today you're about to hear the short but turbulent operational history of the tiger 2 tank we've got some fascinating stories and examples to give you a real picture of this 70 ton Beast and the men who fought in it so let's begin the tiger 2 also called The King Tiger by the Allies was another attempt by the German military to create a single weapon that could dominate the battlefield the idea was for it to be heavily protected with enormous Firepower and it certainly had both however most of these advantages couldn't be used effectively in the later stage of the war When the tide turned against Germany and you will see why let's first cover the advantages of this tank and then explain why although it might sound like the best tank of the war these qualities didn't stop it from being decimated by 1943 it was clear that the Tiger 1 was no longer Untouchable and German Engineers were already trying to create a better version with improved protection and an enhanced already famous 88 mm gun however it was far from an easy task as thick armor resulted in a vehicle weighing around 70 tons but powered by the same type of engine used in much lighter tanks like the Panther and tiger one they were all powered by variations of the same V12 engine producing around 700 horsepower however the Tiger 1 was 13 tons lighter and the panther even 25 tons lighter than the tiger 2 so the tiger 2 was clearly underpowered still with sloped armor up to 180 mm thick in the front it had serious protection it heavy armor gave it an enormous advantage against any tank daring to attack it headon virtually no Allied tank of the war could penetrate its frontal slope of all recorded destroyed tiger twos by tanks or anti-tank guns all were knocked out by side or rear shots the turret was a problem as its sides and rear were less armored and ammunition stored there posed a significant danger of exploding if hit so later German tankers didn't store ammo in the turret reducing capacity from 86 to 68 rounds but improving safety the US and British did not deploy heavy tanks beside a few persing jumbo Shermans and late Churchill models so on the Western Front in tank on tank combat the tiger 2 was an unmatched heavyweight it was also estimated that the frontal armor was impervious to the Soviet 122 mm gun one of the largest tank guns of the war Soviet tests showed it needed three to four shots from 500 M at the front slope so the weld joints would break as they were of lower quality than those on the tiger one and panther so for the Allies the only solution to knock it out with tanks was to outflank it but the improved 8 on the tiger 2 could destroy almost any Allied tank of the time at ranges over 2,500 M so good luck out maneuvering it however the thick armor and long gun worked against the tiger 2 in urban combat where it got stuck in narrow city streets couldn't rotate its gun effectively and was easily outflanked by Allied tanks or infantry with anti-tank weapons the 8 mm Park 43 l71 gun mounted on both the tiger 2 and the yag Panther was a significant improvement over the already famous 88 used in the tiger one although the same caliber this new gun had an extremely high muzzle velocity of 3,400 ft per second thanks to its longer barrel and larger cartridge with more propellant while it fired the same projectiles armor penetration was drastically increased here is a brief comparison to help you understand the tiger 1es 88 could penetrate 120 mm of armor sloped at 60° at 100 m enough to make it feared by all Allied tank Crews throughout the war under the same conditions the 88 in the tiger 2 could penetrate 202 mm of armor but the major difference shows at long range at 2,000 M the tiger 1's penetration dropped to 84 while the tiger 2 punched through 132 mm simply put the 88 in the tiger 2 could penetrate more arm at 2,000 M than the older 88 could at just 100 m so their guns could destroy any Allied tank at ranges where they effectively couldn't do anything also the Germans had much better Optics than the Allies adding to their deadly reputation at long distances with that being said this is definitely the best tank of the time that helped Germany win the war well no although it had all these capabilities it suffered tremendously from a combination of technical logistical and strategic factors we already mentioned they were too heavy even by today's standards let alone in World War II the engine was extremely underpowered for such weight and the transmission and steering were not made to withstand it each Bridge Crossing was a Gamble and Bridge reinforcement units had to travel with them it wasn't rare to see a tiger to destroy the bridge and fall into the river another issue was that the availability rate was around 40% this means after transport and preparation for Action out of 10 tanks only four would be oper