Tiger vs Firefly

[Corto]

Chunk of armor torch cut out of a Tiger 1's frontal armor. It was hit with the 17-pounder on a Sherman Firefly, Bovington tank museum in the UK.

 

[Lusekofte]

I know it is wrong of me, but I got to say "cool" . Too me the tank crews must have been totally ignorant to the heavy losses and risk they took or incredible brave, or both. 

Sitting in a tin can and never could be sure where the enemy was

 

But the armor piercing projectile is it not a thin arrow looking thing? maybe not 

Edited December 25, 2014 by LuseKofte

[PB0_Foxy]

Chunk of armor torch cut out of a Tiger 1's frontal armor. It was hit with the 17-pounder on a Sherman Firefly, Bovington tank museum in the UK.

 

impressive !

[=LD=Hethwill]

The amount of heat generated ( by that frozen moment in display in the museum ) must have cooked at least the driver and radio gunner. 

[Feathered_IV]

As an object, that piece is strangely beautiful.

[AirDnD]

To be clear, that's not the shell that pierced the armor, but a mock-up....right?

[[KWN]T-oddball]

there were not that many fireflys and being in a regular sherman was a death sentence when you encountered a tiger....standing orders for both american and british units was to send 4-5 shermans when a tiger was spotted and hope one came back....   sadly even the guns on the late model panzer 4's were better than the stock shermans.

[FlatSpinMan]

My god. What a striking object. Is that real? 

[Emgy]

 

But the armor piercing projectile is it not a thin arrow looking thing? maybe not 

 

Modern sabot rounds are thin arrows, WWII era sabots were thicker.

But they were less common than a solid AP slug which seems to be in the OP's picture. 

 

Sabot rounds:

Edited December 29, 2014 by Calvamos

[33lima]

there were not that many fireflys and being in a regular sherman was a death sentence when you encountered a tiger....standing orders for both american and british units was to send 4-5 shermans when a tiger was spotted and hope one came back....   sadly even the guns on the late model panzer 4's were better than the stock shermans.

 

Not so much 'standing orders' as somebody doing some rather dubious sums. More typical tactics for dealing with Tigers, as with heavy German defences of any kind, are better described by the Royal Artillery officer quoted by Alexander McKee in 'Caen - Anvil of Victory'. I don't have the book to hand but he describes a typical large field field full of defenders, tanks, guns the lot, all dug in. You then call in a concentric artillery strike from all available weapons including warships if available. When it's finished you drive on, any way you want...but not over the field, because it now consists of several feet of soft, freshly-turned earth.

 

IIRC Fireflies were initially issued on the basis of one troop (platoon) for each squadron (company) whether Cromwell or Sherman, but not Churchills...it being a Churchill with a 6 Pounder gun which got the Tiger I at Bovingdon incidentally, as many will know, an 'F' kill but it still counts. Later in Normandy the Fireflies were generally re-distributed one to each troop. I think they were about half of each troop, by the end of the war.

 

The regular Sherman 75 was a good enough tank for most of the jobs that tanks had to do, there being no such thing as a tank that was immune to AT guns and hollow charge weapons specifically designed to kill tanks, though the Tiger I and II were clearly somewhat better off in that respect as was the Churchill, especially the very heavily-armoured Mk VII. In Normandy and elsewhere, in general, the vaunted panzers really didn't do much if any better in their attacks, than the Allied tanks did in theirs, the sum of the parts of an all-arms battlegroup (with or without air support) being rather more important than the qualities of just one part of it. One reason why Guderian knew that Hitler was talking nonsense when the latter said a battalion of Tigers was worth a Panzer division.

Edited January 9, 2015 by 33lima

[33lima]

For those who may not have seen this, another reminder as dramatic as the first picture posted of the realities of WW2 tank warfare, featuring the famous Cologne Panther action:

 

 

http://www.anicursor.com/colpicwar2.html

 

http://www.anicursor.com/colpicwar2b.html

 

Frame by frame analysis here:

 

http://www.3ad.com/history/wwll/feature.pages/bates.index.htm