RE: Why the Trees?
 

Never could really understand why the expense of both transport and combat tracks for the Tiger 1. That was a huge expense of production, not even considering the logistics of storing and then transport of the tracks to meet at a particular rail head for a company of Tigers.,,just for a little more track width. That would have required a dozen heavy trucks and man power which would have been better served delivering ammo, fuel, food and supplies to the front line units. From photos of Tigers with transport track, they were just as effective as the field or combat version.

RE: Why the Trees?
 

you got that right when i see the hits / losses chart for them way over half were lost to the crew burn or blew them up due to lack of fuel, and ammo .

RE: Why the Trees?
 

Be careful with this "what if" talk on other forums, I did it on a UK site and almost got banned for "wanting" the nazi's to win the war???!!!.....My theoryis the kv1 really shook up the german army. The soviets could park a KV1 in an important crossroads in 41 and those crossroads were more or less closed till they could get an airstrike or they could bring up an 88.IMO this left a lasting impression on the german army and as a result they produced a whole list of overweight underpowered really hard to produce tanks.I really like to understand history, one of the tools I use to try to understand history is to run a whole bunce of "what if's" through my head.....

RE: Why the Trees?
 

The extra roadwheels (removed with transport tracks) were necessary to carry the weight in rough terrain. I'm sure they would have liked to travel that way too, but no rail system could take the width. As it was, they needed special cars just to move the Tigers, another logistical nightmare.

Without falling into stereotypes and cultural differences, Tigers were built as precision machines in the same manner as locomotive engines. That's a big reason behind only 2500 or so being built. They were amazing weapons, but hard to put into use. On the flip side, 60,000 mass produced Shermans may not be as well constructed, but are easily transferable and repairable with a lot of support, so ultimately more successful.

RE: Why the Trees?
 

Transport tracks and pulling road wheelswas areal*** design........if you are worried about ground pressure, youmake the tank longer. Look at the kv1 and the IS3.Same size tracks but the IS3 was 10 feet longer to spread out the load from the extra armor. The USalso did this with t26 to the t32, they added 8 ft and another road pair of wheels.......the duck bills were also a great idea for extra track width that didn't tie up crews for days swapping tracks and messing with road wheels..jmo

RE: Why the Trees?
 

The logs were also used to help the tanks bridge anti tank trenches by filling the bottom of the trench with logs so the tanks could drive across. I saw this on Greatest tank battles. Love that show. Tankers had a hard row to hoe for sure. I have much respect for those brave men.

RE: Why the Trees?
 

mustclime........

You make a good point about adding track length to allow for ground pressure instead of changing to wider tracks. I wonder why that wasn't thought of by some German tank designer?

The fact that the existing tunnels were so narrow that they couldn't handle those tanks without a track replacement amazes me.

RE: Why the Trees?
 

The designers of the hummel,nashorn knewabout making a tank longer to spread the load.......so I have no idea

RE: Why the Trees?
 

I have read numerous times from German Tank Commanders in books like Stackpole Books, German Tiger Aces and The Combat History of German Tiger Tank Battlion 503 that after initial teething problems that the Tiger 1 was made into a fairley reliable tank. The units even have factory reps assigned to the Bn. maintenace section. Look at how they made numerous road marchs across Russia as a mobile strike force to cool down the various hot spots along the front. In one book a Tiger Commander ( sorry, can't remember his name ) even stated that the west played up on the Tigers unreliabilty, when in fact he was very happy with it.