Was the German Tiger Tank a supreme class of its own compared to the reowned T34?

Answer 1

Yes, the Tiger was better than the T-34 in a 1 on 1 battle, because that is what it was built to do. When Germany realized in 1941 that none of their tanks were even close to being a match for the T-34, they were forced to come up with new tanks that were, and this resulted in the Tiger and later, the Panther. It is important to remember that the superiority of the Tiger and Panther over the T-34 were not based on any design superiority, but just that they were much bigger. It's telling that in 1942 Germany, with all its reputation for engineering excellence, could only counter the 26.5 ton T-34 by building a 56.9 ton Tiger Tank and completely sacrificing mobility for firepower and protection. In 1943 the Panther was a bit better of a solution. By basically copying many of the T-34's innovations, the Germans were able to build a tank capaple of defeating the T-34 that weighed in at only 44.8 tons.
Of course, the need to develop new tanks from scratch during the crucial phase of the war diverted crucial resourses from production of their existing tanks, thus ensuring that they would always be at a huge numerical disadvantage in exchange for a marginal qualitative edge. Luckily, Germany started the war with tanks far inferior to the Soviets in firepower, armor, and mobility and had to scramble for new designs, while their "Sub-Human" foes were able to crush them by starting with a brilliantly designed tank, and concentrating on producing what they already had.

Answer 2

The Tiger was in a completely different class from the T-34 -- the T-34 was an excellent medium tank, and the Tiger a good heavy tank, meaning both that that the Tiger (and its successor, the "Koenigstiger", or "King Tiger") both outweighed and outgunned the T-34. But the T-34 was produced in far greater numbers and was much more mechanically reliable, which more than made up the difference.

The Iosef Stalin series of heavy tanks was closest in intent to the Tigers, but the war was all but lost by the Germans before they came onto the field of battle.

Answer 3

The Tiger was a much heavier tank. And, compared to early T34's, had a much heavier gun as well. But it was not such a supreme vehicle. It was slower and there were much fewer of them. So while one on one the tiger had the advantage, it just wasn't able to overcome the numbers of T34's the Russians had.

The Panther was built as a direct response to the T34. It was faster than the Tiger, with excellent slowed armor and a superb gun.

Answer 4

The Tiger was easily the foremost tank of the WWII battlefield in one on one battles. However its shortcomings were the fact that it took much longer to produce then other tanks, particularly the US Sherman tank. This, combined with the fact that US production factories were never harmed during the war like the German's were, allowed for the Allies to gain a numerical superiority over the Axis and thus negate the advantages presented in one one one battles with the tiger. The Russian T-34 was another good tank but not quite up to par with the Tiger and suffered many of the same production problems.

Answer 5

Yes. The Tiger had a much higher cannon muzzle velocity, that could punch through a T-34. And the Tiger was more heavily armored. If there was a set back with the Tiger, it was it's extreme weight that caused it to bog down easily in soft soil.

Answer 6

The Tiger came into the war too late, it's fuel supply was too sketchy; moreover, Germany's best tank comanders were either dead or POWs when it entered the war in late 1944.

Think what Rommel could have done with 100 Tigers in North Africa.

We'd be speaking German today.

Answer 7

no! ..the later version of the t-34 was a much better tank then the tiger tank it was much better suited for the terrain and had a lot better armor. thanks to the help of the US. LET"S FACE IT !! hitler was running out of everything which was needed to make a war of this magnitude 40 millions of germans against 300. millions of other nations plus the fact
russia and the US where able to put out everthing the factorys had to give ,un challenged.and where not exPosed to anything
yes .the war machine in many ways was superior but not enough of it