Tiger I

Tiger I
Origin	Germany
Year Int.	1942
Designer	Henschel & Son

"I see it, it's a goddamned Tiger!"

―Wardaddy upon spotting the semi-concealed Tiger

Tiger I is the common name of a German heavy tank developed in 1942 and used in World War II. The final official German designation was Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger Ausf. E, often shortened to simply just Tiger. It was an answer to the unexpectedly impressive Soviet armour encountered in the initial months of the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, particularly the T-34 and the KV-1.

In Fury, the Tiger I is only seen once, in a six-minute intense battle against Fury, Lucy Sue, Murder Inc., and Old Phyliss much to the crew's surprise, as they thought that there were no more operational Tigers left this late in the war, at least, no operational Tiger Is, as the Tiger II was already taking over at this point.

Description

The Tiger I gave the Wehrmacht its first tank which mounted the 88 mm gun in its first armoured fighting vehicle-dedicated version: the KwK 36. During the course of the war, the Tiger I saw combat on all German battlefronts. It was usually deployed in independent tank battalions, which proved highly effective.

While the Tiger I was an excellent design, it was over-engineered, using expensive materials and labour-intensive production methods. Only 1,347 were built between August 1942 and August 1944. The Tiger was prone to certain types of track failures and breakdowns, and limited in range by its high fuel consumption. It was expensive to maintain, but generally mechanically reliable. It was also difficult to transport, and vulnerable to immobilization when mud, ice and snow froze between its overlapping and interleaved Schachtellaufwerk-pattern road wheels in both rasputitsa and succeeding winter weather conditions, often jamming them solid. In 1944, production was phased out in favour of the Tiger II.

The tank was given its nickname "Tiger" by Ferdinand Porsche, and the Roman numeral was added after the later Tiger II entered production. The initial official German designation was Panzerkampfwagen VI Ausführung H (‘Panzer VI version H’, abbreviated PzKpfw VI Ausf. H), with ordnance inventory designation SdKfz 182, but the tank was redesignated as PzKpfw VI Ausf. E in March 1943, with ordnance inventory designation SdKfz 181.

Today, only a handful of Tigers survive in museums and exhibitions worldwide. The Bovington Tank Museum's Tiger 131 is currently the only one restored to running order. Bovington lent 131 to the movie's crew in order to shoot Fury, making it the first movie to ever use a real Tiger.