learninghistorytogether

Welcome Ladies and Gentleman today we are going to talk about the Sd.kfz.181 also known as the Tiger 1, this is one of the most feared tanks ever created and also the most well known probably together with the American M4 Sherman, if you were to approach a random stranger on the street and were to ask them if they can name a tank, the tank they are most likely to name is the Tiger 1. today we are going to see how good the Tiger 1 really was and at the end of the video I will share my opinion on the tank, I expect this to become a longer video then I normally do, so strap in and enjoy the ride. If you enjoyed the video please leave a like as I am aiming for the 150 likes on this video, now let’s get right into the video. One of the most Notable things when you look at the tiger is that is seems very dangerous especially with the Big main armament, it was named the 88mm Kwk 36 (L/56) the 88mm stands for the the Diameter of the Round, KwK means Kampfwagen-Kanonne which translates to Chariot Gun, and the L/ means that the 88mm fits 56 times in it so the main armament would just be over 4.9 meters long, it fired the (Pzgr) PanzerGrenate 39 and the (Pzgr.) Panzergrenate 40. When you compare these 2 rounds you notice that the 40 variant has a considerable higher amount of penetration force then the 39 variant, it is also lighter and has a higher Muzzle Velocity. It also had the Sprgr which is the name for the high explosive which is mainly for anti personel meanings and lightly armoured vehicles and it could also fire a HEAT round. This graph shows you how good the penetration levels of the tigers main armament really were when you compare it to opponents, so for the soviet union it is the 76.2mm F34 used on the T-34 and the Kv-1 and for the US it was the 75mm L/40, The Tiger had 2 secondary armaments and these were the MG34 and they had 4.500 rounds onboard, 4.800 from the Tiger 1 E version. The Tiger would be nothing without its armour, The tiger was the Heaviest Armoured tank ever used on the battlefield when it entered service tied with the Churchill. The Tiger 1 at its thickest point was about 102mm thick, the 102mm was also angled on 81 degrees but this does not really improve the effectifity Armor, the Thinnest point is the Roof, Floor and engine cover, however the roof was later upgraded to be 40mm thick instead of 26mm because it was insufficient to protect the crew from artillery fire and aircraft. To give you guys a proper example of how important it is, In 1943 there was a battle near the village of Ssemernikovo where Lt. Zbel recalls how it was fighting with these vehicles, to quickly summarize the experience, after the battle they counted 227 anti-tank bullets on their tank, 14x 57mm dents and 11 76.2mm dents, even though receiving damage notably to its tracks and other parts it still kept going, so in his own words “Subsequently, it can be said that the armor on the Tiger had come up to our expectations.” Join this channel to get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuuigpHoTp5Q-qIT_dr8Jng/join