Testing the King Tiger at Kubinka

[Michael Kenny]

I knew you would find some excuse to throw in the towel. Good ,we can all get back to reality now. The very idea that everyone will have to change their book(extra,extra,second edition of TICII now out with corrections courtesy of Zetterling) shows just what a fantasy world you have constructed around this book. You are indeed a true believer and you will brook no criticism of any of this Authors conclusions and any view to the contrary is dismissed with no regard to the scholarship that went into its collection. You simply will not accept anything no matter what photographs or testimony are provided to back it. Zetterling was never the problem. His book is an excellent source of good basic research into what the Records of the time say. He himself would never make the claims you do for this book and frankly anyone who shows such abject subsurviance to the printed word in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary needs a friends word in their ear-quickly!. I would also like to point out Schneider does list this 503 Tiger as a loss on page 164 of TICI. He subtracts it from 45 to give 503 44 Tigers left. A simple typo error is made with the further subtraction of another 13 lost Tigers for 18/7/44. He did list it. I hope you and your calculators have a happy life together.

[Darrin]

I knew you would find some excuse to throw in the towel. Good ,we can all get back to reality now. The very idea that everyone will have to change their book(extra,extra,second edition of TICII now out with corrections courtesy of Zetterling) shows just what a fantasy world you have constructed around this book. You are indeed a true believer and you will brook no criticism of any of this Authors conclusions and any view to the contrary is dismissed with no regard to the scholarship that went into its collection. You simply will not accept anything no matter what photographs or testimony are provided to back it. Zetterling was never the problem. His book is an excellent source of good basic research into what the Records of the time say. He himself would never make the claims you do for this book and frankly anyone who shows such abject subsurviance to the printed word in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary needs a friends word in their ear-quickly!. I would also like to point out Schneider does list this 503 Tiger as a loss on page 164 of TICI. He subtracts it from 45 to give 503 44 Tigers left. A simple typo error is made with the further subtraction of another 13 lost Tigers for 18/7/44. He did list it. I hope you and your calculators have a happy life together.

One last try for logic or real proof. You say 1 tiger of the 503rd fell through a bridge on 6 july 44 drooping 20 feet according to you. You say a vetern of the div saw the tank fall though and THOUGHT it was not repairable. Not only are veterns biased but the ones that are around weren't high ranking and the few that were in a pos to know what happened didn´t keep records they only have memories. The tank was recovered and photos taken afterwards? Seems schieder based his descion on weather the tank did or did not get written off not evacuted to factories or repaired on this unit history book.

The bat saw combat sometime around the 10th of july. I,m reproducing zetterlings str for this bat from the 11th to 13th of july.

JULY OP SR LR
11 23 3 15
13 32 13 0
16 40 ? ?
17 39 1 5

On the 11th 41 of the bat tanks are acconted for bettween op, sr and lr. On the 13 july ALL bat tanks are acccounted for and NONE are in long term repair. On the 16th there is still an even higher number of tanks op but numbers in the sr and lr are not known. If there was some type of mistake in the 13 july report the one on the 17th accounts for EVERY tank again.

Within 7 days at least the tank that fell through the bridge was recovered and back with the unit. I've heard of ghost divs before but not ghost tanks. This vet who schinder and others were basing thier descion on is OBVIOUSLY wrong not the first time for it to happen.

Any reputable historian with actual archive info proving him wrong would never in the future call this tank des regardless of what one vetern who may not even be alive now said. If you would like to be considered a resercher try finding evidence that this tank was des at this time in the ger archives. Look for the vech id loss report. I doubt you or even schieder will be able to do it. Too bad schieder didn´t look at the ger archives himself first and and zetterling had to do it.

I will take zetterling and the german archives over your I have a picture or story approach any day of the week. Neither one is entirly correct but the ger archives are more accurate and reliable than mere combat stories and photos.

QED

[Michael Kenny]

Darrin you lost all credibility (not that you had much to begin with) when you started rubbishing Schneider and the 503 book. The case for the loss of the Tiger on the bridge is proved and thus the paperwork is WRONG-end of story. Can I now draw your attention to another seeming error in the 'infallible' paperwork. On page 190 Zetterling has 503 isued with 33 Tiger Is and 12 Tiger IIs. The issue record shows that 503 got 14(that is 14 not 12) Tiger IIs. As the entire 1st Kp. had Tiger IIs (2 company command tanks and 3 zug. of 4 tanks each=14) it would seem beyond doubt(you of course will deny this!) that 14 Tiger II were in use. Could you please use your paperwork to show me how 503 had 47 tanks instead of the 45 it should have(note: the 33 Tiger Is issued are confirmed by the records,no room to say that figure is wrong-unless you are willing to admit the paperwork COULD be wrong) The only way now you can show the records are always right is by showing where they are wrong!

[Darrin]

Darrin you lost all credibility (not that you had much to begin with) when you started rubbishing Schneider and the 503 book. The case for the loss of the Tiger on the bridge is proved and thus the paperwork is WRONG-end of story. Can I now draw your attention to another seeming error in the 'infallible' paperwork. On page 190 Zetterling has 503 isued with 33 Tiger Is and 12 Tiger IIs. The issue record shows that 503 got 14(that is 14 not 12) Tiger IIs. As the entire 1st Kp. had Tiger IIs (2 company command tanks and 3 zug. of 4 tanks each=14) it would seem beyond doubt(you of course will deny this!) that 14 Tiger II were in use. Could you please use your paperwork to show me how 503 had 47 tanks instead of the 45 it should have(note: the 33 Tiger Is issued are confirmed by the records,no room to say that figure is wrong-unless you are willing to admit the paperwork COULD be wrong) The only way now you can show the records are always right is by showing where they are wrong!

