Talk:Tiger II

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Lead lacking

The lead omits to mention its combat use. A point brought up in the peer review last year but not apparently addressed.GraemeLeggett (talk) 15:34, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Ferdinand Porsche

Why is he not mentioned anywhere? 81.68.255.36 (talk) 21:50, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

He is mentioned and linked in the first paragraph of the development section. There is no further mention since his prototype was rejected. (Hohum ^@) 22:02, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

How did I miss that? :/ Sorry! 81.68.255.36 (talk) 10:16, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Königstiger / "Bengal tiger" / King Tiger

This is a small point, but I don't agree that it is incorrect to translate Königstiger into "King Tiger". The German name for the "Bengal tiger" is the "King Tiger", and that's not a mistranslation. 68.174.97.122 (talk) 23:54, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

It is a mistranslation because Königstiger = Bengal Tiger. You can't cut a word in half and translate both parts - the result is often different from translation of the composite word. --Denniss (talk) 05:07, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

I am afraid you are in error as Königsalbatros means royal albatross if you put Königstiger in a decent german translator such as dict.cc you get "(royal) bengal tiger" or "king tiger" For example the Germans also have a unique name Silberlöwe or silver lion to refer to a (mountain lion, puma or cougar) as well as the more literal Berglöwe. By your rules as there is no such thing as a silver lion in the English language we have to call it something else we would understand, but that's not how it works. When translating Silberlöwe as part of a text referring to the cat, you can use any of the English synonyms or the literal silverlion though perhaps with some explanation if you assume your readers are not familiar with the term, but if used as a name of something like a car or some such then the literal translation is more correct as such names have their own rules in which you avoid the use of approximation or synonym where ever practicable as either the manufacturer or the informal public may be using the various synonyms of the same root to distinguish between different items. or two manufacturers or companies may be using the synonyms on their product or the name of the company to avoid trademark infringement and end up with legal problems if translated the same way. Finally the word in german for Bengal is "Bengal". Bengal Tiger is a ridiculous name for a tank the Germans I talk to agree on this as the English name of this Tiger has non of the powerful connotations of the German name, so in conclusion, In this instance the mistakenly translated should be exchanged for literally translated kyphen(talk)

you are suggesting that pain perdu cannot be translated into English as "lost bread", that it must always be translated as "French toast", that it's an error to even mention lost bread. I think you're wrong, that's not how words work in any language, and not between languages either. For instance, perhaps the guy who developed the tank was named Konig, or perhaps he was named Bengali and they thought it would be really clever... you don't know, and the definitive assertion made in the article is no doubt made without any basis in fact. 68.174.97.122 (talk) 01:23, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

The german word Königstiger means Bengal Tiger in english. "King Tiger" is "König Tiger" in german and not Königstiger. --Denniss (talk) 02:35, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

your phraseology biases the outcome and is not technically correct with respect to linguistic morphology or phonology. That-which-we-refer-to-as-the-Bengal-Tiger, the Germans refer to as the Konigstiger. Our word in poesy suggests Bengal, a foreign place to us; their word does not, it suggests Kings and royalty to them. If they referred to that type of tiger by a name suggesting an Aryan geography populated by brown skinned people, who knows what they would have called the tank. But they don't, they call it the King Tiger. I just don't see why the article can't say "the word is often translated as 'King Tiger', what the Germans call the Bengal Tiger." why is it so important to you that the article say IT IS AN ERROR. 68.174.97.122 (talk) 15:55, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

IIRC, the vehicle was usually referred to in Allied documents of the time as the 'Royal Tiger' and I suspect the 'King Tiger' current English name may be a post-war literal translation of 'Konigstiger', but that's just a guess.

BTW, IIARC, the Bengal tiger is a larger and more powerful animal than other tigers, so the naming of the Tiger II as-such is definitely appropriate.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.24.216.123 (talk) 20:31, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Overlapping and interleaved

From the pictures it has more than two rows of wheels. Most pictures I see show it without its full set of wheels, often with transit wheels and combat tread. In these, a large unsupported strip of tread extends to the side beyond the wheels, and bare hubs stick out past the outer installed wheels.

