What some could argue is the most famous 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.
The Tiger sports an 88mm gun capable of defeating Allied Shermans 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 were no match for it in the flat desert plains of North Africa. Later in Normandy in late 1944 the Tiger once again showed its deadly capabilities in the bocage of France.
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 to many hours and materials that just simply couldn't keep up with the allies, not to mention the bombing of the Germans industrial capacity. 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 mighty tiger would face its match with the new soviet tanks, the up gunned and up armored T-34/85 which could kill a tiger from the front, the IS-2 heavy tank with its 122mm gun could shatter a Tiger in one blow from a mile. On the western allied the Up gunned 76mm American Sherman and the British Sherman fire fly with its 17 pounder made short work of it.
Although the Tiger was later outmatched and became obsolete its legacy lives on as a terror to the Allies. In the bocage of Normandy cries would call out that a Tiger was approaching, and allied soldiers would develop "Tiger phobia" the fear of the tank itself often mistaking other panzers for it. It inspired and fueled technological development for the allies, its mere presence indicating the might of the panzers and there threat. One American was quoted in saying, "If there was a Tiger on the battlefield you found an excuse an you left!". The Tiger to this day inspires awe and amazement, it is an example of the amazing German engineering going on at the time of the war.
Today there is only one surviving completely intact Tiger, Tiger 131 in Britain's Bovington tank museum, it was capture in North Africa after being detracked by a British Churchill tank.
Thank you for reading and yes i will do these maybe every other day coinciding with the World War 2 fact of the day.
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Edited by Raptor: 1/25/2013 10:37:35 PMFeel free to post your favorite tech in the thread and i may feature it one day! Edit: Crap sorry guys i meant to edit this in...i didn't mean to bump.