Three famo 18t tractors were needed to drag this Tiger I into the workshop during the assault on Kharkov in 1943.
Due to its size and weight the high number of breakdowns and the recovery of battle damaged vehicles was to prove a real headache for the engineers. The tanks were immensely valuable and had to be recovered if at all possible. However, the infrastructure and, in particular the recovery vehicles, to support the easy recovery of such a heavy machine as the Tiger I was found to be severely wanting.
The main problem was that the standard German heavy Famo recovery half-track tractor could not actually tow the tank; up to three Famo tractors were usually the only way to tow just one Tiger. It was the case therefore that another Tiger was needed to tow a disabled machine, but on such occasions, the engine of the towing vehicle often overheated and sometimes resulted in an engine breakdown or fire. Tiger tanks were therefore forbidden by regulations to tow crippled comrades.
In practice this order was routinely disobeyed as the alternative was the total loss of a large number of tanks that could otherwise have been saved. It was also discovered too late that the low-mounted sprocket limited the obstacle-clearing height. The wide Tiger tracks also had a bad tendency to override the sprocket, resulting in immobilisation. If a track overrode and jammed, two Tigers were normally needed to tow the tank. The jammed track was also a big problem itself, since due to high tension, it was often impossible to disassemble the track by removing the track pins. It was sometimes simply blown apart with an explosive charge.
USE OF Pz. Kw. VI (‘TIGER’)
A section of Tiger I tanks rolls into position prior to the battle of Kursk .
(a) Information obtained from POW indicates that the Pz. Kw. VI was chiefly used in Tunisia to support other armoured units, and mention was made of its employment as mobile artillery. As a support tank it was always used in rear of lighter units. In one reported skirmish however, the lighter Pz. Kw. IIIs and IVs formed the spearhead of the advance; as soon as our tanks came within range the German ‘spearhead’ tanks deployed to the flanks, leaving the heavier Pz. Kw. VI tanks to engage.
(b) A POW who was with RHQ7 Pz. Regiment in Tunisia for sometime states that there were some 20 Pz. Lw. Vis in the regiment. When on the march ten of these moved with the main column, the others moving on the flanks. According to this PW, the tactics in the attack were to seek to engage enemy tanks from hull-down positions at short ranges, even down to 250 yards. On the other hand, this prisoner also reports an engagement in which two Pz. Kw. VIs brought indirect fire to bear, observation being carried out by an artillery FOO, each tank opening with one round of smoke. In confirmation of this there is another A.F.H.Q. report which speaks of this exploitation by Pz. Kw. VI gunners of the great range of their 8.8 cm guns.
(c) 30 Military Mission also reports the use of Pz. Kw. VI in squadron strength on various parts of the Russian Front, especially the South-West.
(d) In conversation with General Martel, Marshal Stalin stated that in Russia, as in the desert, the Pz. Kw. VI went into battle in rear of a protective screen of lighter tanks.
(e) An A.F.H.Q. training instruction states that the size and weight of the Pz. Kw. VI present many problems. PW indicated that extensive reconnaissance of terrain, bridges etc., was necessary before operations with this tank could be undertaken. Bridges had to be reinforced in many cases, and it was necessary for the ‘going’ to be good for the effective employment of the Pz. Kw. VI.
A rare shot of a Tiger actually engaged in combat during the battle of Kursk.
(f) It would seem that the employment of this tank in a support role is not however invariable, because a German press report of the fighting round Kharkov in March seems to indicate that the Pz. Kw. VI were used offensively in an independent role.
(g) Another German press report states that during the German withdrawal from Schusselburg, ‘a few’ Pz. Kw. VI formed the most rearward element of the German rearguard, a role in which they were most successful.
(h) An interesting and detailed newspaper article, written towards the end of May, on events on the Leningrad Front, points towards the use of the Tiger as a mobile defensive front and as having been in action ‘for days’ (i.e. by inference, that they had been in the same area). These operations were carried out in close co-operation with the infantry manning the defensive positions.
In one particular operation a troop of tanks is described as taking up a defensive position forward of the infantry positions from which (presumably hull-down) advancing Soviet tanks and the following infantry were engaged. All this defensive fire was put down at the halt including the fire from the MGs in the tanks. In order to move to an alternative position because of enemy arty fire it was necessary for the tank commander to obtain permission from the CO Battle Group, under whose command he was operating.
Conclusion
The use of Pz. Kw. VI tanks in both attack and defence seems, from all available information to hand, to be in a support role. The use of this type of tank in an independent thrusting role, even when supported by tanks of lighter types, would seem to be discouraged.
Distant Tigers moving up to engage Russian forces during the Kursk offensive. The millions of anti-tank mines were the greatest danger facing the Tigers during the assault phase of the battle.