What was this beast used for?

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Tiger Fever
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What was this beast used for?

#1

Post by Tiger Fever » 08 Apr 2006, 14:08

Armour TIGER Demolition tank
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Tiger Fever
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#2

Post by Tiger Fever » 08 Apr 2006, 14:10

And no one say demolition.....please!!!!!!!!!


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Ronny25
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#3

Post by Ronny25 » 08 Apr 2006, 14:19

Ronny25 wrote:It's an german-called "Berge-Tiger" (Sd.Kfz. 185)...a repair-tank or support-vehicle for combat-Tiger-Tanks. :D

Used in the repair-company of an Tiger-Batallion and was intended to free-tighten immobilized (by mud) tiger-tanks.

But this conversion was a faulty construction, the rope hoist was too weakly to tow an tiger-tank.

Only 8 Tigers were converted to "Berge-Tigers".



Image

Image
Sources:

Walter J. Spielberger:
Militärfahrzeuge, Bd.7, Der Panzerkampfwagen Tiger und seine Abarten, Motorbuch Verlag Stuttgart, 2003, ISBN 3-87943-456-5

Wolfgang Fleischer & Horst Scheibert:
Panzerkampfwagen Tiger, Nebel Verlag, 2002, ISBN 3-89555-051-5
Last edited by Ronny25 on 08 Apr 2006, 14:32, edited 2 times in total.

jmehner
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#4

Post by jmehner » 08 Apr 2006, 14:27

No,

it's definitely not a recovery tank, that measly little crane would have had a hard time lifting anything of significance on a broken-down vehicle- the hasty identification of 40 years ago as a Bergetiger has been refuted.

It was used to lift the demolition charges for the Ladungsträger vehicles while they were being mounted. It has been suggested that it could have been used to lay demolition charges itself, but so far no evidence has surfaced, IIRC.

Cheer,

JM

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AikinutNY
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Ersatzbergetiger

#5

Post by AikinutNY » 08 Apr 2006, 21:13

The "bergetiger" pictured was a field modification by a unit in Italy and was used to lift explosive charges to slow the Allies advance. I believe from pictures that I have seen that a couple of these were built or the design was changed by the using unit.

Otto Carius mentioned that some Tigers were turned into "Bergetigers" by units in Russia to move disabled Tigers or free them from the mud. The Bergepanther Ausf D, the first ones produced were little more than Panthers without their turret. The reduction of vehicle weight gave them the power to move Panthers and Tigers. Removing the turret from a Tiger whose turret or main gun was beyond normal field repair would have increade it's pulling capablities to serve as a towing vehicles under fire.

There were some Bergetigers that were build at the Tiger plants, I have not found any discriptions or pictures of these. The later Bergepanther Ausf A/Gs hada winch designed into them and that increased their usefullness in recovering diabled tanks.

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Tiger Fever
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#6

Post by Tiger Fever » 09 Apr 2006, 12:32

Cheers guys, I thought that crane wouldn`t be up to moving a Tiger tank, but just wanted to confirm it. Seems a bit of a waste of a Tiger tank, just to move explosives round the place?

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#7

Post by ChristopherPerrien » 09 Apr 2006, 18:16

The cranes on recovery tanks are not used to pick-up, tow or un-stick tanks, cranes are used for maintenance like the lifiting of turrets, engines , and suspension components.

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AikinutNY
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Beregtiger

#8

Post by AikinutNY » 11 Apr 2006, 17:16

This Bergetiger would not have had the power to weigh ratio with that armored turret still in place. The difference between it and the Tiger with it's 88 mm gun still in place would not make it a very good recovery vehicle. If the complete turret was removed it would have made a good recovery vehicle. The British unit that captured it or the intelligence unit miss marked it as a recovery vehicle.

The unit would not have taken a operational Tiger off line and remove its gun to make a recovery or engineering vehicle out of it, but rather they took a Tiger with a defective/damaged gun and mounted the crane on it. If the unit needed the recovery vehicle they might not have shipped a tank back for major repair or maybe they could no longer ship them back and were making the most of the Tiger chassis that could still run.

The 653rd Heavy Panzerjaeger in Russia did the reverse with one of their Bergepanther Ausf D by bolting a Panzer IV turret to the recovery chassis when the newer Beregpanther with the winch was produced. The gun would have had to be aimed by turning the whole vehicle, but the main weapon of the unit was the Ferdinand which aimed the same way, so the crews would be familiar with it.

