Fan fiction counts right? Sorry Ashton Kutcher.

Well lets get this show on the road, and what better way to get a show on the road then with a Tiger! No not the animal, the tank, which is far cooler and more vicious. My first WW2 tech post back on Bungie was actually on the Tiger, so this is poetic I guess...if a thing that blows people up in horrific ways can be poetic. Were not here to talk about that though, we want to hear why its awesome and how it kills people in those horrific ways!

*Now with 100% more and cooler pictures!

What some could argue is the most infamous tank ever invented, the Panzerkampfwagen ausferon VI otherwise known famously as the "Tiger". It was nicknamed by its German crews to scare its enemies and it stuck, it stuck like a magnetic mine on a T-34, but thats for another post  .

The Tiger sports an 88mm gun capable of defeating Allied Shermans and T-34's at a range of up to 2 miles, its 100mm frontal armor is impervious to the Shermans low velocity 75mm cannon. The Tiger first burst onto the World War 2 stage in Leningrad where it faced off against the famous T-34. The T-34 was no match for the Tiger at long ranges as its 76mm gun was not powerful enough much akin to the Sherman. It achieved remarkable success in Tunisia as well in 1943, the allied tanks had trouble fighting on the open desert plains, however there weren't enough to make a big difference.

The infamous 88 Flak/Anti-tank gun, it was fitted to the Tiger (You thought it was only supposed to shoot at aircraft? you thought wrong!) -

Nice 88 gif- http://fat.gfycat.com/TartAgileFieldmouse.webm

Tigers were organized into separate heavy tank Abteilungs (German for Battalion), so special was the Tiger that they were handed out piece meal in these battalions as divisional level assets. The Tiger was designed as a breakthrough tank, so where ever you saw a tiger, more than likely you were in the path of the German main effort. However, converse to that is the fact that you were actually pretty lucky (If you want to call it that, I am sure allied soldiers didn't) to even see a tiger, in fact only about 1200 were made, contrast that with 8500 Panzers 4's and you will see that you were one unluck SOB to run into it. This fact alone makes the Tiger panic I mention towards the end even more significant.

Panzer 4 "H" (If you have your body stuffed into a fox hole in France and you tilt your head to the side, you too can probably mistake the Panzer 4 "H" for a Tiger!)-

However the Tiger had its own fair share of problems both in its mechanical workings and of course the enemy's new weapons. For one it was simply over engineered, to build a Tiger it took a lot of hours and a lot of materials to make a Tiger, to the point where it was innefficient. German industry can be blamed in part for tihs because each part was made in a separate factory halfway across the country but this also helped out because allied bombing raids really couldn't stop tank production completely. Its tracks were hard to dismantle and replace, the transmission would fail and if a Tiger got stuck it took a lot of work to get it free, it was simply to heavy weighing in at 60 tons. As the war dragged on the tiger would meet its match with the new soviet tanks like the T-34-85 which was more than capable of dealing with it frontally at a comfortable range, and the IS-2 with its 122mm cannon that could crack it open like an easter egg two miles out. The Americans and British learned quickly as well, with the British adopting the Sherman "Fire fly" a sherman that was retro fitted to fit the 17 pdr AT gun, which was more than capable of taking a tiger on a mile out. The Americans however had tank destroyers like the Hell cat, and up-gunned 76 Shermans that with special ammunitin equipped were a match as well. These tanks were for the most part ready in 1943 and were fought with until the end of the war.

American "Hell cat" tank destroyer (Note the large 76mm gun)-

Soviet T-34-85-

American 76mm Sherman (Note the increased turret space in the rear to accomodate the 76mm gun)-

Russian IS2 (See how big that gun is? yeah don't get hit by that, the Russians weren't known for there subtlety)-

British Sherman Firefly (Britain: Fixing American equipment to make it better from the Sherman to the Apache gunship) Note: The paint on the upper half of the barrel was an attempt to break up the silhouette of the gun so a firefly would be hard to tell from a normal 75 equipped Sherman. Also the radio is now mounted behind the turret in that bustle you see to accomodate the 17 pounder gun-

Although the Tiger was later outmatched and became obsolete its legacy lives on as one of the most feared armored vehicles in history. Often normal Panzer 4's would be mistakenly called Tigers, leading to Tiger "panic" as some soldiers called it, I can't find another tank with that kind of infamy. From the sand swept dunes of Northern Africa to the streets of Berlin, the Tiger is the symbol of the panzer, and it is going no where any time soon.

Today there is only one surviving completely intact Tiger, Tiger 131 in Britain's Bovington tank museum, it was abandoned by its crew when a shell struck and damaged the turret traverse, the culprit was a British churchill, punching a bit above its weight. Tiger 131 can also be seen in the movie "Fury", it is the only movie where an actual working Tiger tank is shown moving around.

Tiger 131 (The only operational original Tiger tank in the world, note the damage below the gun where the 75mm shell hit and jammed the turret traverse)-

Fury Tiger 131 (As seen in Fury, note the tree limbs used as camouflage)-



Well first post, and many more to come, hopefully you learned something. Also don't be shy to ask me about posting on a topic you want to see!

Eh, just goes to show that we need to spend more on cyber security, I mean sure we can take down your nuclear reactors, but they can steal our F-22 blue prints...and post stupid things to our military command twitter accounts.

 

>mfw raptor threads

Welcome!

Haha awesome, Das you're still around!

Ill get to posting WW2 facts pretty soon I suppose, Ill probably just post what I do on the Bnet Flood to here, or vice versa.

Virtually, does that count? 

I remember you. I stopped going to B.net, but every time I check someone has bumped one of my two year old threads.

Yeah I came back to like 100 notifications and an AMA thread I made like a year ago.

These guys are freaking nut cases, I am going to post a few reviews that really stuck out, but feel free to melt your brain reading through the others. The worst part about it is how the scoring works, instead of actively criticizing game-play or mechanics, they just decide they don't "like" something and give it a 20, the scariest part is companies actually send them review copies.

Skyrim-
http://www.familyfriendlygaming.com/Reviews/2013/The%20Elder%20Scrolls%20V%20Skyrim.html

Destiny (AKA Murder simulator)-
http://www.familyfriendlygaming.com/Reviews/2014/Destiny.html

Its like watching a train wreck, a soviet style train wreck. I feel bad for the Russian people, it is just a never ending cycle honestly. That government will eventually collapse or lose power and the only thing we can hope for is to get a sensible person in charge over there. *Fingers crossed*

What a surprisingly warm welcome...you guys feeling ok?

Hehe

Hi people Its been a while, its nice to see some of you guys again! If you don't remember me that's ok, I was the guy who made all of those World War 2 posts, its great to see a community site that's actually based on the old layout of Bungie, I am impressed. Although I only recognize like two people since the rest of you have anime names and pictures its good to be back haha!

Do all of you only post here or do you occasionally still post on Bnet? I have started to do my daily facts over there still, but I definitely see more new faces than old.