ational the suspension system although giving it a smoother ride and stability to fire on the move was a complete nightmare for maintenance mud and debris got jammed between overlapping wheels and in Winter it would freeze and completely disable the tank they broke down quite often in normal conditions let alone in combat now when you combine that with poor Logistics a lack of spare parts and shortages of fuel and ammunition you get that more tiger twos were destroyed by their own Crews than by the enemy they would either break down run out of fuel or ammunition and if the crew couldn't put it back into action they had to blow it up or burn the tank so it wouldn't fall into enemy hands and be used against them they were costly to produce and essentially handmade and individually fitted that created a nightmare for mass production and even more trouble for mechanics in the field due to its weight wider tracks had to be used making it hard to transport by train which was the main transport method at the time for this reason narrow transport tracks were mounted to load and unload tanks from trains then had to be replaced with wider field tracks by their Crews all these things made it very difficult just to put them into combat on the front where they were now encountering much stronger Allied Forces on all fronts in addition to that the Allied bombing campaign severely disrupted factories and fuel production in the fall of 1944 one of the major tank factories was almost completely destroyed by a bombing raid halting the production of around 600 tiger twos also manganes was in short supply and all late War German tanks suffered from lower quality armor more prone to cracking and splintering sometimes with entire armor plates collapsing after being hit because of this only about 500 tiger twos were ever built meaning they were almost always outnumbered 10 to one and when the Allies gained air superiority they were easy targets for fighter bombers armed with rockets like the Thunderbolt or Hawker typhoon but here is the thing despite all these problems the highly experienced battle hardened Crews who had mostly transferred from earlier tank and now received these new machines would achieve a terrifying kill to loss ratio the 53rd heavy Panza Battalion during its 166 days of operation in the Hungarian theater destroyed 121 Soviet tanks 244 anti-tank guns five aircraft and a train on the other hand they lost 25 tiger twos 13 of which were destroyed by their own Crews to prevent capture so when properly supported and used they were killing machine maches for enemy armor the opposite example is the Battle of the Bulge where around 150 tiger twos were deployed and almost all were lost in the offensive mostly due to fuel and ammunition shortages Kurt kisal is an example of how effective the tiger 2 could be in the right hands throughout his career as a Gunner and then Commander from Panza 4 then Tiger 1 and later tiger 2 he accumulated 168 confirmed armored vehicle kills though it's believed the real number is higher he was killed in action in 1945 in his tiger 2 attempting to Halt the Soviet Advance another interesting example is when a tiger 2 during the Arden's offensive was ambushed by a small M8 Greyhound Light Armored car concealed beside the road the M8 saw the tiger rolling by taking advantage of the opportunity the M8 armed with just a 37 mm gun that couldn't penetrate the tiger 2's heavy armor from the front or sides aimed for it rear they let the tiger pass and then sprinted towards the road to close the distance and Ambush it they were spotted and the big 88 started traversing towards them before the turret could rotate and put the M8 in its sights the armored car was already directly behind it at just 25 yards and immediately opened fire from its Cannon it put three rounds in Rapid succession into the rear of the tiger 2 and finally the engine burst into flames soon followed by the turret as well well here you see that there are no rules and an armored car with absolutely no chance on paper managed to destroy a superior tiger 2 on the other hand despite being completely surrounded outnumbered and running out of fuel and ammo the last operational tiger 2 made a horrific Last Stand in Berlin they positioned themselves in strategic choke points and caused tremendous damage to Soviet armor trying to break into the city easily destroying even heavy is-2 tanks so as you see it's often not the tank itself but everything else around it that matters the Soviets and the US use their much less protected and armed t-34s and Shermans but with good Logistics support and in great Supply 500 tiger tws poorly equipped and supported although with an estimated three Allied tanks destroyed per knocked out tiger couldn't make a dent in the Allied offensive let alone stop it and turn the tide of the war