History
It was mid 1942 and the war turned against the Japanese Army. The Japanese Government recognized the threat that US vehicles posed and so they sought help from Germany to prepare the Home Islands in case of an invasion.
In the summer of 1943, General Hiroshi Oshima (the Japanese Ambassador in Berlin) was invited to witness a demonstration of a Tiger I tank near Leningrad where he and his staff inspected the steel beast.
On July 1943, the general and his staff were invited for a tour of the Henschel & Sohn Tiger assembly plant and on the same day the order was placed for a new Tiger I that was to be shipped in pieces to Japan via submarine along with the blueprint on microfilm.
Spoiler
The German receipt
Notice the price of 645.000 Reichsmark, it’s double the price of a single Tiger I tank.
After some pressure from the Japanese Government in September of that year, Germany got to work on providing a tank.
The tank wasn’t made from scratch, in fact it was a reconverted mid production Sd.Kfz 268 ( Tiger I Command tank ), hull number 250455. This was not known to the Japanese at the time.
Spoiler
At this point the war turned against the Axis, the shipping of the tank via submarine would’ve been a suicide. January 14 1944 marked the date when Germany would take the tank out of the storage shed and use it even though it was still a property of Japan. The tank was assigned to the 3rd Company of sSS-Pz.Abt.101 where it served for the rest of the war.
The tank was more than likely taken out in France the same year, rusting somewhere in Normandy or “abandoned on the banks of the River Seine”.
Specifications
General:
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Tank type: Heavy
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Turret rotation speed: 12°/sec for 180° and 6°/sec for 360°
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Vertical guidance: -8° / 16°
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Ammo: 92 shells, ? rounds for MGs ( needs more research )
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Crew: Driver, Radio-machine-gunner, Gunner, Loader, Commander
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Weight: Around 56t - 57t
Hull Armor:
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Front: 102mm thick (RHA) upper and lower plate
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Side: 82mm (RHA) on upper plate and 62mm (RHA) on the plate behind the tracks
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Rear: 82mm thick (RHA)
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Roof: 26mm thick (RHA)
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Belly: 26mm thick (RHA)
Turret Armor:
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Mantlet: 100mm to 120mm thick (Cast Armor)
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Side and rear: 82mm thick (RHA)
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Roof: 26mm thick (RHA)
Armament:
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8.8cm KwK 36 L/56
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2x MG 34: One coaxial, the other one mounted in the hull Kugelblende 100
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TZF9b sight
Automotive:
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Maybach HL 230 P45 engine making 700 hp at 3000 rpm
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Maybach OG 40 12 16 A gearbox:
8 forward gears, 4 reverse gears -
Henschel L600C: controlled differential, steering wheel and levers
Suspension:
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Double torsion bars
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8 triple road-wheels interleaved (with rubber edgings) and shock absorbers on the 2 first and last road-wheels
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Kgs 63/725/130 tracks
Other noteworthy information
Extra Information
I think it’s quite odd that the version we have in game has the S-mine launchers mounted on the hull.
Sources
Pz.Kpfw VI Ausf.E Tiger I (mid)
https://tanks-encyclopedia.com/ww2/germany/panzer-vi_tiger.php
Japanese Tanks 1939–45 by [Steven J. Zaloga]
Germany’s Tiger Tanks D.W. to Tiger I: Design, Production &
Modifications by [Thomas L. Jentz, Hilary L. Doyle]
Bazooka VS Panzer: Battle of the Bulge 1944 by [Steven J.Zaloga]
One of these two is likely to be the Japanese Tiger
Tiger 323
