Was The 88Mm Gun An Overkill For The Tiger Tank?

[MiloMorai]

An interesting discussion, http://www.tank-net.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=43861&page=1

[CanadaOne]

That's neat, "tank.net". I wonder what they talk about over there?

 

Yeah, it was an interesting read. Beyond my snack bracket of tank gun knowledge, but a good read.

 

My totally unqualified opinion is that the 88 was on the right track, seeing as how the USSR was building some big azz tanks towards the end.

[unreasonable]

That is interesting - when I click on that I get a "DANGEROUS SITE" warning from Chrome, warning of deceptive practices, so be careful what you do in there. I did not enter!

 

I think the 88 was chosen as it was a relatively easy development of the 88 Flak and the only thing that could reliably kill T-34s at medium range at the time the Tiger was under development.  A high power 75mm - as in the Panther - is just as good at short/medium range, at which most combat occurs, and allows more rounds to be carried but it was not ready.  But give the constant armour/gun arms race, and that the Tiger was always going to be around in small numbers - unlike the Panther - you can see how getting well ahead of the curve made sense.    

[BlitzPig_EL]

I would actually posit that the Tiger itself was really an unnecessary waste of very finite resources.  I know this will get it's fans heading for the pitchforks and torches, but the reality is that the Tiger was a drag on German logistics, it was by and large a maintenance nightmare requiring silly amounts of time at depot level shops compared to it's time in the field.  The Germans would have been far better served by developing a more reliable medium tank that could have been built in large numbers at less cost.  However, the penchant of their leadership for over complicated, expensive, and unreliable systems (Tiger, Ferdinand, He 177, etc...) would not be over ruled.

 

What they needed was a medium developed from the Pzkw. IV series with it's proven reliability,  no overly complex interleaved road wheels, and a better armor layout, that could have been fielded in larger numbers.  And please for the love of sanity, keep Dr. Porsche locked in a closet as far away from the design studios as possible...

[CanadaOne]

1 hour ago, unreasonable said:

That is interesting - when I click on that I get a "DANGEROUS SITE" warning from Chrome, warning of deceptive practices, so be careful what you do in there. I did not enter!

 

  

 

It didn't set off my Norton, which is pretty good at detecting things.

 

Norton Rating

 

Norton Safe Web has analyzed tank-net.com for safety and security problems.

Summary

Norton Safe Web found no issues with this site.

• Computer Threats: 0
• Identity Threats: 0
• Annoyance factors: 0

Total threats on this site: 0

 

 

Edited March 28, 2019 by CanadaOne

[GunnyHighway]

Tank.net is also a security issue for Google Chrome. I am not venturing any further. 
I researched a while ago the 88 history summed up in my German Tank manual, and I don't see how it could be an overkill for the Tiger. Should the thread read that it was an overkill for the T-34?...The 88 was selected to take care of the KV-1. 

[MiloMorai]

Nothing dangerous about the site unreasonable, so enter.

[CanadaOne]

I got this off the Norton site forums about tank.net.

"False positive

Goggle incorrectly labels it as dangerous because the site won't allow its bots to scan it."

 

 

[GunnyHighway]

I don't go where google bots can't run a recce. I appreciate recon screens. Old habits!

 

Edited March 28, 2019 by Ze-GunnyHighway

[Thad]

1 hour ago, CanadaOne said:

,I got this off the Norton site forums about tank.net.

"False positive

Goggle incorrectly labels it as dangerous because the site won't allow its bots to scan it."

 

 

 

So, it was the 'all seeing eye of Sauron'  (google), that causes the false report.  ?

 

A form of google censorship.

[CanadaOne]

54 minutes ago, Thad said:

 

So, it was the 'all seeing eye of Sauron'  (google), that causes the false report.  ?

 

A form of google censorship.

 

I have no idea. But you may be right.

 

I've been using Norton for years and been trouble free the whole time.

[unreasonable]

It was not a "this page is infected warning": but a "users of this site may try to trick you to give up passwords etc." warning. 

 

So as long as one does not accept the offer to join a special group sharing pictures of baby tanks I expect it will be OK.

 

(I use Malwarebytes Premium - also pretty good and has saved me from a few infections, but better safe than sorry).

[Adler23FalkeAuge]

I'm on Firefox - running Norton and MalwareBytes. Got the "Dangerous Site" warning too. Probably safe. I'm not that curoius.

