Tank Chats #77 Jagdtiger | The Tank Museum

This

tank

speaks of this enormous piece next to me the Jagdtiger with its enormous one hundred and twenty-eight millimeter cannon now we have already explained about the development of the King Tiger project and the Jagdtiger is a vehicle that emerges from that project that really emerges Let's go back to this German idea which begins just before World War II and which consists of first placing an infantry support gun, such as a short seven-point, five-centimeter gun, on the chassis of a

tank

, but without a turret, and the idea there was the original idea. It's called stone Gerschwitz, but the Germans developed that with their different tank models and with that initial idea of ​​an infantry support vehicle, then it advances when they add instead of an infantry support howitzer to add an anti-tank gun and then you end up creating. something the Germans call Panzerjäger x' or tank hunters and the idea of ​​a vehicle that can have a powerful anti-tank gun on a mobile tracked chassis and the real difference between that and a tank is that a tank tends to have a turret that can rotate 360 ​​degrees.

This particular Jagtiger was captured by US forces outside of Houston Beck, which is in the analogue of Houston Betts or was a training and testing area for the German army at the end of the war, some of the vehicles. that were training there were taken to form a makeshift unit to help try to stop the American advance, then they took it back to Houston and this was a vehicle that the British then recovered in the UK for evaluation and we repainted it in its original Dunkel Gelb-only scheme, which is what was the case when it was in Houston, which is just, again, it was basically this is the factory finish, later in the war two more colors were issued for the Different units will apply them as camouflage. scheme we know that this vehicle was never camouflaged when it was in service even though traces of the zimmerit system can still be seen in August 1944 when it was manufactured and that they were added in the factory now the Germans liked this idea and almost everyone Models. tank they go out with, apart from the Tiger, they create a kind of tank hunting vehicle on top, sometimes reusing captured weapons.

The French or Russian anti-tank guns are placed on top of the chassis, sometimes other times they build something custom, for example with the jank panther building the sides on the front glass a plate putting the 88 millimeter gun basically what underneath is a helmet of panther now with the AG Tiger program what happens is in October 1943 Hitler already likes the idea of ​​continuing this tradition with the tiger tanks there is already a problem in the summer of 43, the Germans have seen how the Russians are using weapons of increasingly heavier caliber, sometimes anti-aircraft, sometimes artillery pieces in an anti-tank role and analyzes the idea of ​​using the one hundred and twenty-eight millimeter cannon on the chassis of a tank now Hitler, as we have mentioned before, with the program of the tiger, is already trying to see its armed forces one step ahead of the opposition in the battle seasons each summer, so to speak, although this sounds ridiculously in 1942 a ridiculously big gun in late '42 when they were thinking whether we can put this 128 millimeters on something like an agile anti-tank weapon something thin the ideas about how they have been doing it with other anti-tank weapons or putting on a mobile chassis this seems ridiculously large, you just have to think a couple of years before the standard anti-tank gun with which Germany goes to war is 37 millimeters, a small, portable man, which can be towed by horses or a small vehicle and can be maneuvered.

Suddenly in position to jump into a vehicle or a weapon of this enormous size of 128 millimeters on a chassis, they started designing one of the 11 tons, so they realized right away that it was going to be too big and too heavy. They were also looking for the best 128 millimeter gun to use and they go to hell and Ryan Mattel, as always with German systems, you try to get some competition. Mattel is already making a 128 millimeter flat gun, it's a standard caliber for some naval weapons, so tools and there's other stuff out there Krupp decides no, we're going to try it ourselves, but we're actually going to create a completely new weapon of that caliber and the Germans really see that the shitty weapon is a weapon that they really want to use in the anti-tank role this huge 128 millimeter cannon, normally it would have some kind of barrel support, that weapon has a length of 7 meters from the end to the bridge, it is a very long weapon, two meters from the ground, very heavy.

Well, also the vehicles that drive the vibrations that go through the structure that holds the gun in place, the bracket that is attached to the floor, that wear and tear alone causes the gun to become inaccurate because it wears out there, so, They needed a gun. lock so I can put that lock in place the gun is actually looked at through a periscope system that goes through the ceiling the commander would be sitting on the other side of me he actually had donkey ears to look through the ceiling like some guy binocular range, while on this side they would be the actual aiming range, as I mentioned, and this weapon could be accurate to about 3 and a half kilometers away, which is a great distance for a tank-killing weapon.

Inside we have a driver and a bow gunner on the other side who would operate the radio and again, as I mentioned, the two loaders in the back and a gunner who sits in the front using that sight that comes out the roof , which is why Hitler, as I mentioned, likes it. the idea of ​​the tiger started in October 1943, they showed that wooden model in East Prussia, it was demonstrated what it will look like, it is not a running vehicle and then they got to work and Henschel, who got the contract for the King Tiger program to the following April 1944, April 20, Hitler's birthday, show that they actually sent two of the first complete YAG Tigers to East Prussia and again one of them is shown to him now as part of that background.