I don't see any definition of "interleaved", but I would call the designs with more than one wheel per axle (excluding paired wheels) interleaved, in which case the Tiger II was clearly interleaved. David R. Ingham (talk) 06:03, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

No, Tiger II had an overlapping set of wheels (4 inner and 5 outer wheels), Tiger I and Panther had interleaved wheels (AFAIR three rows of wheels) but in 1944 they were adapted to the overlapping steel wheels from the Tiger II as that proved to be easier to handle (especially for maintenance). --Denniss (talk) 12:45, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Pantiger, A Redesigned Tiger (U.S. intelligence report, 1944), listed in External links, says they were interleaved. It shows a picture that might be a Tiger 2 with battle tread and all its road wheels. I think the confusion may be due to the preserved examples having been captured in transport trim, without the full set of wheel and sometimes with narrow tread. All the other pictures I see either have narrow tread or else a lot of tread sticking out past the wheels. They all have hubs that stick out past the wheels. David R. Ingham (talk) 18:33, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

No, these 9 wheels per side is all they ever got as there was no need for more. Commons has lots of wartime image to prove this. --Denniss (talk) 04:42, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

I just now looked at Commons. I still disagree. The pictures all support my interpretation. First Chamberlain and Doyle say "The suspension consisted of nine sets of interleaved road wheel sprung on torsion bars." They are right about almost everything else. Second, and I guess this may be their source, the pictures of the Tiger II suspension look exactly like those of the tiger I when it had its outer two rows of wheels off for transport. Some show the narrow track, and some show the wide track with its outer part unsupported. I will believe that the outer wheels were often neglected in the rush to get into combat but not that it was designed with bare bubs sticking out over unsupported track. Third, it would seem quite odd to persist with maintenance of the Panther interleaved wheels and omit them on the heavier, more expensive and rarer Tiger II with its wider track. David R. Ingham (talk) 03:40, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

My suggestion is to delete the sentence in the Development section, which should be historical rather than descriptive. The Design section fortunately does not say. However, as written the history and design are mixed, and it would be a change in content. In case we can't resolve it, what is the proper tag for a statement that has conflicting sources? David R. Ingham (talk) 06:08, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Please do not interpret anything, it's a fact that all Tiger-II based vehicles only had 9 road wheels (Jagdtiger with Porsche suspension just eight). --Denniss (talk) 09:56, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

This is probably the clearest image you'll get of Tiger II wheels and axles. This image is also in [Jentz; Doyle, Germany's Tiger Tanks:Vk45.02 to Tiger II Design, Production & Modifications, ISBN 9780764302244]. Which also says "The overlapping suspension consisted of eight inner and ten outer pairs of roadwheels. They were arranged as five outer and four inner pairs of roadwheels on each side." It also has a very clear diagram of the wheel layout. (Hohum ^@) 21:46, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

That is a clear image and it is not exactly what I expected to see, but it does not settle the question, because it still has hubs sticking out past the wheels. Images of Panthers and Tigers with all their wheels have no such bare hubs. As, I said, sources differ on this question. David R. Ingham (talk) 22:18, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

All of the axles are the same length. The inner axles do go beyond the inner wheels, but they aren't any longer than the outer axles. There is no room to put another wheel on them. I don't know why they are that long - perhaps they considered interleaving with thinner road wheels, and changed their minds, or it's to make them more accessible to adjust their tension. (Hohum ^@) 17:37, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

For me, Hohum's "This" picture makes it clear, at least for that example. It is different than the picture of the Tiger I showing all the wheels in two ways. The wheels are all in pairs, instead of 1-2-2-1 and there are less of them. What is so odd is that there seem to be no pictures of Tiger IIs or its derivatives without bare hubs sticking out. The pictures show narrow and wide tracks, same as for Tiger I, but the wide tracks stick out past the road wheels and their are no pictures without hubs sticking out past the wheels. A track wider than the set of wheels that support it can't be part of the design, because it would wear unevenly, and the track life of a tank is problematic at best. In battle trim, hubs can't be designed to stick out past the wheels, because they would catch rocks, logs, etc. There may have been extensions for the axles to support the outer wheels, or they may have been deeply dished somehow. The axles in travel mode can't stick out past the edge of the transport track, because they would catch on bridges and things in transit. So the design must have been three double rows of road wheels per side, the least to keep the load centered on the track. I don't know whether to call that "interleaved" or not. Some axles had two double wheels and the others had only one pair, in full design battle trim. But we never see that. The pictures of Tiger IIs all look like the pictures of Tiger Is without all their wheels. Maybe it was so late in the war that they never got that organized, or maybe when they were in battle trim, the crew was too busy to take pictures. Modelers have, as far as I have seen, have followed the pictures, without thinking this much about what made sense from an engineering point of view. That is fine for some models, as they agree with the pictures, but there should be some models of what it was designed to be, the best tank in the war. David R. Ingham (talk) 06:29, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

You won't find any image with the setup you claim to exist because this did not exist. --Denniss (talk) 10:32, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

The axles do not protrude beyond the mudguards of the Tiger II. This is the minimum width for transport. The tracks did protrude, which is why they were removed for transport. The end. David, I don't know where you get your ideas from, but it's not from documented inspection of the tank, per the book I already quoted. (Hohum ^@) 14:57, 3 March 2013 (UTC)