When the Allies crossed France in June 1944, one of the big times during the European Theatre of World War II, they faced the powerful German Tiger tanks.
Tipping the scales for whiplash 56 tonnes with the powerful-hitting 88mm gun, the Tiger commanded an overwhelming superiority over all the allied tanks from 1942 up to 1944. The one fault this brunt bore was the underpowered Maybach engine by the weight of the machine.
In service first in 1942, the Tiger had the role to make holes through the enemy battlefield by destroying enemy tanks from afar.
The Airborne troops had originally been equipped with the Projector Infantry Anti Tank (PIAT), but with only the 90m range the PIAT was not able to penetrate the Tiger’s front armour so the operator had to be level-headed and well hidden to be effective. The 6-pounder much superior 17-pounder Anti-Tank guns later became issued but rode on Horsa gliders. These gave Airborne Forces the capability for retaliation against enemy tank troops, the 17pdr able by far to detroy the Tiger at 1,000m.
Economically, the Tiger was even worse off. The material that went into one Tiger would have produced numerous medium-sized tanks or even an unlimited number of destroyer tanks. One Tiger consumed the same type of steel as the construction material for 21 105-millimeter howitzers.
By combat the Tigers had the best ratio, “Tiger tanks killed 11.52 tanks for every one of their own destroyed in battle.” The big number is not so big, though, when all loss from all causes is accounted for, bringing the enemy dead-on-Tiger ratio down to 5.25 per Tiger.
In spite of all this, the tiger tank battalions were feared most by the Allies. They were very closely studied, and the tactics for combined arms were formulated to counter their threat.
