If the Allies had a tank in 1944 comparable to the German Tiger, would they have won the War in Europe faster?

Question

In response to previous questions about whether the Allies could have won the Second World War in Europe faster, several people have mentioned the quality of the German tanks as a major reason the Germans could defend. If the Allies had had a better tank than the Sherman "tommy cookers", would they have advanced faster, or did the Allies (fail to) cope with the German tanks in other ways?

Answer 1

If only wars were about machines...
Now tell me, if you were a general and u KNOW your army's tanks arent going to win tanks of the enemies', would you have sent your inferior tanks headon with their tanks? I bet an army has Land Air and Sea units for a reason.

Answer 2

That's a good question. From what I have read about tanks and tactics, I would say that having a tank comparable to the Tiger would been a great help, no question about it. The two things that made the Sherman so bad was that 1: they were powered by a gas engine. This caused them to burst into flames after being hit. 2: They did not have a gun capable of penetrating the frontal armor of most of the tanks that the Germans were using, not to mention the Tiger. The only advantage , with the Sherman, was its use in numbers. It would be useful to mention that the construction of a Tiger took over one hundred thousand man hours to build, was extremely expensive , and was unreliable. Very few were produced, as oppossed to Shermans , T-34s. The Germans would of been much more of a problem if they would of copied the T-34. It was so easy to manufacturer and use. The Tiger was too big , underpowered, and way before its time..

Answer 3

No not really. The length of time it took to beat the Germans was due to two key factors.

Stalin underestimated the German threat prior to Barbarossa and when it did happen, his army had been purged of most of its competent generals. That he was able to re-group and move all his industry east by 1942/3 was a miracle in itself.

On the western front, things were always going to take ages. A channel crossing was being discussed by British planners from 1940 but Chief of General Imperial Staff Allen Brooke realised that the Royal Navy could not guarantee supremacy of the Channel while the Luftwaffe operated from France. Furthermore, the Germans had several divisions to hand in France which would rapidly destroy any concentrated allied landing on the French coast. The raid on Dieppe in 1942 confirmed this. The other problem was shipping, in that there wasn't enough available for cross-Channel operations. So, Allen Brooke convinced Eisenhower and the Americans of the importance of clearing the Germans out of Africa with a view to freeing up the Meditteranean and allowing an invasion through Italy, which was in a more precarious political and military position than Germany.

To speculate on the difference one piece of equipment would have made to such a large outcome is probably futile given the larger context described above. However, if I was to get into such detail, it is interesting to note the Battle of Kursk saw the biggest tank battle of the war and the total annhilation of the Germans.

Answer 4

I don't think that a better tank would have sped things up. They had a lot of ground to cover, and a determined enemy resisting them the whole way. The Allied forces had tanks that were comparable to the Tiger, but the War department felt that it was a case of quantity over quality. It is true that the M4 Sherman, with a low velocity 75 mm was a slow, underpowered, underarmored weapon, but improvements were quickly affected by using applique, or bolt on armor plates, the addition of a high velocity 3" (76mm) naval cannon, and the british created a version they dubbed the firefly, by mounting their own 17-pounder anti-tank gun in the turret. This gun was comparable to the 88-mm used by the germans, and fortunatly, the Tigers were complicated, slow, and not well suited for mass production.

Answer 5

The British placed the 17pdr on the Sherman and made the Firefly and all allied international locations developed heavier tanks like the Centurion, Pershing and IS2 that ought to have taken the Tiger on an equivalent footing. in the previous the heavier tanks were accessible (a number of them by no potential talked about easily strive against) it became often times a case of overwhelming Tigers with sheer numbers or getting to a short variety as instantly as achievable to reduce the Tigers advantages (as at Prokhorovka). The Tiger became astonishing yet suffered from many issues which prevented it being extra effective - undesirable mobility, unreliable engineering, undesirable availability of aspects etc

Answer 6

No probably not although the Tiger Superior in a lot of ways to the Sherman it was difficult to maintain and to transport thats the reason it had 2 types of track a transport track and a battle track.A lot of the bridges in europe were not strong enough to carry its weight,it had a low power to weight ratio .By march 1945 only485 tiger2 had been made in nov 1942 only 13 tiger 1 were produced then went up to 25 per month.We the British could and should have used the 3.7 inch anti aircraft guns as anti tank wepons but that never happened Regards Mick the Tank man.

Answer 7

German Tigers had a fearsome reputation but could not be built in numbers. A serious draw back. They knew how to use them though.
If main stream fighting forces of the allies had been as well trained as the germans, then the war would have been over. To narrow it down to one item of equiptment though will not answer the question.
The allies won because of air superiority and supplies on the western front and the T34 was huge factor on the eastern front as well as Stalins lack of care for death tolls.
If the Germans had had the supplies and resources that the allies enjoyed then i think the world would be a different place.

Answer 8

If you include the Russians in the description of Allies then you could argue they did have as good or better tanks than the Germans. They definitely had the manufacturing capacity to build tanks faster than the Germans. Armored warfare was a much bigger issue on the Eastern Front than in Western Europe so I don't think the deployment of an allied tank equivalent to German tanks would have made as much of a difference. The allies controlled the skies which is what limited the effectiveness of the German heavy tanks. If the allies did not control the air the Germans could have made better use of their armor. As it was, the movement of German armor was highly constrained. Look in period photos and you'll often see German tankers with camoflauged tanks hiding along roadsides with a wary look into the skies.

Answer 9

I don't think the quality of the respective tanks had much of an influence, if any, upon the speed of closing out the war. With limited fuel, lack of air support, and the preponderance of allied artillery, the German tanks were pretty helpless against the onslaught. They were chewed up by bombing and artillery.

Yes, in individual battles and skirmishes, they proved superior to the US tanks, but the overall difference that made was, IMO, negligible.

Answer 10

Alot of people forget that supplies are urgent when waging war. It's much harder to advance than it is to defend. Then when you get past the defenses you must re-supply your advancing forces. The WW2 era intel couldn't keep up with advancing forces as they are in the modern era. Tanks in WW2 were really already becoming outdated with the use of airwarfare. Don't get me wrong they were important in ground battles but the air force could reach out an touch the Germans from anywhere. Of course, the battle would have been quicker if we had better equipment so to your question yes quicker.

Answer 11

I do not think so, as terrain and weather were the major slowig factors of the allied advance. Less rivers out east, hence less rivers to cross, and that is why Russia won the race. Their tanks sucked, and they still beat us there because of the terrain beneifts and the weather factors favored their advance. If the Russians had attacked from the west, they never would have breched the rhine.