Tiger II "Köningstiger" - Musee Des Blindes - Walkaround.

Originally uploaded on 12 jun. 2016

The Tiger II was a German heavy tank of WWII.
The tank was designated as Panzerkampfwagen Tiger Ausf. B,
and the ordnance inventory designation was Sd.Kfz. 182.
It was never called Königstiger during the war just like the Allied name King Tiger or Royal Tiger, King Tiger was the American name for the vehicle after a wrong translation after the war.

The Tiger II was the successor to the Tiger I, combining the latter's thick armour with the armour sloping used on the Panther medium tank.

Development of a heavy tank design had been initiated in 1937, the initial design contract was
awarded to Henschel. Another design contract followed in 1939, and was given to Porsche.

The Henschel version used a conventional hull design with sloped armour resembling the layout of the Panther tank, Porsche hull designs included a rear-mounted turret, a mid-mounted engine and the same suspension as on the Elefant tank destroyer.
Both prototypes would use the same turret design from Krupp and Porsche and Henschel never designed any turrets.
The early turret design was changed to the later one because the design was difficult to manufacture because of the curved bulge.

Even due the Tiger II was a mechanical nightmare, the heavy armour and powerful long-range gun gave the Tiger II an advantage against all opposing Western Allied and Soviet tanks attempting to engage it from head on, and no tank could actually go into a head to head combat scenario with the machine until the arrival of the few M26 Pershings in 1945 and the few M4A3E2 Sherman "Jumbos".
Reports estimated that the Tiger II's frontal aspect was impervious to the Soviet 122 mm D-25T, the largest caliber tank gun of the war.

As a result of its thick frontal armour, flanking man-oeuvres were most often used against the Tiger II to attempt a shot at the thinner side and rear armour.
The armour of the Tiger II also proofed to be from a really poor quality and the plates exhibited deficiencies in quality compared to earlier German tanks such as the Tiger I and Panther. and even when shells did not penetrate the armour, there was often a large amount of spalling from the inside of the plates, which damaged the transmission and rendered the tank inoperable.

This Tiger II with Fahrgestell number 280112, was made at the Henschel und Sohn, Kassel, Nordhessen, the turret was made at Wegmann & Co, Kassel, Nordhessen, Germany.

Some sources claim that this Tiger II, belonged to the 1st Company, 101 SS.s.Abt and carried the turret number 233, others claim that it was a Tiger which carried no turret number, but this information is wrong because you can clearly see a 3, on the turret in some pictures.

It was placed in storage after the war and left in perfect running condition.

■ So want to help keep me and the channel going?
supporting me on Patreon will get you access to extra content for three channels in total.

■ Support me on my Patreon https://www.patreon.com/Panzerpicture
■ Store: teespring.com/stores/panzerpicture-2

■ Information obtained from several sites.
■ Wikipedia
■ tanks-encyclopedia
■ the.shadock.free.fr/Surviving_Panzers
■ preservedtanks
■ pantser.net
■ the.shadock.free.fr/Tanks_in_France

■ Some music is from the YouTube Audio Library.

■ Music used:
EpidemicSound.com

Copyright fair use notice

All media used in
this video is used for
the purpose of education
under the terms of
fair use.

All footage and images
used belong to their
copyright holders.