The Tiger I () was a German heavy tank of World War II that began operational duty in 1942 in Africa and in the Soviet Union, usually in independent heavy tank battalions. It gave the German Army its first armoured fighting vehicle that mounted the KwK 36 gun (derived from the 8.8 cm Flak 36, the famous "eighty-eight"). 1,347 were built between August 1942 and August 1944. After August 1944, production of the Tiger I was phased out in favour of the Tiger II.
While the Tiger I has been called an outstanding design for its time, it has also been criticized for being overengineered, and for using expensive materials and labour-intensive production methods. In the early period, the Tiger was prone to certain types of track failures and breakdowns. It was expensive to maintain, but generally mechanically reliable. It was difficult to transport and vulnerable to immobilisation when mud, ice, and snow froze between its overlapping and interleaved Schachtellaufwerk-pattern road wheels, often jamming them solid.
The tank was given its nickname "Tiger" by the ministry for armament and ammunition by 7 August 1941, and the Roman numeral was added after the Tiger II entered production. It was classified with ordnance inventory designation Sd.Kfz. 182. The tank was later re-designated as Panzerkampfwagen VI Ausführung E (abbreviated as Pz.Kpfw. VI Ausf. E) in March 1943, with ordnance inventory designation Sd.Kfz. 181.
Today, only nine Tiger I tanks survive in museums and private collections worldwide. , Tiger 131 (captured during the North African campaign) at the UK's Tank Museum is the only example restored to running order.
Development Initial development Combat experience against the French SOMUA S35 cavalry tank and Char B1 heavy tank, and the British Matilda II infantry tanks during the Battle of France in June 1940 showed that the German Army needed better armed and armoured tanks.
On 26 May 1941, Henschel and Ferdinand Porsche were asked to submit designs for a 45-tonne heavy tank, to be ready by June 1942. Porsche worked on an updated version of their VK 30.01 (P) Leopard tank prototype while Henschel worked on an improved VK 36.01 (H) tank. Henschel built two prototypes: a VK 45.01 (H) H1 with an 8.8 cm L/56 cannon, and a VK 45.01 (H) H2 with a 7.5 cm L/70 cannon.
Final designs On 22 June 1941, Germany launched Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. The Germans encountered large numbers of Soviet T-34 medium and KV-1 heavy tanks. According to Henschel designer Erwin Aders, "There was great consternation when it was discovered that the Soviet tanks were superior to anything available to the Heer."
Weight increase to 45 tonnes and an increase in gun calibre to were ordered for it on 26 May 1941.Jenzt, Thomas L.; Doyle, Hilary L.: Germany's Tiger Tanks: Vk45.02 to Tiger II, 1997, page 10 The due date for the new prototypes was set for 20 April 1942, Adolf Hitler's 53rd birthday. Unlike the Panther tank, the designs did not incorporate sloped armour.
Porsche and Henschel submitted prototype designs, each making use of the Krupp-designed turret. They were demonstrated at Rastenburg in front of Hitler. The Henschel design was accepted, mainly because the Porsche VK 4501 (P) prototype design used a troubled petrol-electric transmission system which needed large quantities of copper for the manufacture of its electrical drivetrain components, a strategic war material of which Germany had limited supplies with acceptable electrical properties for such uses. Production of the Panzerkampfwagen VI Ausf. H began in August 1942. Expecting an order for his tank, Porsche built 100 chassis. After the contract was awarded to Henschel, they were used for a new turretless, casemate-style tank destroyer; 91 hulls were converted into the Panzerjäger Tiger (P) in early 1943.
The Tiger was still at the prototype stage when it was first hurried into service, and therefore changes both large and small were made throughout the production run. A redesigned turret with a lower cupola was the most significant change. The river-fording submersion capability and an external air-filtration system were dropped to cut costs.Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger Ausf.E (Sd.Kfz.181) Tiger I. Retrieved 8/28/2025. Published 4/20/2019. Andrew Hill.
Design The Tiger differed from earlier German tanks principally in its design philosophy. Its predecessors balanced mobility, armour and firepower and were sometimes outgunned by their opponents.
While heavy, this tank was not slower than the best of its opponents. Although the general design and layout were broadly similar to the Panzer IV medium tank, the Tiger weighed more than twice as much. This was due to its substantially thicker armour, the larger main gun, greater volume of fuel and ammunition storage, larger engine, and a more solidly built transmission and suspension.
Armour
The Tiger I had frontal hull armour thick, frontal turret of 100 mm and gun mantlet with a varying thickness of around the edges and around the gun. The overlap between the mantlet and turret front added to at least 200 mm behind the thinner edges. The Tiger had thick hull side plates and armour on the side superstructure/sponsons, while turret sides and rear were 80 mm. The top and bottom armour was thick; from March 1944, the turret roof was thickened to . Armour plates were mostly flat, with interlocking construction. This flat construction encouraged angling the Tiger hull roughly 30-45° when firing in order to increase effective thickness.
