Tiger vs. 50 Tanks

[dexter]

One of the most famous Tiger battles took place on July 8th, 1943 during the Battle of Kursk when supposedly a lone Tiger under the command of Franz Staudegger destroyed 22 T-34s. The Soviets fielded a total force of 50 to 60 Russian tanks. How could 1 tiger hold against that many tanks? This episode is still hotly debated. What really happened there? We use both German and Soviet sources to shine some light on the incident and show you both sides of the story in this film.

For the German side we used internet articles “Panzer Aces Wittmann and Staudegger at Kursk” and “Revised footnote on Staudegger” by Christopher A. Lawrence, and also “Franz Staudegger – German Tiger Ace in the Battle of Kursk” by Evan Pinter.

For the Soviet side, we looked through archive documents in Russian, scans of which can be found on the site of TsAMO, “Memory of People” page. The first one is ”Excerpt from the War Diary of 26th Tank Brigade from June 23rd to July 6th of 1943”, the second - is "Combat Directive for units of 2nd Tank Corps for July 7th - July 8th, 1943”, and the third - is "After-action report of 2nd Tank Corps for July 1943”.

 

[buntalanlucu]

it is common joke among historians that german always shot up so many soviet tanks before they retreat , so no one can verify their claim

 

[LegionnairE]

it is common joke among historians that german always shot up so many soviet tanks before they retreat , so no one can verify their claim

Tiger was a beast when it's hull down, and T-34s were built to a very low quality around that time so it's very much possible

 

[buntalanlucu]

Soviet count tank losses differently than German , Soviet count disabled tank even those which can be repaired easily as loss. while german dont count anything unless it is totally unretrievable due to lost of territory. Hilarious so many german nazi lower jumping up and down claiming fictional NAZI made up stuff as fact when in reality both in eastern and western front the german lost more armor than allied units.. but yes these are the same wehraboos who claimed it took 10 sherman tank to kill 1 tiger , which is so childish considering US shermans and tank destroyers massacred panthers and tigers during battle of the bulge.

the best account of tank loss should be given to all SS formations , who claimed they SHOT UP HUNDREDS of soviet tanks , but ve cant prove it because ve hav to retreat.. If you lost territory and have to retreat (and cant even recover your tanks) then who is the winner ?

the running joke is that werhmact and SS tank divisions achieve victory upon victory until the gates of berlin