Tiger Heat: German Panzers on the Eastern Front

Now the fun starts… 42-tonner on fire. Great to watch. A bit further on another 2 down. We attack 13 tanks. One tank destroyed. LKWs on fire. Lots of Russian infantry destroyed. Run over by the tanks. Then the best bit. We attack two 42-tonners and start a real hare hunt. He couldn’t turn his turret after the first direct hit and took off. We were after him with force, 20 meters behind him. Half an hour the hunt went on for until he lost a track and fell into a ditch. We fired 30 shots into him. Nothing got through. That day our vehicle fired 110 rounds… Have no more rounds.

The 42 tonner relates to the KV-1 tank and LKW is short for the German expression Lastkraftwagen meaning truck in English.

The Tigers first appearance on the Eastern Front was unsuccessful. Tigers were first issued to the 1st platoon of the 502 Battalion of Heavy Tanks (Schwere Panzer Abteilung 502). On August 29, 1942, four Tigers arrived at the Mga railway station near Leningrad. As soon as they arrived they were unloaded and made ready for battle. At 1100 hours, the tanks made their way to their battle stations. Major Richard Merker was in command of the platoon, which included four Tigers, six PzKpfw III Ausf. L and J, two infantry companies and several trucks of the technical support unit. A representative of the Henshel firm – Hans Franke accompanied the unit in a VW Kubelwagen right behind the first Tiger. After the attack, it was realised that trying to use the heavy Tiger tank on soft ground was an error as its ability to manoeuvre was severely reduced. The Tiger already had a slower moving turret, top speed and slower turn than the likes of the T-34. This was the trade-off for having a much more powerful gun and thicker armour.

During the battle, Russian infantry retreated, and their artillery opened heavy fire to cover the troops. Major Merker’s unit, divided into two groups, started to attack on two parallel side road. The first Tiger was soon abandoned because of transmission failure. The second one was abandoned a few minutes later after engine failure. In spite of Russian fire, the Henschel representative started to inspect the tanks, before Merker came by with his Tiger and said that the third tank was disabled because the steering control failed. During the night, all three damaged Tigers were evacuated using Sd Kfz 9 prime movers. It took three of these per Tiger to recover. The Germans had been lucky that the Red Army had not tried to capture the disabled tanks. Spare parts were flown in and all four Tigers repaired by the 15 September ready for battle.

Sadly, the second action the Tigers participated in was no better than the first. September 22, saw four Tigers, supported by PzKpfw III tanks; accompany the 170th Infantry Division in attacking the 2nd Soviet Army. The terrain was highly unsuitable, the ground again was too soft after heavy rain, and Merker opposed the use of Tigers in this operation. After a direct order from Hitler, the Tigers went into battle. Not long after the attack began, the first Tiger received a direct hit in the front armour plate. The shell did not penetrate, but the impact caused the engine to stall and there was no time to restart it. The crew abandoned the Tiger before they threw hand grenades into the fighting compartment.

The other three Tigers reached the Russian trenches, but very soon were damaged by Red Army artillery crossfire as they lost their ability to manoeuvre on the soft ground. Again, the three Tigers had to be abandoned and the fourth was destroyed to prevent it from being captured.

The Wehrmacht was adamant that crews read the Tiger’s manual before charging into battle with one of the Third Reich’s most vital (and expensive) pieces of hardware. However, experience showed that young tankers had little interest in poring over pages of dry instructions and boring schematics. To try to entice crews into reading the Tiger manual it was renamed the Tigerfibel and used poetry, humour and illustrations including scantily clad illustrations of women to make crews want to read it. A similar manual was also written for the Panther tank. The manual was written by Lt. Josef von Glatter-Goetz. In contrast to the usual tedium of instruction manuals.