If the Jagdtiger had horrendous reliability, what were they thinking?

[Erik1]

If the Jagdtiger was so unreliable due to its weight, that it was difficult to use it for anything in the front, what were Henschel and the military people accepting it thinking?

Here Hilary Doyle talks about it and says how they learned lessons from the problems with the Ferdinand when designing the Jagdtiger, its replacement.


But what lessons, because the Jagdtiger seems to have been much less reliable than the Ferdinand, which reached 900+ km between major repairs during testing. Not good but not terrible either, I guess.

AFAIK the Jagdtiger weighted 78-82 tonnes (sources differ), much more than Tiger 2. I've seen 2 reports from Jagdtiger units saying that the transmission and steering system are design flaws and needs to be redesigned, while a Tiger 2 unit says that their mechanical problems are "just teething issues" and are confident that they will be solved. Jagdtiger seems like a far more plauged vehicle.

[ThatZenoGuy]

I mean Doyle also thinks the Hetzer was made out of cast iron, so his opinion on anything isn't flawless.

Jagdtiger and Ferdinand are radically different vehicles, different transmission, suspension, engines, etc.

Jagdtiger's production concept was pretty simple, compared to Ferdinand. "How do we get the 128mm on the King Tiger?".

It's obvious they were rushed and didn't have time to engineer enhanced transmission/suspension for the vehicle.

[Contender]

Cardinal rule no matter the topic nor who it is saying it (worse if they are any sort of famous) never listen to youtubers, they have every incentive to "sensationalize" their content and cement their image as an "expert" no matter how erroneous their content is.
They call it "growing the channel™"- :roll:

[ThatZenoGuy]

Cardinal rule no matter the topic nor who it is saying it (worse if they are any sort of famous) never listen to youtubers, they have every incentive to "sensationalize" their content and cement their image as an "expert" no matter how erroneous their content is.
They call it "growing the channel™"- :roll:

100% have to agree with this sentiment.

I am starting to get rather upset with the current slew of 'military historian' youtubers.

They always parrot the most 'if it's popular it must be right!' sort of claims, presumably just to get extra clicks.

Often politically/racially motivated as well, with half of them being massive Germanophiles and the other half being massive Germanophobes.

No the Tiger was not the best tank ever made and can destroy an Abrams frontally. Nor was it an unreliable piece of crap which never worked and had an inferior gun to the mighty Sherman 76mm.

No German tanks weren't made of pot-metal. Nor were they made of adamantium filtered by Hitler's mustache itself.

Etc.