They're really looking here with that one hundred and twenty-eight millimeter gun and again as you look at the entire vehicle, that's the big thing in the 128 millimeter tank hunting capability, this is going to be able to destroy almost anything. on the battlefield at the time and this weapon is so powerful that it could take down any known Allied armor on the Eastern or Western Front from about two and a half miles away. Shoots two main types. Around it is an armor-piercing ballistic bullet. and there is also a high explosive bullet and these bullets are now getting so big that the high explosive bullet alone lifted about twenty-eight kilograms of weight, so now they are making two parts of ammunition, so the bullet It is fired first and then followed by a cartridge with the propellant in that cartridge.

It is made of Welsh steel. Think of something like a poster tube or a rolled toilet paper roll made of casehardened and lacquered steel that holds the cartridge and actually has at least two different charge sizes in the cartridge. Depending on how far they are going to fire the weapons, they now get to the point where they can fit thirty-eight of those bullets inside the tyrant tiger, but due to the weight of the bullets and them getting so big, we now have the situation of an extra crew member, they have two magazines for the Jagdtiger, one to put the shell in another to follow that cartridge, it will explode it, so a large tank killing capacity of 128 millimeters will pierce through any tank known ally approximately three and a half hours away.

Kilometers, that is the most phenomenal weapon for killing tanks. Put him in a tank in World War II. The problems, of course, what we're seeing is that the Germans mount it on a chassis that then comes in seventy-five long lugs. We have all those problems that we have seen with other big German heavy tank programs, like the Maybach HL 230 P engine, which can be fixed, they brought it up to about 600 horsepower, it will still be underpowered to move 75 tons. the place and looking again, you know you can get about 12 miles per hour with the transmission of this vehicle again, like a king tiger, problems with the transmission systems in February 1945, engineers are sent from the factories trying to find a way to rectify the transmission problems that many vehicles have and we will talk about that as well in their service match, but really you are looking at this type of vehicle, 200 250 kilometers, something went wrong as in a major transmission failure and from that point of view, with a vehicle like this, removing the transmission in the front means removing the main armament to get to it, so that's a major project, it's not something they can easily do to protect the armor in the front of the vehicle you have about 225 millimeters of armor plates at an angle of about 75 degrees, a huge mold in the front and then also an even bigger mold, which is what they call that source support to protect the mantlet, for so to speak. on the front around the gun barrel this is a homogeneous armor, it is not hardened on the face 80 millimeters on the side so there is always thinner armor on the sides in the rear but the idea behind Hitler likes the idea that if we put a weapon in a vehicle what they are really looking for is a level of protection that is up to the standard of weapon that the vehicle itself carries, so it is difficult to say whether this would really come close to that kind of firepower from this type of caliber weapon. but it's a very, very thick armor and the other problem, of course, that's actually happening is that they then have to find ways to weld it together so that you have large segmented, almost locked sections, but of course we're not talking.

As for Lego, here they have to angle all the different joints so that Willed can go in there and make a proper seal and join those different blocks together and that in itself is a major task. They order one hundred and fifty of these vehicles, we believe. Around May 1945, only about 80 of them were being finished, an edition that was made at the Nibelungen work in Austria at st. Valentine and that was bombed quite heavily in October 1944, so again, as with many of the other post-war German production tanks, there are external influences that come into play mechanically.

We have already mentioned the problems there, so the vehicles that are constantly being sent back or trying to be repaired in the field the bombings have interrupted not only the production of the tanks but also the supply of raw materials and since you have such a vehicle big, you tend to try to move it all the time on the rail network. and of course from late '44 to '45, which is being heavily attacked by the Allied bombing campaign, so getting these vehicles around Germany is a real problem and the whole German vehicle construction system starts to fall apart at the same time. as these vehicles are manufactured. so this is another one of those stories of Hitler stopping and starting showing interest throughout production in January 45.

He wonders if some of the barrels could his delays in making barrels with vintage. Could the innards be removed from some anti-tank chassis? I've been using these French and Russian anti-tank classes to put this huge 28 millimeter gun. Can we get some of those back to help produce more Tiger Yaks again? He doesn't want to see this tiger yak. This for him. is another of his wonder weapons, the secret weapons that he hopes will have a real influence and when the first units start training with these vehicles from 10:44, one was in 65 heavy three or becomes the panzerjäger abbe thailand the tank fighter battalion already originally began serving with elephants and Ferdinand's movements towards these vehicles note the number of times superior figures come to detour see and take a look at the new Yankee, I suppose seeing how the training and see how this vehicle develops because Again, it's another one of these that Hitler has had a great personal interest in.

