tiger tank

front in 1942. That article concluded that the Tiger was pretty much the queen of the battlefield and able to out perform the new technologies that the soviets had brought to the front in the form of the T-34 and KV-1 tanks. The Tiger's powerful 88mm gun and thick armour made it a beast of a vehicle by 1942 standards. Put to work in the open Russian landscape, against the comparatively under-gunned soviet tanks, the Tiger soon earned a fearsome reputation.

The recent release of the 'Beyond Normandy' Panzer Grenadier module, gives an opportunity to see how the Tiger tank shapes up to the challenges of the western front, two years later. When compared to the Tiger and Panther tanks, British and American armour was still largely under gunned and under armoured.

The reputation of the Tiger was significant in the mind of the allied soldier. In his book, Assault Crossing - The River Seine 1944 by Ken Ford (published by David & Charles), Ken notes 'All foot soldiers fear tanks and in the Allied army, everyone feared Tiger tanks most of all. In consequence, every enemy tank became a Tiger. They achieved a position

of awe in the minds of the troops. The Tiger was virtually invincible. It's thick armour and large 88mm gun made it capable of withstanding the fire of any allied tank and all anti-tank guns (bar the 17 pounder) except at suicidally short ranges. All large German tanks - Panthers, Mark IVs and even some self-propelled guns - were often mistakenly labelled as being Tigers by the British infantry'.

Perhaps the answer as to how the Tiger I tank is getting along by 1944 has just been given to us. However, the allies did have ways of trying to deal with the Tiger. Allied artillery was plentiful and importantly, it's fire control was very effective, allowing heavy concentrations of fire to be delivered at specific points. The allies also had air superiority and they made good use of the anti - tank capability of the ground-attack fighters.

In the Normandy module, the undulating terrain is an important feature for both players. The defenders will be looking for positions that give the best fields of fire. The attacker will be looking to use the terrain for safe approaches to get into crossfire positions. Although the British have a lot tanks that look no better on paper than the Russian T-34 and KV-1 of 1942, they do have a limited supply of 17 pounder guns, both as standard anti-tank guns and mounted on Shermans (called a firefly) .

The 17 pounder did offer an effective counter measure to the heavier German tanks but the main problem was that only 1 tank of every platoon of 4 Shermans was equipped with Fireflys and these tanks were often targeted by the Germans first. An artist (Rex Whistler) with the Guards Armoured Division, designed a pattern that could be painted onto the front portion of the long barrelled 17 pounder - so that from a distance, the camoflauge effect made it looked like just another short barrelled 75mm gun.

Remembering that this is analysis is just a bit of fun - lets drop a Tiger tank platoon into the landscape of the 'Beyond Normandy' maps and see how it gets on with a typical British Order of Battle in mid 1944.

The basic rules for the trial will be that both sides have a morale level of '8' and an initiative level of '1'. The small map is used.

An infantry leader will be rated with a morale of '9' and have a morale modifier of '0' and also a firing modifier of '0'.

All tanks will have their own leader and they will all be efficient.

The basic Sherman was pretty much the main allied battletank on the western front at this time. It had a slightly longer gun range than the 'old' T-34 but weaker armour. Since we have already tested the T-34/76 against the Tiger in the 1942 trials, we can deduce that that over open terrain, the Tiger would similarly defeat any such attack made by ordinary Shermans.

It is therefore the presence of the Firefly, with it's 17 pounder gun, together with the closer terrain of the 'Beyond Normandy' module, that will be the focus of the first couple of trials. The Churchill tank is also of interest since it was another British main battle tank. It was under gunned but it has twice the armour rating of a Sherman and slightly better armour than the Soviet KV-1, so it will be examined here as well.

during the assault. Although they only hit on a '6', they can add +1 to the die roll if the enemy tank is not acompanied by infantry.

On the laws of average, the three infantry units should get a hit between them with their AT weapons but the thick hide on the Tiger means that they need to then roll 11 or 12 to cause a 1 step loss. So the Tiger at least can be a little less nervous of these weapons, than the 'medium' tanks might be.

In the trial, by the end of turn 4 the Tiger was not harmed, the British had one unit with a step loss, demoralised and forced out of the hex, another was disrupted and the third was fine, as was the leader.

Verification result - by the end of turn 4, the British AT weapons had scored 3 hits but no penetrations. The Tiger was again unharmed. Two of the infantry units have taken step losses and were disrupted.

The infantry are looking for some lucky die rolls to get a step loss on the Tiger from their AT guns and though this will happen from time to time, the German player can be fairly confident that the Tiger will survive the initial infantry assault. Adding an infantry unit to support the Tiger will make assault an unattractive proposition for the British player.

time - so artillery may be most useful, when used against tigers immediately prior to British infantry assaulting the Tiger's hex.

The relative ease at which concentrated artillery can cause Tigers to take morale checks and seriously harm any acompanying infantry, makes artillery a useful counter to the Tiger tank - and as alreaday said, there is a lot of it in this module.

For starters, using the small map, the Tiger sets up on the high ground at 1603 (note that the contour line that runs through hex 1906 should read 80M and not 100M, therefore 2206 is at 60M and sits in a sort of dip.