At the height of its service, the Tiger’s front was practically invulnerable to all Allied guns except the British 17-pounder, US 90-mm, and Soviet 122-mm guns. According to British analysis, the Tiger proved to have exceptionally high-quality armor steel. British firing tests found that the 60 mm lower hull side plate offered resistance equivalent to 80 mm of British RHA, while the 80 mm upper hull plate was equivalent to 90 mm.
Otto Carius (who commanded 2nd Company, 502nd Battalion) remembered: "Again and again, we admired the quality of the steel on our tanks. It was hard without being brittle. Despite its hardness, it was also elastic. If an AT round didn’t hit the armour head on, it slid off on its side and left behind a gouge as if you had run your finger over a soft piece of butter."
Gun
The 56-calibre long 8.8 cm KwK 36 was chosen for the Tiger. A combination of a flat trajectory from the high muzzle velocity and precision from the Leitz Turmzielfernrohr TZF 9b sight (later replaced by the monocular TZF 9c) made it very accurate. In British wartime firing trials, five successive hits were scored on a target at a range of . Compared with the other contemporary German tank guns, the 8.8 cm KwK 36 had superior penetration to the 7.5 cm KwK 40 on the Sturmgeschütz III and Panzer IV but inferior to the 7.5 cm KwK 42 on the Panther tank under ranges of 2,500 metres. At greater ranges, the 8.8 cm KwK 36 was superior in penetration and accuracy. British trials found the gun took from 6 to 16 seconds to reload varying on turret position and consequently which storage bin was being used.
The ammunition for the Tiger had electrically fired primers. Four types of ammunition were available but not all were fully available; the PzGr 40 shell used tungsten, which was in short supply as the war progressed.
PzGr. 39 (armour-piercing, capped, ballistic cap) PzGr. 40 (armour-piercing, composite rigid) Hl. Gr. 39 (high explosive anti-tank) sch. Sprgr. Patr. L/4.5 (incendiary shrapnel)
Engine and drive
The rear of the tank held an engine compartment flanked by two separate rear compartments each containing a fuel tank and radiator. The Germans had not developed an adequate diesel engine, so a petrol (gasoline) powerplant had to be used instead. The original engine used was a 12-cylinder Maybach HL210 P45 developing at 3,000 rpm and a top speed of . It was found to be underpowered for the vehicle from the 251st Tiger onwards. It was replaced by the upgraded HL 230 P45, a engine developing at 3,000 rpm. The main difference between these engines was that the original Maybach HL 210 used an aluminium engine block while the Maybach HL 230 used a cast-iron engine block. The cast-iron block allowed for larger cylinders (and thus, greater displacement) which increased the power output to . The engine was in V-form, with two cylinder banks set at 60 degrees. An inertia starter was mounted on its right side, driven via chain gears through a port in the rear wall. The engine could be lifted out through a hatch on the rear hull roof. In comparison to other V12 and various vee-form gasoline engines used for tanks, the eventual HL 230 engine was nearly smaller in displacement than the Allied British Rolls-Royce Meteor V12 AFV power plant, itself adapted from the RR Merlin but de-rated to power output; and the American Ford-designed precursor V12 to its Ford GAA V-8 AFV engine of 18 litre displacement, which in its original V12 form would have had the same displacement as the Meteor.
The 501st Heavy Panzer Battalion (sPzAbt 501) reported in May 1943:
The engine drove the front sprockets through a drivetrain connecting to a transmission in the front portion of the lower hull; the front sprockets had to be mounted relatively low as a result. The Krupp-designed 11-tonne turret had a hydraulic motor whose pump was powered by mechanical drive from the engine. A full rotation took about a minute.
Another new feature was the Maybach-Olvar hydraulically controlled semi-automatic pre-selector gearbox. The extreme weight of the tank also required a new steering system. Germany's Argus Motoren, where Hermann Klaue had invented a ring brakeDisk brake for use in motor cars, airplanes, and the like US Patent 2323052 A in 1940, supplied them for the Arado Ar 96Arado Ar 96, Lexikon der Wehrmacht. and also supplied the disc. Klaue was acknowledged in the patent application that he had improved, it can even be traced back to British designs dating to 1904. It is unclear whether Klaue's patent ring brake was used in the Tiger brake design.
The clutch-and-brake system, typical for lighter vehicles, was retained only for emergencies. Normally, steering depended on a double differential, Henschel's development of the British Merritt-Brown system first encountered in the Churchill tank. The vehicle had an eight-speed gearbox, and the steering offered two fixed radii of turns on each gear, thus the Tiger had sixteen different radii of turn. In first gear, at a speed of a few km/h, the minimal turning radius was . In neutral gear, the tracks could be turned in opposite directions, so the Tiger I pivoted in place. There was a steering wheel instead of either a tiller – or, as most tanks had at that time, twin braking levers – making the Tiger I's steering system easy to use, and ahead of its time.