[MiloMorai]

I have been there for 18 years without any problems.

 

Lots of discussion on ammo types.

[ZachariasX]

11 hours ago, Adler23FalkeAuge said:

Got the "Dangerous Site" warning too. Probably safe. I'm not that curoius.

Firefox does that on its own. Once a site is reported distributing malware (at some point) it becomes backlisted for that.

 

This  doesn't mean you get infected right now on that site unless you absolutely have to install that "media player" required for showing you "dat big gun", should you get asked to do that. Especially if you're use adblockes and scropit blockers, there is no reason you should even think of compromising your system with loosely maintained software running with root priviledges that - as main functionality - touches *every* file that gets near your computer.

[NateLawrence]

The 88mm KwK 36 isn't really overkill when you consider that the KV-1 was among the targets the Tiger was expected to encounter, and that going a little overkill is also future proofing the tank to a degree. The large caliber of the warhead also allows a larger high explosive filler for Sprengranate ammunition, which increases effectiveness against troops and field works. 

[Finkeren]

I would say, that the gun was about the only thing about the design that actually made sense. For all the Tiger's issues, the KwK36 consistently delivered good results for a tank design that really wasn't all that amazing. 

[Porkins]

On 3/28/2019 at 8:09 AM, BlitzPig_EL said:

I would actually posit that the Tiger itself was really an unnecessary waste of very finite resources.  I know this will get it's fans heading for the pitchforks and torches, but the reality is that the Tiger was a drag on German logistics, it was by and large a maintenance nightmare requiring silly amounts of time at depot level shops compared to it's time in the field.  The Germans would have been far better served by developing a more reliable medium tank that could have been built in large numbers at less cost.  However, the penchant of their leadership for over complicated, expensive, and unreliable systems (Tiger, Ferdinand, He 177, etc...) would not be over ruled.

 

What they needed was a medium developed from the Pzkw. IV series with it's proven reliability,  no overly complex interleaved road wheels, and a better armor layout, that could have been fielded in larger numbers.  And please for the love of sanity, keep Dr. Porsche locked in a closet as far away from the design studios as possible...

The problem with that is they didn't have the manpower to man a bunch of medium tanks. They needed to build a tank that allowed 5 German tankers to take on 5-10 enemy tanks to have a chance. It didn't work, but building more powerful tanks made more sense than more medium tanks. 

[JtD]

Neither manpower available nor design nor size of the Tiger were 'the problem'. Had the Tiger been built in numbers as large as the Panzer IV, standard economy of scale factors would have brought down unit costs to a point where it would have not been significanly more expensive that the Panzer IV. The key issue is that German tank industry (as opposed to just the tank design itself) was not designed in a way to allow that. For efficient mass production at that time assembly lines were essential - the simpler the product, the more this came true. German industry however always relied on their highly skilled individual workers, and organised itself very much in working teams, where individual teams performed complex tasks. This meant that increasing output depended on the availability of highly skilled workers, which in reality were of course limited and to make matters worse sent to the Eastern front in large numbers. Also the skills were to some degree product specific, so it took considerable training to transfer from product one to product two.

 

Had the industry been set up more in accordance to then modern assembly line standards, allowing more unskilled workers to do a large part of the job, industry output could have been larger or at least more flexible. The Tiger tank, being produced since 1942 at amazingly low rates, could have benefitted from that, at least at the expense of Panzer III/IV production.

[Torrens]

I don't think 88 was overkill for the Tiger. It was designed to counter T34 and KV tanks. T34's armor got progressively stronger throughout the war with new designs and soviets later made tanks with lot better armor and the 88 came in handy again. I don't think more medium tanks would've worked for Germans.

 

Unlike the popular belief, Germany did not have manpower issues up until operation Baggration destroyed army group north in 1944. This is a common misconception about eastern front. Axis powers outnumbered the soviet union in population during late 1941 - 1943. It was not untill after soviets took back Ukraine and Belarus that they outnumbered the Axis powers in population. The outnumbered soviet soldier defeated the Axis soldier on the field and stopped the German advance with their blood in 1941 and later on. Germans did have manpower to man thousands of medium tanks but not enough fuel to operate them. Considering the resource issues, I believe that making a heavy tank design to make the most out of every vehicle was a good choice regarding the lack of fuel.