The British use hexes 2412 & 2513 (Marcelet) as a spring board for their attack on the Tiger tank. They are split into two groups. One will advance along the main road via hex 1414 and the other (includes the Firefly) will just press on ahead, more or less towards the Tiger. The intention is that the two groups should be able to create a crossfire attack. However, the attack is quickly called off due to high British losses. They lost the Firefly and a Sherman and another Sherman took a step loss. The Tiger was undamaged.

The differential between the Tiger's gun and the armour value of the Sherman is substantial (+5), little wonder then that a single shot from the Tiger will quite often eliminate both steps of a Sherman tank, removing it from play at a stroke. Providing that the Tiger remains at full strength and in good order, it's gun can easily pick off enemy Shermans before they can get into cross fire positions. The impact of the 17 pounder is reduced by firstly being mounted on such a vulnerable vehicle and secondly, it understandably is the target of choice for the Tiger.

In the next trial, the same situation is re-run, but this time, the British get an extra force of 3 Churchill tank platoons, for a grand total of 7 tanks units against 1 Tiger unit. Again the force is divided into two groups, the Churchills stay on the main road and make their advance via hex 1414. The Sherman group advance directly towards the Tiger's position. The heavier armour of the Churchill makes a real difference, and those

tanks do absorb some shots from the Tiger that would have knocked out the lighter Sherman. The Shermans manoeuvred towards one side of the Tiger and the Churchills to the other, to setup crossfire attacks. Just getting into position was full of danger. One of the Churchill units was destroyed when a single Tiger shot took out both steps. Likewise, the Firefly was destroyed. The Tiger was rolling well and the attack ended in disaster. One British step actually managed to retreat, two other steps were destroyed while retreating and the rest of the British force were lost during the engagement.

Finally, a last re-run of the trial but this time, the British received artillery support (42 points worth). The tanks made the same two group approach. The Tiger opened fire at the Shermans, rolled '11' and took out both steps of a Sherman unit. Because it fired, the Tiger became 'spotted', allowing the artillery to open fire (firing one column left for the target being in a town). Over the course of the trial, the artillery fired four times but only got one 'X' type result, which had no effect because the Tiger passed it's morale check.

The Tiger was less lucky with it's die rolling this time. The Churchills managed to get adjacent to the Tiger and the Shermans positioned themselves onto the opposite side - the crossfire was in place and there were enough British gun barrels to put down plenty of fire. Yet despite this, only 1 step loss was inflicted (a Churchill rolled a 12). The Tiger failed it's moral check and became disrupted. This had the effect of halving the Tiger's firepower, saving the Britsih force from suffering

badly. Weight of numbers meant that eventually, the British tanks did manage to inflict another step loss, destroying the Tiger. Being cornered is a real problem for the Tiger. It can only move very slowly and if supressed, can only move one hex and so will find it difficult to escape danger. This example shows the value of getting a disruption result against the Tiger and though here the artillery did not have any effect, in general, it could be expected over the course of a few turns, to deliver a disruption result (through a failed morale check). In our example, the Tiger could have substantially frustrated the British attack, if it had been able to pull back along the road, into another town hex. Setting Tigers up on a town / road hex combination may be a useful tactic for offering the tank a good defensive position, with a fast exit route. Overall, these three trials show that if you want to directly take on a Tiger, you still need a good advantage in resources.

Trial 4 - infantry assaulting Tigers. A British leader takes three full strength infantry platoons and assaults into a hex containing oneTiger platoon. British infantry assaults have an advantage over the Russian infantry assault two years previously. Firstly each British infantry unit has an extra fire point, so a three unit British assault attacks on the 13 column rather than the 9 column (1 column shift right).
More importantly, full strength infantry units can fire their AT weapons

Artillery Strike - The scenarios give some generous amounts of artillery support. Typically, it would not be difficult for the British to have 2 x 13 and 1 x 18 to combine into a single fire of 44 bombardment fire points. Assuming there are no modifiers, the best that the British player can hope for is to inflict morale checks from any 'X' type result.

This kind of firepower will cause the Tigers to check morale around 25% of the time. More significantly, it will cause any infantry located with the tank, to check morale 100% of the

Conclusions - In 1944, on the western front at least, the Tiger remains a formidable and respected foe. For the most part, this dominance has been mainained because allied tanks were by comparison, under gunned and under armoured. The range and power of the Tiger's 88mm gun ensures that the Tiger can sit back and knock out enemy armour before it can get into crossfire positions and it is not uncommon for the

Tiger to destroy both steps of armour in a single shot. The Tiger's biggest enemy is the Disruption result. This really closes the tank down by halving it's firepower and reducing it's speed to just 1 hex per turn. In this state, the British will find it much easier to get into those deadly crossfire positions (or really close the Tiger down by getting another disruption result to Demoralise the tank). The safest way of getting disruption results is by artillery fire or air strike.

Life can be made much harder for the British player if the German player properly suppports the Tiger unit. Placing it amongst buildings with infantry nearby and deploying anti-tank guns / tanks say 1000 meters out to the flanks would make for a strong defensive position and would likely create some crossfire posibilities for the German player.

In attack the Tiger should 'buddy up' with at least two other tank units that can protect the flanks and negate some of the crossfire opportunites that might occur as the Germans press into allied lines. Historically the Germans used a similar wedge formation.

The Tiger was a very good tank in defence and It is not without good reason that allied soldiers saw Tiger tanks everywhere !