Leopard's Guide: The Tiger I Tank by Marcus Durden

Author:Marcus Durden [Durden, Marcus]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: History
Published: 2013-07-29T16:00:00+00:00

Here a Tiger I is loaded for transport with its barrels shrouded and travel tracks mounted. The combat tracks are mounted underneath the tank aptly showing the difference in width. The third layer of road wheels are stacked in the rear.

While interleaving the wheels resulted in better side protection (because there are less gaps for a round to slip through, referred to as ballistic leakage), it also greatly complicated maintenance. If an inner wheel lost it’s tire (which was common on all tanks of that era that had rubber road tire) it would require removing nine outer wheels; this is why the later Tigers used completely steel road wheels. Additionally, this wheel design resulted in mud and ice blockages, of which the Russian steppes were full of both.

The wheels were rubber rimmed in the beginning because they were actually adapted from medium Panzer wheels since there simply was not enough time to design new ones from scratch. Later on, once the Tiger had proven itself, the funds were appropriated to design the steel wheels that the majority of Tiger’s would wear (and early models that were later retrofitted). These were better suited for the Tiger because they were easy to make (rubber was in short supply as the war went on) and because they could handle heavier weight so the third layer of road wheels did not have to be installed.

The tracks of the Tiger I were also the biggest mounted on any German tank when it was first produced at 725 mm (28.5 in) wide (though this would be surmounted later on in the war by other tanks). These tracks were necessary to give the Tiger it’s famed cross country mobility as the weight of the tank had to be spread out over a wide area to achieve a low 15 psi ground pressure. However, these tracks made the tank too wide to fit on rail cars and special train “travel tracks” had to be installed, a feat that could take half an hour for each tank and limited the tank to tarmac roads as the thinner tracks increased the ground pressure exerted by the Tiger considerably, to 20 psi; travel tracks plus mud equalled a mired Tiger tank. In October of 1943 the combat tracks were upgraded with chevroned surfacing to increase traction. All tracks could be mounted with ice cleats and used C clipped track pins to link the individual sections together.

The drive sprocket that turned the treads was at the front of the tank and was made from pure cast manganese steel. It was 36 inches wide and had 20 teeth. All the teeth were mounted on dual replaceable rings so that if a tooth broke off, the entire sprocket did not have to be replaced. At the rear was the idler wheel which was mounted on tensioning bolt that was adjusted by hand to tighten the tracks taut. A deflector plate was mounted by the idler wheel to help bump the tracks back into alignment

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