Zetterling on p 58 says 12 tiger IIs all with the 1 coy of the 503rd bat were all that served. According to ger 7th army records dated 22 june 44. On p190 he again says eaxctly the same thing so it was not a a mistake of his and here he uses differnt recond sources. It is the number of TIIs that left the factory for the 503 and the number of TIs as well. There were a total of 33 TIs and ONLY 12 TIIs that were sent.

QED

The german army records Zetterling has found PROVE that thier were 12 tiger IIs not the 14 YOU imagine. Just like earlier records PROVE the earlier tiger that fell through the bridge was not des. The german archives during this time are always right and you are always wrong. Your OPINIONS flying in the face of OVERWHELMING archive evudence to the contraty are worthless.

You mentioned the combat records earlier and I asked for actual ger archive records reference and didn´t get squat. Now you mention 503rd ship records that contridict zetterlings notes but you give no reference. Again put up or shut up....no book reference accepted a ger archive referance or nothing. It seems logic and evidence do not affect you so if I don´t get a relpy to one of the two request in this paragrah then I will not respond. Everytime you open your mouth you display more ignorance. Quite often the same ignorance over and over that we dealt with before which agrevates me and demonstrates how poor your memory is.

If your going to say the ger archives were wrong well I´ve already admitted they weren´t perfect. No one but you would disbileve overwhelming archive evdence when your only evdience is the foggy memeoy of a ger vetern and a picture that to you looks like a totaly des vechicles. What type of experiance do you have to judge what is or not repairable in person even let alone by a 50 year old photo. Ï will trust the actual records of the experts who were actually there over some dark photos and veterns statment.

[Michael Kenny]

For the second time I must hang my head in shame. As soon as I had finished posting my last reply I had nagging doubts about it. Anyway I went and double checked and it seems I confused the June issue of 12 Tiger II with the next July issue of 14 Tiger II. For the second time I admit to error and giving Darrin the false hope that he is now right in everything he says. Sorry but I am not perfect and I pay the price for my haste.(pause for a minute while Darrin stops whooping). For those still interested there are 3 clear photographs of '323'. The Tiger that fell through the bridge. One was taken just before it fell and two were taken of it sitting flattened on the railway track it fell on. In Schneiders photo you can see that the drive sprocket (Darrin thats the big wheel at the front with teeth) is almost level with the ground. It seems the suspension was totaly destroyed. The other photo is in the Combat History Of sPabt. 503 and my opinion on what the damage was isn't relevant but Lt. von Rosen (still alive at the time of the books publication in 2000) who was there and was in the 3rd Kp. says it was recovered but was beyond repair. I note Darrins comments that von Rosen is wrong and the remark that von Rosen probably didn't know enough about Tiger tanks to give an informed opinion. Darrin also expects these books to be amended if they go to a second edition. He hopes the Authors wont repeat their mistakes and will use Zetterlings work to correct everything that doesn't match Zetterlings conclusions. I assume everyone who reads Darrins last sentence- ' I will trust the actual records of the experts who were actually there over some dark photos and veterns(his spelling not mine) statement' Will note the internal consistency of the sentence as well as his dismisal of all first hand accounts. Perhaps Darrin you should realise that a piece of paper with numbers on is just that-a piece of paper. If this Tiger was listed as ready for action it does not mean it was in reality. However I do realise the significance of this mistake. It means all your data from the 7/7/44 is wrong. You have no choice but to defend it to the death. I in my turn will believe the stories of the men who served in these tanks. The men on the spot like von Rosen who, unlike the man who filled the record sheets in at base, was actualy there in person when the Tank was written off. You will never be persuaded but that my friend is your problem. Whilst I have no doubt that a scrap of paper exists that says only 23 Tigers lost by 27/7/44 many other sources show that wrecks in excess of that total were scattered arond the Normandy landscape. If you want a source to rubbish I give you one now and let us see how you show it to be wrong. Page 226, TICI. Listing of 14 Tigers lost to 503 by 18/7/44. Page 320, TICII. Listing of 20 lost Tigers for 101 by 20/7/44. Page 365 TICII. Listing of 7 lost Tiger for 102 by 26/7/44. 14+20+7=41 Tigers lost. If some of these wrecks were recovered(most were lost on ground taken by the Allies) and if they were sent for factory repair then they did not get back into action in Normandy. The ONLY documented proof of any Tigers being sent back for repair is a Train with 3 Tigers captured at Rheims on August 31st. Schneider only lists 503 as putting any Tigers into this category, 3 Tigers on 1/8/44(the ones captured on the train?) and these were listed as lost on 1/8/44 so could not be any of the earlier losses. Now Darrin you asked fo rreferences and I have given you some. It will be interesting to see how you get round them. I expect some crowing in your reply and I deserve it but please correct my sources for me as well. Im sure Schneider would welcome actual proof he gets it all wrong and by such a wide margin. He has managed(in your opinion) to document 18 Tigers as lost that didn't get destroyed.

[Marcus]

The posts about use in Bosnia has been moved to a new thread.

/Marcus

[Christian Ankerstjerne]

I have decided to close this thread, as some of the later posts are begining to get an unfriendly tone.
Also, it seems the thread have turned into a Tiger I discussion.

I have started up a new topic about the Tiger I, for discussion about this vehicle. There is also a thread about the Tiger II, so that these two discussions can be separated.

Christian