The light crane or derrick on the Bergepanthers would used for normal maintenance, infact there was a crane that could be mounted on a tank's turret to lift its engine/transmission/etc or another vehicles. This crane was used by the units maintenance section and they would also have a heavier crane mounted on a truck/half-track at a higher level maintenance unit.

I could see the crews loading the explosive charges wanting the armored turret to climb into when they were placing charges while they were under artillery attack or the threat of.

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Tiger Fever
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#9

Post by Tiger Fever » 11 Apr 2006, 18:56

ChristopherPerrien wrote:The cranes on recovery tanks are not used to pick-up, tow or un-stick tanks, cranes are used for maintenance like the lifiting of turrets, engines , and suspension components.

That certianly makes more sense, thank you.

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Tiger Fever
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#10

Post by Tiger Fever » 11 Apr 2006, 18:58

Cheers AikinnutNY, thats very interesting, thank you for taking the time to reply to my thread!!!!!

Otis
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Re: What was this beast used for?

#11

Post by Otis » 11 Nov 2009, 21:51

Image

It's hard to be satisfied with the model kits for this vehicle.
That's some massive reinforced hitch point on the front of the vehicle that is totally overlooked.

I suggest a totally different type of derrick to that which is portrayed.
Perhaps it was used to recover Borgward IVs or even other Tigers.

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Re:

#12

Post by Alanmccoubrey » 11 Nov 2009, 22:29

Tiger Fever wrote:And no one say demolition.....please!!!!!!!!!

If demolition was good enough for the men who used it then just why are you so sure it wasn't ?
Alan

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Re: What was this beast used for?

#13

Post by Otis » 12 Nov 2009, 10:41

I never read any statement from the men who used it verifying anything.?
I believe it was attached to a Funklenk unit that used Borgward IVs to place explosive charges by remote control.

I can imagine a number of hypothetical uses for the vehicle, at any rate a very well reinforced hitch in hull front center has no explanation whatsoever.
There are other crane/derrick configurations that can be used with such a hitch that would be capable of lifting much more than the wimpy little crane that the model makers have envisaged.

barbarossa28
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Re: What was this beast used for?

#14

Post by barbarossa28 » 13 Nov 2009, 13:04

Hello to all.

First: According to Jentz, this vehicle was converted and used by s. Panzer Abteilung 508. On 17th April 1944, 14. Armee reported, that s. Panzer Abteilung 508 was converting a Tiger to a mine cleaning vehicle. The crane should be used, to lay down charges for mine cleaning.

In my opinion, this vehicle was not only used to lay explosive charges. I think Jentz did not know these photos showing the front side of this vehicle. But what do we see at the frontside of this Tiger?
There is a massive towing hitch welded to the bow of the vehicle. AND there is a tow bar on the horizontal bow plate.

But what can we conclude from this fact? Is it a recovery tank after all? I would say NO. If it was a recovery tank, the towing hitch would have been attached to the rear and not to the front. This vehicle must drive backwards to recover another vehicle.

So we must have a look at the service of the Tiger units in Italy. What problems did they have? One of the main problems was the heavy terrain and therefore high rate of mechanical breakdowns. Becaus of the limited available number of recovery vehicles per unit, all of these vehicles had to be used to recover broken down Tigers. In some cases, Sherman hulls were used as recovery tanks to create additional recovery capacity.
Often, the transmissions of the Tigers were damaged. But what procedure was necessary to replace a damaged transmission? The turret of the Tiger had to be lift off the hull. This was normally done by a Strabo crane. But the Strabo crane was immovable. So the turrets were lifted, and the hulls were drawn away by another vehicle.
But all the other vehicles had to be used to recover other broken down tigers...

So I think this "Bergetiger" was a multy purpose vehicle. If necessary, it was used to lay charges for mine cleaning, if not it was used by the maintenance section to handle vehicles which were under repair.
I think the crane was able to be used for maintenance duties like lifting engines or driving wheels and other loads of this class. For comparison: the weekly looking "2t Behelfskran" was able to to such work.

Regards, Holger.

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Re: What was this beast used for?

#15

Post by jpz4 » 13 Nov 2009, 17:03

Otis wrote:That's some massive reinforced hitch point on the front of the vehicle that is totally overlooked.
Saying it's overlooked is a bit too harsh. This photograph was unknown until a few years ago and AFAIK there was no information regarding the front of the vehicle until this photograph. IIRC this one surfaced sometime during 2008 or perhaps 2007.

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