 

German army doctrine changed from manouver warfare from 1940 to a static defense warfare later on where tanks did not have to move anymore. In fact Kursk is a good example of this change. The German high command did not try to out flank the Russians anymore. They went in head on and tried to brute force their way to victory unlike in 1941 -1942.They had to face overwhelming numbers and the late war encouraged for a heavy, static tank that has superior firepower. Lack of fuel and destruction of army group south in Stalingrad made this change in doctrine happen. After operation Uranus Germans did not move anymore.

Edited June 8, 2019 by Torrens

[SCG_Syn]

On 3/28/2019 at 8:09 AM, BlitzPig_EL said:

I would actually posit that the Tiger itself was really an unnecessary waste of very finite resources.  I know this will get it's fans heading for the pitchforks and torches, but the reality is that the Tiger was a drag on German logistics, it was by and large a maintenance nightmare requiring silly amounts of time at depot level shops compared to it's time in the field.  The Germans would have been far better served by developing a more reliable medium tank that could have been built in large numbers at less cost.  However, the penchant of their leadership for over complicated, expensive, and unreliable systems (Tiger, Ferdinand, He 177, etc...) would not be over ruled.

 

What they needed was a medium developed from the Pzkw. IV series with it's proven reliability,  no overly complex interleaved road wheels, and a better armor layout, that could have been fielded in larger numbers.  And please for the love of sanity, keep Dr. Porsche locked in a closet as far away from the design studios as possible...

Late to this, but Germany also didnt have the manpower to field more Panzer 4's so that wouldn't work either. When the Tiger was used correctly (it usually wasnt), it worked amazingly. Germany also had oil problems so more machines that use more oil is not the problem. The problem is the Soviet Union, there was NO WAY for Germany to defeat them. The Tiger is a small part of a lot of problems within the German Reich.

 

Germany had been suffering manpower issues since 1942... btw Torrens. Since 1942 the quality of weaponry had been going down as more and more men were replaced with slaves and forced labour in the factories. 

 

Don't forget about the Oil aswell!

A big part of the problems for the Tiger was it's inappropriate use. A F4u is great until you put it into a dogfight, when used correctly in a BnZ scenario things change. Same thing with the Tiger.

Edited June 9, 2019 by SCG_Sinerox

[Torrens]

Hello Sinerox,

Unfortunately Wermacht lacking manpower is a common misconception and I'd like to make you re-consider your stance. Germany did not start suffering manpower issues untill after 1943.

 

Wermacht increased in size by over 300,000 men between July 1, 1942 - 30 June, 1943. It is a vert common myth about that the Wercmacht started the war as a large, unstoppable force and decreased in size ever since 1941. This is incorrect. Between 22 June, 1941 - 30 June, 1942 Wermacht increased in size by over 100,000 men. This totals around 400,000 men increase in size between July 1941 - June 1943.  I will leave you a link to a historian on youtube who will challenge your thoughts. Germany lost WW2 due to lack of oil, logistics and bad combat performance not manpower. The video goes in depth about casualties and army sizes on the easter front. It is a long video and I won't make you watch it all so I will leave you time marks so you can skip accordingly.

 

German manpower - 8:45

German - Soviet manpower comparisons - 12:20

 

 

Edited June 9, 2019 by Torrens

[JtD]

Firstly, the Soviets fielded more men or an equal number in every major battle and lost nearly as many men in 1941 as the Wehrmacht fielded in total.

 

Secondly, whether or not the Wehrmacht had manpower issues is a completely different point from Germany having manpower issues. German industry had manpower issues ever since the Nazis began to rearm Germany, it nearly always was the bottleneck.

 

Thirdly, the Axis weren't at war with the Soviets alone, they also were at war with the British Commonwealth, the largest economical power at the time. Later on they were at war with half the world, which also happened to directly support the SU via lend lease.

 

And you're trying to say the Soviets were outnumbered?

[Torrens]

My comments only adress the eastern front and not allies. They weren't fighting in the eastern front after all.

 

Axis powers outnumbered the soviet union in combined population after western parts of russia had been occupied. During Stalingrad, soviets were fighting numerically superior enemy in population, that had larger pool of manpower to replace losses from. How many units were in the frontline is different. That is not what I'm talking about. The situation later changed when soviets took back western russia. I'm trying to correct a common misconception that Germany did not have available manpower to replace losses. This is incorrect. The army increased by around 400.000 men between July 1941 and June 1943. Wermacht grew is size during the war for many years. Germany did not have manpower issues in the eastern front until operation Baggration destroyed argmy group north and were able to replenish tank losses up until Kursk 1943 without issues.

