PzKpfw.VI

History

PzKfw. VI Ausf. E (Tiger)
Specifications
Type	Heavy Armored Fighting Vehicle
Armament	Main gun: 8.8cm Kw.K. 36 L / 56 Coax MG: 2 x 7.92mm MG34 Hull MG: 7.92mm MG34
Gun Elevation	-6.5° to +17°
Turret Traverse	360° (Hydraulic)
Crew	4 (Driver, Commander, Gunner, Loader)
Weight	57,000kg
Top Speed	37km/h

400px
Main Gun Optics
Specifications
Designation	TZF 9b
Magnification	2.5x
Field of View	25°

Probably the most famous tank of WW2, the Tiger had a long development phase. From an original design for a modest 33 ton breakthrough tank, it ballooned into a 57-ton behemoth after the Wehrmacht’s humbling first encounters with the well sloped Russian T34 and the heavy KV series of tanks.

Despite its heavy armor and superb 8,8cm gun, the Tiger’s initial performance in combat was unimpressive and disappointing, suffering from extensive mechanical breakdowns due to its subsequent rushed and desperate deployment into battle. After the teething problems were largely solved, the Tiger earned its fearsome reputation at the hands of audacious commanders like Michael Wittman, his skilled crew credited with knocking out 141 tanks and 132 AT guns. The sheer size and weight of the Tiger tanks did cause them some difficulty in traversing a variety of terrain that they would encounter, but to be fair they were not slow and were fairly mobile for such a large and heavy AFV.

Game Play

The Tiger is an outstanding armored vehicle, probably undefeatable by any other tank in the game if used properly. The exceptionally good 8,8cm gun is extremely effective at very long range, this means that anytime you engage a target at less than 500m, you’re handing them a significant advantage that you don’t need to, and removing your own strengths. Keep your front aspect in mind at all times – facing an enemy with 100mm of armor may make you almost invulnerable to most return AT gun fire. But beware of aircraft as you are without a doubt the very highest value ground attack target and enemy pilots will be searching for you everywhere.

The Tiger’s massive FlaK.36 derived gun means a very slow turret speed, but this also means that the Tiger is a particularly effective tank for multicrewing (not to mention a better use of limited spawn list numbers). Wittman innovated the clever and expedient maneuver of assisted traverse, where the driver would slew the tank around on its tracks as hard as possible while the slower turret turned in the same direction, giving the tank an effective turret traversal rate much higher than available by simply traversing the gun – probably worth practicing with a regular multicrew buddy.

The Tiger is also the most expensive tank to Research and Develop into campaign Production within the Battleground Europe RDP factory system. This means there will never be as many of these giant monsters as there are of lesser tanks in the Axis armored brigades. Guard them carefully in combat when you manage to procure one of these highly prized tanks, they are just as susceptible to anti-tank tactics as any other tank when attacked at close quarters by enemy ATG’s and anti-armor infantry.

Range and gunsight optics remain your greatest advantages. Engage enemy armor at long range where your 8,8cm FlaK derived gun can kill almost all enemy armor and they will struggle to even dent your thickly armored hide. At shorter ranges you give away many advantages while gaining none for yourself.

The tiger is available from tier 2.

Player Advice

Dm79

The Tiger has very thick frontal amour and to get the most out of this your distance to targets should be out to 1+k making your tank almost immune to frontal penetration, the 88 mounted in the turret will give you the reach out to 1.5k -2k to kill targets with well placed shots using the range finder and dial in system the sights use, low amour units like armoured cars should only take a HE shell to cause a fast death.

The Tiger can be a beast on the battlefield given a great view range and clear area around which you can scan for flanking tanks inf or atgs, but like all tanks it has its weaknesses the lower hull above the wheels is a mere 60mm thick, and can be penetrated by most allied units in the game, in general your hull sides and turret sides are your weak points so protect them if your want to stay alive, your tracks and gun are very large so naturally they become either aimed at targets or unintentional damaged areas, a well aimed Sherm 75 shot to your main gun will knock it out leaving you dead in the water, clever allied players attacking your will know about these weak points so again do all you can to try and protect these areas, finally don't go out thinking your not going to die, you will either end up dead faster or very disappointed, all tanks have their strong and weak areas the best players in the game learn these then work within them.