Tiger II

So I got a helpful reminder text from Dan last night to say that I'd not finished putting up the Bovington photos and, you know what? He's right. There are still about 10 tanks left to do, so I'll try and finish them off before Christmas! To keep him quiet though, here's the Tiger II that he was looking for.

The Tiger II clocks in at a mere 70 Tons with between 100 and 180mm of armour. According to Wikipedia and Google Translate, those well known factually accurate sites, King Tiger isn't the correct translation of Königstiger. Go figure. It's supposed to be Bengal Tiger.

Anyway. The Tiger II didn't make an appearance until '44 during the Normandy campaign with only 492 being produced before the end of the war, due to a series of rather disruptive bombing raids on the factories. Initial versions were unreliable thanks to some lower quality components and lacklustre training of crews. The first 5 delivered all failed before they were ever used.

You've got to laugh. The first actual field use of these saw two destroyed and the commander's permanently stuck when it fell into a crater and couldn't get out again. Over time, the components were improved so that they could cope with the sheer weight and force needed to keep this thing moving.