Special Sub-Topic: WW2 Armour Click Here To Play: WW2 Armour

When the Germans made the Tiger, an order was given that no Tiger should fall into Allied hands, however a novice crew abandonded their Tiger. Why?

It was hit by a Churchill. The Churchill tank was only made for infantry support so its gun was far too small to penetrate the Tigers huge frontal armour. A very lucky shot from a Churchill jammed the turret. (The shell scraped under the barrel and jammed under the turret). This Tiger can be seen in the Bovington Tank Museum, Dorest, England. (If you go just look under the barrel by the turret, the paint's missing).

The "Jagdpanther" was armed with exactly the same gun as the Tiger 2 (King Tiger).

f. Both the King Tiger and Jadgpanther were armed with the 88mm gun, but the King Tiger had the KwK43 L/71 whereas the Jadgpanther had the KwK43/3 L/71. So very similar but not the same.

The T34 was the world's first tank to have sloped frontal armour.

f. The M1931 Christie tank had a sloping front but the tank only ever reached the prototype stage and never went into mass production. However, the suspension system was used the T34 and BT series.

What tank designed during World War II re-entered service in 1960?

Sherman. The Israeli Army used the Sherman tank from 1960, it was "upgunned" from 75mm to 105mm and the armour was increased from 75mm to 203mm. The T34-85 was used in Korea but in was never re-entered service.

Which of these tanks was orginally designed with two turrets?

KV-1. The SMK (Sergi Mironovich Kirov) Heavy Tank weighed 45 tons and had a 76.2mm gun in one turret and a 45mm gun in the other, but the secondary turret was removed to reduce size and weight and the resulting tank was the KV-1.

The Churchill Mark VI-VIII had thicker maximum armour than the Tiger 1.

t. The Tiger 1 had a maximum armour of 100mm, whereas the Churchill Mark VI-VIII had 152mm maximum armour.

Some of the Churchill tanks had their 6-pounder guns replaced with a 17-pounder guns to give them a better chance against the Tigers and Panthers. These were renamed "Black Prince".

f. The British did try to "upgun" the A22 Churchill but the hull was too narrow for a bigger gun so a new tank was desinged, the A43 Black Prince was 2ft 3in wider than the Churchill and mounted the 17-pounder gun.

The KV series of tanks were slowly losing their main advantage of thick armour due to bigger German tanks, so the Russians brought in the JS-2 tanks and later on the JS-3.

f. The JS series did replace the KV tanks but the orginal JS was the JS-1 which was almost identical to the JS-2, but it had a shorter hull and only had a 100mm gun which was "upgunned" to 122mm. The JS-1 did have 12mm thicker armour than the JS-2 which was removed to keep weight down.

The film "Saving Private Ryan" used an exact replica Tiger tank rather than a German-built Tiger.

f. Next time you watch the film look at the tracks on the tank. For the movie, it was built on a T34 base, but the hull was made to Tiger tank specifications.

The Americans converted some of their Shermans to carry a rocket-laucher system. How many rocket tubes did they carry?

60. The "Calliope" carried 60 117mm rocket tubes. It only saw limited action during World War II.