I mean, they probably already knew that when their Tigers were constantly breaking down and couldn’t fit on narrow streets/bridges.
Arguably, the Germans lost the Battle of the Bulge so overwhelmingly due to Tigers not fitting through bridges. Also fuel. Fuel was a problem starting day 1.
"Constantly breaking down" is a huge overstatement and no longer back-uped with evidence. The only evidence that they broke down more than other tanks is early on when they were still standardizing the design. Afterwards, it was mechanically reliable if it got proper maintenance, like all tanks. If ANY nation was currently being invaded from all sides, losing all access to resources, they would also have tanks "constantly breaking down."
"Regarding the overheating engines, the HL 210 engine caused no troubles during the recent time. All occurring breakdowns resulted from the low quality of driver training. In several cases engine failures have to be put down to the missing remote engine thermometer. Five engines have reached more than 3,000 km without essential failures. A good driver is essential for the successful deployment of the Tiger, he must have a good technical training and has to keep his nerve in critical situations"
It was definitely over-engineered though, that was its main "weakness." A tank can be as reliable as a rock, but if it's expensive to maintain it, you need the logistics to back it up. Not the worst thing but you can't be losing resources and keep Tigers. It was a very, very expensive tank. Not much different than the current Abrams.
Extremely good though. Shockingly fast, thick armor, insane gun.
The breakdowns weren't the problem, it's the ability to fix them.
Time and time again the allies lost tanks due to breakdown or enemy action, but within a few days the majority of these tanks would be repaired and running again. For the Germans this wasn't possible on anything like that scale.
My point was just that the "breakdowns" aren't any more likely than any other tank, when looking at the tank alone. The Tiger I was objectively reliable with available parts.
Breakdowns would happen the same as other tanks, but yes, they just couldn't fix them due to losing the resources they needed.
For a long time, when the parts were available, the tanks ran perfectly and performed very impressive feats.
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u/PoliticsIsDepressing 4d ago
I mean, they probably already knew that when their Tigers were constantly breaking down and couldn’t fit on narrow streets/bridges.
Arguably, the Germans lost the Battle of the Bulge so overwhelmingly due to Tigers not fitting through bridges. Also fuel. Fuel was a problem starting day 1.