King Tiger #213 at La Gleize?

[dragon53]

Does anyone know if the King Tiger #213 on display at La Gleize, Belgium is the same King Tiger that was used by paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne to see if a bazooka could penetrate the tank's armor?

[PanzerArm]

AFAIK, the tiger in La Gleize only has some damage to the front of it that looks way more substantial than that done by a bazooka. I'd venture to guess that it was a sherman or US TD firing a close range at the tank after the battle to see what their gun could even do.

[dragon53]

PANZERARM:

Thanks for the info.
Based on my research, it appears more than one King Tiger was hit by bazookas after they were captured by US troops---including King Tiger #213. I'm trying to determine what unit the US troops belonged to that fired bazooka rounds at #213.

[PanzerArm]

Unfortunately lots of research sources can be misleading. While searching for quality pictures of the La Gleize tiger to refresh my memory, I came across quite a few people that said the impacts were from bazookas. The gouges out of the frontal armor of the La Gleize tiger are solid shot. As a matter of fact one round is still lodged in the juncture of the upper front and lower front plates. Here is a picture:



As you may be able to see, the hit it the juncture still retains the circle shape from the butt end of that 75 or 76mm AP round that lodged itself there. The other too rounds on the upper front plate show something as well. Since the rounds obviously didn't penetrate, their kinetic energy was deflected accross the plane of the armor, and then eventually back up into the air. A solid shot failing to penetrate has this effect. A HEAT round fired out of a bazooka on the other hand will just spash on the surface, having burrowed a small hole. Here is a picture of what I believe are some bazooka hits on the side of a panther:



As you can see they are much smaller, even than what a penetration by a 57mm/ 6 lb'er would make. Their are no deflections since the side armor or a panther's turret was more than able to be penetrated by a bazooka.

I did come accross a KT that could possibly been used as target practice by M1 bazooka's, as well as some other weapons:



Here is a good site about 213:

http://www.ss501panzer.com/213_restoration.htm

and here is a good link to the King Tigers that were left behind by Kampfgruppe Peiper:

http://www.ss501panzer.com/1_kompanie_tanks.htm


-Kevin

[dragon53]

PANZERARM:

Thanks for the detailed info. I was going to buy a Hobby Master King Tiger #213 but your info saved me from making a mistake.

[normandy]

Yes, thanks for the pics and intel!
Its to bad the pic of the panther is in black and white......that camo scheme would look cool in color.

[PanzerArm]

Normandy,

That camo caught my eye as well. I researched it a little more, and I found some gentlemen on the armorama forums that were researching it. Here are some more pics of it:






And here is their recreation of the scheme:




If you'd like to read more, here is the link to the thread:

http://www.armorama.com/modules.php?op= ... 365&page=1


-Kevin

[normandy]

PanzerArm, Thanks for the link to the thread!!! This should be interesting.

[normandy]

I found a little more intel on Disc type or TII type camo, and Archer makes dry transfer decals with a few of these patterns.
http://www.archertransfers.com/disc_tome.html

[PanzerArm]

And to resurrect this thread, I found this picture which shows pretty definitive proof of the bazooka testing on one of the tigers there, not the monument one, but another:




As you can see, it's the same tiger in this photo:




According to this site they also shot a panzershrek at it:

http://www.lonesentry.com/panzer/may/la ... lgium.html



-Kevin

[normandy]

Wow nice find! I never would have matched the two photos.