Edited June 9, 2019 by Torrens

[JtD]

28 minutes ago, Torrens said:

My comments only adress the eastern front and not allies.

 

Yes, and you need to look at the whole picture and not just a fraction of it.

[Torrens]

Germany had enough manpower throughout the war untill 1944 way after the war was lost. This is the whole picture. I hope you re-consider this misconception in the future. The soviet soldier beat it's axis counterpart on the field. I can link you some cool videos on youtube that go in depth about this topic if you are interested.

[JtD]

Cool videos. OK. Probably including detailed information about operation Bagration destroying army group north.

 

I don't need to watch that.

[Torrens]

Then you dont need to argue for false historical information either. I guess I won this argument. Have a nice day then.

[DD_Arthur]

59 minutes ago, Torrens said:

 I guess I won this argument. 

 

Wow!  Who can defy the power of YouTube, eh?

[Torrens]

1 hour ago, DD_Arthur said:

 

Wow!  Who can defy the power of YouTube, eh?

Whatever you say judge! Feel free to prove me wrong in personal chat but not here. I'm not derailing this thread anymore.

[unreasonable]

4 hours ago, Torrens said:

Whatever you say judge! Feel free to prove me wrong in personal chat but not here. I'm not derailing this thread anymore.

 

Too late!   Bagration destroyed Army Group Centre  - not North.  

[1./KG4_OXO123]

As far as the 88 was concerned , it worked , it was available , it was versatile , it was relatively easy to maintain..  it was right I guess

 

atb oxo

[Torrens]

10 hours ago, unreasonable said:

 

Too late!   Bagration destroyed Army Group Centre  - not North.  

Army group north certainly did not enjoy Baggration am I right? Contact me privately I don't want to read these lazy comments anymore in this thread

Edited June 10, 2019 by Torrens

[unreasonable]

26 minutes ago, Torrens said:

Army group north certainly did not enjoy Baggration am I right? Contact me privately I don't want to read these lazy comments anymore in this thread

 

Then stop making them.  Bagration was an operation directed against Army Group Centre. That is a simple fact: if you insist on making public posts denigrating other posters here, some of whom I know for a fact are extremely knowledgeable about things WW2,  while making basic mistakes yourself, expect to be refuted in the same forum in  which you made your comments.

 

I have no intention of contacting you privately now or at any other time.     

[Torrens]

Do you disagree with my notion that Germany did have enough manpower to reinforce it's armies untill Kursk in 1943 and especially Baggration? This is the topic of my original post. If you don't care about this subject, then do not quote me. I will not let you derail this topic and attack me personally.  Also your knowledge about WW2 is welcome if you want to disprove my argument. Giving me a single sentence one-liner is a lazy attempt at undermining every post I made earlier.

 

If you have no intention of communicating with me, then you most certainly don't have any intentions of refuting me. It seems like you simply want to fight me. If you want to refute my argument, then do it and stop this nonsense about "denigrating others". This is my attempt at getting back to the topic. Thank you.

Edited June 10, 2019 by Torrens

[JG1_Wittmann]

Not overkill, just a different approach. Soviet armor guns relied on  mass, ( Larger Calibers) to try and achieve the same effect.  Mass is an important factor in armor penetration,  but in the calculation Velocity is Squared.  So a lower mass shell, with much higher velocity,  which is what was happening, can penetrate as much or much more.   I believe the L71 88 MM gun had more penetration than the 122mm IS2 Gun.  The advantage of going for velocity is a flatter shot and better accuracy until the mass is not sufficient to maintain enough velocity.   You don't read many accounts of IS2's engaging at 3000M.  At longer ranges, higher mass will hold velocity better and will then be more accurate. So if you compare the 75mm L70 used in the Panther, it has a similar velocity as the 88 from the L56.  The guns are considered comparable.  The L56  is able to take out targets at longer ranges with it's higher mass and higher downrange velocity

[unreasonable]

11 hours ago, Torrens said:

Do you disagree with my notion that Germany did have enough manpower to reinforce it's armies untill Kursk in 1943 and especially Baggration?

