Baxter Ian - Hitlers Heavy Tiger Tank Battalions 1942-1945

IMAGES OF WAR

RARE PHOTOGRAPHS FROM WARTIME ARCHIVES

Ian Baxter

First published in Great Britain in 2020 by

PEN & SWORD MILITARY

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Copyright Ian Baxter, 2020

ISBN 978-1-52674-787-7

eISBN 978-1-52674-788-4

Mobi ISBN 978-1-52674-789-1

The right of Ian Baxter to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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I an Baxter is a military historian who specialises in German twentieth-century military history. He has written more than fifty books including Poland The Eighteen Day Victory March , Panzers In North Africa , The Ardennes Offensive , The Western Campaign , The 12th SS Panzer-Division Hitlerjugend , The Waffen-SS on the Western Front , The Waffen-SS on the Eastern Front , The Red Army at Stalingrad , Elite German Forces of World War II , Armoured Warfare , German Tanks of War , Blitzkrieg , Panzer-Divisions at War , Hitlers Panzers , German Armoured Vehicles of World War Two , Last Two Years of the Waffen-SS at War , German Soldier Uniforms and Insignia , German Guns of the Third Reich , Defeat to Retreat: The Last Years of the German Army At War 194345 , Operation Bagration the Destruction of Army Group Centre , German Guns of the Third Reich , Rommel and the Afrika Korps , U-Boat War , and most recently The Sixth Army and the Road to Stalingrad . He has written over a hundred articles including Last days of Hitler, Wolfs Lair, The Story of the V1 and V2 Rocket Programme, Secret Aircraft of World War Two, Rommel at Tobruk, Hitlers War With his Generals, Secret British Plans to Assassinate Hitler, The SS at Arnhem, Hitlerjugend, Battle of Caen 1944, Gebirgsjger at War, Panzer Crews, Hitlerjugend Guerrillas, Last Battles in the East, The Battle of Berlin, and many more. He has also reviewed numerous military studies for publication, supplied thousands of photographs and important documents to various publishers and film production companies worldwide, and lectures to various schools, colleges and universities throughout the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland.

U sing rare and unpublished photographs, Hitlers Heavy Tiger Tank Battalions is an illustrated record of German heavy tank battalions or Schwere Panzer Abteilungen during operations on the Eastern, Western and Italian fronts between 1942 and 1945. It represents a visual account of the various elite battalion- sized tank units of the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS equipped with the Tiger I and later Tiger II heavy tanks.

The book shows early formation units comprising twenty Tigers and sixteen medium Pz.Kpfw.IIIs, it illustrates the various vehicles that each battalion used in a supporting role, and the special independent Tiger tank maintenance companies which kept the vehicles in fighting condition. Much was owed by the Tiger tank battalions to their maintenance teams, which were able to quickly repair combat damage and return tanks to the battlefield to inflict more harm on the enemy.

The development of the Tiger tank battalions is traced from their deployment on the Eastern Front in 1942, Italy a year later, France in 1944, and to defensive actions outside Berlin in 1945. With detailed captions and text the book tells the story of how these battalions evolved and shows that although they were successful on the battlefield, mechanical unreliability continuously reduced the battalions to smaller and smaller combat-ready units. These heavy tanks, which were constantly required to fight offensive and defensive missions, were shuffled around and organised into ad hoc units according to conditions on the battlefield. Huge numbers were lost, but in spite of this the battalions fought on until the last days of the war, when the crews finally destroyed their equipment and surrendered to their enemies.

F or the invasion of Russia, codenamed Barbarossa, the German army assembled some 3 million men, divided into 105 infantry divisions and 32 Panzer divisions. There were 3,332 tanks, over 7,000 artillery pieces, 60,000 motor vehicles and 625,000 horses. The Panzer divisions heavy armour at that time comprised some 439 Pz.Kpfw.IVs, but for light armour it had to rely on obsolete light tanks.

For the Russian offensive the Panzer divisions had been slightly modified in armoured firepower and diluted in strength in order to form more divisions. The planners thought that by concentrating a number of Panzer divisions together they would be able to achieve massive local superiority.

These new Panzer divisions contained one tank regiment of two, sometimes three, Abteilungen, totalling some 150200 tanks; two motorized rifle (schtzen) regiments, each of two battalions, whose infantry were carried in armoured halftracks or similar vehicles, and a reconnaissance battalion of three companies (one motorcycle, two armoured cars). The motorized infantry divisions accompanying the Panzer divisions in the Panzergruppe were similarly organized, but badly lacked armoured support. The divisional artillery comprised of two field, one medium and one antitank regiment and an anti-aircraft battalion. These were all motorised and more than capable of keeping up with the fast-moving Panzers.

When the German invasion of Russian was finally unleashed on the morning of 22 June 1941 the Panzer divisions progressed exceptionally well and continued over the next several weeks penetrating deeply into Russia. By late July the German armies were fighting on a front more than 1,000 miles wide. The Panzer divisions had exploited the terrain and struck such a series of blows to the Red Army that commanders predicted that it was only a matter of time before the campaign would be over.

Inevitably the Panzer divisions were thinly spread out, and they were moving so fast that supporting units were barely able to keep pace with them. Nevertheless, between June and late September 1941, the panzer and motorized divisions were more or less unhindered by lack of supply. Neither did the terrain or weather conditions cause them problems. However, on 6 October the first snowfall of the approaching winter was reported. It melted quickly but turned the dirt roads to mud. Autumn had arrived. The Panzer divisions began to slow. Wheeled vehicles became stuck and had to be towed. The attack had been launched later than intended and preparations for bad weather were inadequate. There were no chains available for towing vehicles, no anti-freeze for engine coolant systems, and soldiers had no winter clothing.