the Königstiger penetrated between 132 and 153 mm of armor inclined at 30° at 2,000 meters away.
Added to this, the whole tank had thick, sloped armor that only a few weapons of the time could defeat, and again at very close range. None of these monsters have ever been punched from the front. Nevertheless the sides could be pierced by the Sherman Firefly, M26 Pershing, the T-34/85 and the IS-2.
A testimony from a tank commander of the 2nd US DB, in 1945, leaves no gray area on the consideration of the allies for this tank:
“One day a Royal Tiger spotted me 150 meters away and put my tank out of action. Five of our tanks opened fire on him, from 200 to 600 yards (180 to 540 meters). Six shells hit the Tiger head-on and ricocheted off its cuirass. The craft backed up and disappeared into the forest. If we had tanks like these, we would all be home today. »
This tank was also not split up, like its predecessor, and replaced the Tiger I in the schwere Panzer Abteilungen, or heavy tank battalions. 150 of them were assigned to Waffen SS units, all the others were assigned to the Wehrmacht. They arrived at the front in February 1944. Its first engagements took place around Minsk in May of the same year. Their action was however restricted, especially on the Western front, because of fuel restrictions, technical problems, breakdowns, and above all because of the formidable ground attack aviation (jabo, from the German "Jagdbomber", hunter -bomber) of the allies. During the Battle of Normandy, some Königstigers were even engaged by cruisers. The last tank of the war to be destroyed was also a Royal Tiger, sabotaged by its crew following a mechanical problem, on May 10, 1945, in Austria.
The last of these tanks to be kept in working order is on display at the Armored Museum in Saumur. Some years, it is possible to see it in demonstration, in a historical tableau staged and interpreted by the Cadets of the School of Cavalry of Saumur, during the Triumph of the school which takes place annually at the beginning of the summer. . A dynamic presentation of this tank was made on May 30 and 31, 2009 in front of this museum.
Today, this tank can be seen:- at the tank museum in Saumur, France. - at the Patton Museum, in the USA. - at the Tank Museum in Bovington, UK. - at the tank museum in Munster, Germany (Lower Saxony). - at the "December 44" museum, in La Gleize in Belgium.