The Tiger Tank and Allied Intelligence Volume 3: Tiger 131: From Africa to Europe
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 third volume focuses on Tiger 131 of the 504′: the first running Tiger to be exploited in the West, the first Tiger sent to Britain, the most studied Tiger, and the only running Tiger in the world today. This volume reveals the untold story of how Tiger 131 was captured on Gueriat el Atach in almost perfect condition, after fighting for two days, against parts of four battalions of tanks and six battalions of infantry. No less remarkable is its recovery and exploitation in Tunisia, how it got to Britain, its tardy and incomplete trials, the missing reports, the tank’s relegation in disabled condition – during a politicized dispute about the relative merits of Allied tanks, and the falsification of its provenance to suggest that it was captured at Djebel Djaffa, three days earlier, by different units.
This third volume also describes the campaigns in Sicily in 1943, mainland Italy from 1943 to 1945, France in 1944, and Germany in 1945; the Tigers captured in those campaigns; the widening gaps between what the users heard and what their commanders, politicians, propagandists, and historians said; the first battles between the latest Allied tanks and the last Tigers; and the post-war fates of the surviving Tigers. unrecorded.
Book Data
Author: Bruce Oliver Newsome
Language: English
ISBN: 9781951171063
Pages: 166
Photos: 131
Maps/tables/charts: 11
Physical: Hardcover, 280x216mm, portrait
Chapters
Introduction
Tiger 131: Day of Triumph
2: Gueriat Ridge: The Second Day
3: Tiger 131 Versus Infantry
4: Tiger 131 Versus Shell Fire
5: Tiger 131 Versus Churchill tanks
6: Churchills on Point 174
7: Tiger 131’s Recovery
8: Tiger 131’s Exploitation
9: The Final Offensive: Tunis and Bizerte
10: The Final Offensive: Hammam-Lif
11: Surveys of Tigers in Tunisia
12: Gab-Gab Gap
13: Technical Assessments of Tigers in Tunisia
14: Doctrinal Assessments
15: Press and Propaganda
16: Tigers in Sicily
17: Southern to Central Italy
18: Northern Italy: The 508th
19: Northern Italy: The 504th
20: The Explosive-Laying Tiger
21: Tiger 131 in Britain: The First Reports
22: Tiger 131 in Britain: Gunnery Trials
23: Tiger 131 in Britain: Automotive Tests
24: Tiger 131 in Britain: Final Influence
25: Normandy: Military Consequences
26: Political Consequences
27: Normandy: The Captured Tigers
28: The Last Fighting Tigers
29: The Last Surviving Tigers