 

I think you have misinterpreted  @SCG_Sinerox's comment:

 

On 6/9/2019 at 10:58 AM, SCG_Sinerox said:

Late to this, but Germany also didnt have the manpower to field more Panzer 4's so that wouldn't work either. When the Tiger was used correctly (it usually wasnt), it worked amazingly. Germany also had oil problems so more machines that use more oil is not the problem. The problem is the Soviet Union, there was NO WAY for Germany to defeat them. The Tiger is a small part of a lot of problems within the German Reich.

 

Germany had been suffering manpower issues since 1942... btw Torrens. Since 1942 the quality of weaponry had been going down as more and more men were replaced with slaves and forced labour in the factories. 

 

 

The Germans did not have a shortage of unskilled workers, given that it could draw on the labour of the conquered territories - most of the increase in size of the German forces you point out came from the recruitment of Hiwis. What they did have was a shortage of skilled labour to make large quantities of sophisticated weapons, especially given JtD's point on their slowness in adopting assembly line techniques. They also lacked recruits with the prior experience of maintaining and operating motor vehicles. The US - and to a lesser extent the UK - could put into a tank a soldier who had prior mechanical work experience. The German's recruits had prior experience of maintaining horses. That is alright for the vast bulk of German artillery and supply wagons that were horse drawn, but a significant disadvantage in manning a mechanized formation.

 

So Sinerox is absolutely right that the Germans had manpower issues: not some much in the total number of warm bodies, but in building and operating advanced machinery, which is how I read his post. Whether that was material in deciding on a few heavy tanks rather than a large number of smaller ones I doubt: there were many factors involved and the tendency to go for "superweapons" seems to be a broader trend in German procurement. 

[Finkeren]

In the end it comes down to the fact, that Germany faced a plethora of problems right from the onset of the war:

 

An acute shortage of oil and fuel. 

 

A critical lack of trained reservists for the military. 

 

A skilled workforce growing smaller by each round of conscriptions. 

 

An industry that was decades behind the US and USSR in terms of mass production of military equipment. 

 

A military that was only partly mechanised and only got progressively less mechanised, as the war went on. 

 

A military leadership that, although great on the tactical and operational level, was woefully incompetent, when it came to grand strategy - the Oberkommandos essentially abandoning any semblance of a coherent strategy after 1942.

 

These issues were all intertwined, so that each blocked the solution to the other. This led to Germany betting all on its ability to defeat the enemy in the field with big, sweeping maneuvers that ended conflicts quickly and with minimal losses. This went surprisingly well, until the attack on the Soviet Union. When the USSR stubbornly refused to collapse and inflicted almost a million casualties on the Wehrmacht in 6 months (around 40 times what they had suffered in the war up till then) all these issues only got worse, and the only thing the German leadership could hope for was, that they would somehow be able to make their military that much more effective to make up for the deficit. Each soldier and each tank would just have to count for more. This is the mindset that would lead them to build stuff like the Tiger. For the Tiger to be effective it had to be really hard-hitting and virtually indestructible at normal engagement rangers, because each one had to destroy an awful lot of Soviet equipment in order to balance the scales. Anything less than 100mm of armor and an 88mm cannon just wouldn't cut it. 

 

In the end it was of course not gonna change anything, but you can see, what they were going for. 

Edited June 11, 2019 by Finkeren

[JtD]

35 minutes ago, Finkeren said:

An industry that was decades behind the US and USSR in terms of mass production of military equipment.

 

I'd say it was more an industry that faced different challenges in terms of mass production of military equipment then the US, UK or SU and came up with different solutions.

 

In several areas Germany outproduced the SU, so it cannot have been decades behind.

[Finkeren]

1 hour ago, JtD said:

In several areas Germany outproduced the SU, so it cannot have been decades behind.

 

Sorry, but I simply don't see this being the case. 

 

Germany was outproduced by the USSR in most major fields of war production. They just about kept pace in aircraft production and build many more mortars than anyone else (but that was a desperate measure to cheaply make up for their huge deficiency in rifled artillery) Other than that they were way behind. Even in something as essential as production of munitions and explosives they were outproduced by the Soviets even in 1941-42 and later three- to four-fold. 

 

The USSR on the other hand managed to outproduce one of the World's most advanced industrial powers while simultaneously oprooting their entire industry and moving it beyond the Urals and doingnso with a severely diminished skilled labor force (more than 40% of the entire USSR population was lost by early'42 being either killed, captured or trapped in occupied territory) Yet they still beat the German on most parameters. You don't do that, unless your system of mass production is vastly superior.