PugJesus

Allied Industry says "Hello"

https://piefed.social/c/historymemes/p/1853610/allied-industry-says-hello

Mar 7 at 9:59pmWeb
Show threadPugJesusMar 7

Explanation: During WW2, Nazi Germany had a specialized heavy tank for tank-on-tank combat, called the Tiger tank. It was much feared amongst Allied tank crews. They also began to roll out a cheaper heavy tank known as the Panther, designed with similar thinking.

Three problems:

  • Tank-on-tank combat is pretty rare, which means it was specialized for something that it didn’t often actually encounter.

  • It was lacking in the less-quantifiable advantages of mass-produced Allied tanks like the Sherman (multiple crew periscopes, good ergonomics, high crew survivability) and tight co-ordination between tanks like the Soviets and Americans practiced. This meant that clashes between similarly sized groups of Allied tanks and Nazi tanks often ended up with favorable numbers for the Allies anyway.

  • It was expensive to produce and slow to repair, meaning that the Soviets and Americans each separately ended up outproducing the Nazis by about 8-1.

    • Show threadZwiebelMar 8
  • There was no adequately powerful engine available for the heavy tank
    • Show threadFuglyDuckMar 8

    What’s fun is that the Sherman’s were fast enough and mobile enough to just go around and leave the tigers for the Air Force.

    (Also, they were designed to be shipped. Germany couldn’t do that. Africa might have been a different campaign if they could.)

    Show threadGil WanderleyMar 8

    Ah, the Tiger. Such a legendary tank it became a film!

    ^Yes. They made a film celebrating a Nazi tank last year.^