The Tiger Tank and Allied Intelligence Volume 1: Grosstraktor to Tiger 231, 1926-1943
The Tiger tank was dramatically more powerful than any other tank when deployed in 1942. How did the Germans preserve its secrets? Why were the Allies taken by surprise? What did they discover?
After 20 years of research on three continents, across 25 battle maps, 31 tables of data, more than 500 photographs and drawings, and previously unidentified first-hand accounts, these volumes reveal what Allied technicians discovered and what the propagandists covered up and distorted. Thus, we can learn more about the Tiger as it really was, rather than the hearsay that history books perpetuate.
This first volume explains what foreigners knew about Germany’s heavy tanks from 1926 to 1943; how the British decrypted signals about Tigers months before confirmation in the field; how the Soviets fought Tigers for eight months before telling their Allies; how the Western Allies fought Tigers earlier than they realized; how the French were the targets of the first deep battle involving Tigers, but the Americans captured the personnel and components, while the British captured the imagery.
The capture of Tiger 231 is stranger still. The British claimed it, but a Canadian commanded the company that first fired on it, and a Canadian engineer was first to exploit it. Although it lay within Allied lines, the Germans demolished it. They rated the demolition as thorough, but two British technicians heroically and accurately analysed the wreck. Yet their intelligence would be overtaken by propaganda and political spin proved more enduring, even today.
Book Data
Author: Bruce Oliver Newsome
Language: English
ISBN: 9781951171131
Pages: 184
Photos: 144
Maps/tables/charts: 14
Physical: Hardcover, 280x216mm, portrait
Chapters
Introduction
1: Tiger’s Ancestors
2: Tiger production
3: Fantasy Heavy Tanks
4: Tigers in the East
5: The First African Tigers
6: Preparing for Tebourba
7: The First Advance on Tebourba
8: Tigers at Tebourba: Day 1
9: Tigers at Tebourba: Day 2
10: Tigers at Tebourba: Day 3
11: The Fight for El Guessa
12: The Final Drive to Medjez
13: The Intelligence Failure
14: Operation Eilbote I
15: Discovery of the Tigers
16: The Capture of Tiger 231
17: The Battles for Tiger 231
18: Recovering and Demolishing the Tigers
19: Exploitation of Tiger 231