They don't actually see any action until the winter of 44-45. They were to be deployed in the Battle of the Bulge. In reality, they do not reach the front line. and again, if you read the different accounts, it's not so much Allied activity, but again, it's a railway network that is trying to get the vehicle to the right place, they fail to have any influence in the Battle of the Bulge, but the First losses follow them. operation nordwind jet on 45 January and that was when the first loss of one of these Jagdtiger occurred and ironically for such a massive vehicle one of the most advanced powerful munitions of World War II the first

jagdtiger

appears to have been knocked out by something as simple as a bazooka that manages to enter and gain access to the ammunition from the point of view and that caused a secondary fire, the wholevehicle explodes and loses the entire crew, they do not see much action in 1945 and the The problem is again trying to transport them to where the fighting is taking place Otto Carius, a famous tiger commander, writes with tigers and mud when in reality they give him The commander of a platoon of these

jagdtiger

s he sees, describes the problems they have when arriving on the battlefield. something so big keeps the vehicles fueled, keeping an eye on this point that dominates allied air superiority and, although we sometimes forget about other issues from 1945 onwards, for example, there is a moment when he positions his jagdtigers, but immediately the locals alerted the advancing Americans where those tanks are, so an airstrike comes in other problems that you have, which again we mentioned in previous conversations about tanks, problems like crew training, you can have this part incredibly sophisticated declave with that very powerful weapon, but again, if you don't have the trained men who can really make the most of it and that's one of the things that also the carriers point out that you have a jagdtiger tiger commander who again makes the mistake of a collegiate upon retiring. away from the American troops, where he again managed to shoot down an American tank, but then he decides that he is going to maneuver and that exposes his side armor, which is thinner for the Americans, and then he also becomes a victim of their firepower, for so that idea of ​​a less well trained and sometimes less committed German tank force in the spring of 1945 is something that becomes frequent and also affects the losses of these vehicles, so you have a unit, one of the platoons, they actually tilt those ten of their 12 Jagdtigers have to destroy themselves and they actually only lost one yang tiger in combat and shot down an American tank, so again we come back to the amount of time, energy and effort that goes into these vehicles so the result simply does not seem to be worth it for German production and for the Germans certainly for the German army a second unit is formed.

Only fighting the Russians with the AK Tigers in Austria in May 1945 and we kind of mentioned that we believe that only about 80 Jagdtiger are produced and another point worth mentioning here - our dear old friend. We have mentioned it again in jazz tank design during World War II. Ferdinand Porsche now Porsche with this vehicle. Henshall has the contract to build it, but Porsche has a German Army contract contract number two five years and that contract basically says Porsche says look I can make better suspension systems cheaper, faster for German military vehicles and that system actually It is tested on one prototype and ten of the original production of The Yang Tiger in our particular version here you have that Porsche system and again it is another one of these signs that Germany is losing the war and yet these other programs continue to see if You can upgrade your tanks and make them better. maybe something we're thinking about now is dissipating his resources, his time, his energy, but the idea was that what he came up with instead of the Henschel system of putting transverse torsion bars in the lower hull of the vehicle so that it is anchored on one side runs along. the floor comes out and the wheels are on an arm on the opposite side, that's how it has its suspension system.

Porsche came up with the idea of ​​using long torsion bars up to Dan'l that were in a housing that could be bolted together. on the side of the vehicle and therefore saves space inside. He now estimated that the tools would be less than half of what was needed. Very precise tools are needed to make torsion bars that drill from one side to the other Porsche. He says no, you don't need to do all this. I can do all that cheaper. They test this system on several of these early models of the Jagdtiger that are coming out, including this one, unfortunately, boobs from the German military's point of view.

Yes, it's cheaper, but. This Jagdtiger is not so successful, one of the suspension systems completely broke it, it was held by bolts drilled into the side of the vehicle and there was also another problem. The Porsche system had eight wheels. The Henschel system had nine wheels. but the dual wheels and the sandwiched Porsche system ended up putting too much pressure on the tracks, so they found that the tracks actually curved and sometimes cracked too, so again there's another one of these novel Porsche ideas to try , in this particular case, save time and energy. and the money fails, as can be judged, all the tank and of the Western allies who fought against the Jagdtiger, most of the Russians only for a couple of examples in May in Austria 1945, thank God, from their point of view view, most of these vehicles.

They ended up being destroyed by their own crews because they ran out of fuel, transmission failures, or they couldn't get them to where the battlefield was. The factory was invaded on May 9. the last tank is being built on the 5th. In May they ran out of 128 millimeter guns, they put together about half a dozen with just one 88 millimeter, but we don't think they ever lost the factory, so overall, one of those vehicles was seen by gamers, model makers loved it. I loved his impact on World War II despite being one of Hitler's pets again. It's childish.

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