For those who don't know, most Tiger battalions achieved a kill ratio (on paper) of anywhere between 3-12:1. That is, they claimed to have destroyed a certain ratio of allied tanks for every one of theirs lost in combat. But there are a few catches to this system which I'll get to in a moment. The unit I'm thinking of is 13./SS-Panzer-Regiment 1, the Tiger company of the 1st SS Panzer Division. In battle they are said to have destroyed 400 tanks, while they themselves lost 42. Mmmm... OK. But here's the catch. The Tiger company had one of the lowest numbers of tanks lost due to enemy action. Of those 42 tanks destroyed, 75% were lost due to destruction by their own crew when they broke down during a retreat. Only 6 were lost in combat. Of those, 2 were destroyed by friendly fire, one was captured, one was destroyed by an AT gun and only two were destroyed by tanks.
What this means is that during its combat operations, if its kill claims are to be believed, it had a kill ratio of 200:1
. Of course, as I'm sure most of you will agree, this is way too high. Many of these 400 were later fixed and returned to battle or simply were exaggerated in the final count. But even then, if we were to apply a reduction of 75% to the company's kills (which for me is only to be on the safe side), then we still have a ratio (of totally destroyed tanks) of 50:1. Even for those who think kill ratios are a poor way to determine combat effectiveness, surely these numbers demonstrate beyond any doubt that this company must have ranked among the most successful armored units ever to see operational use. And as far as purely tank to tank kill ratios go, this would seem to be the most successful Tiger unit as well.