This shows “Fireball,” an M26E3 Pershing, after meeting a Tiger 1. On 26 February 1945, it was covering a roadblock in Elsdorf, Germany, when the German tank opened fire.
The Tiger fired three 88mm rounds. The first found a particularly vulnerable point: the opening for the coaxial machine gun. Rather than punching through the thick gun mantlet, it entered through this small aperture, killing gunner Corporal John McGraw and loader Private First Class Francis Rigdon.
Weak spots do definitely exist!!
The second shot struck the muzzle brake of Fireball’s 90mm gun. The damage caused a round fired by the Pershing to detonate prematurely inside the barrel, putting its main armament out of action.
A third round glanced off the turret and tore away the commander’s hatch without penetrating the fighting compartment.
But the Tiger’s didn’t escape - it got stuck when trying to reverse away!! It was then abandoned by its crew!
inside a minute or so the Pershing is disabled, two American crewmen dead and shortly after the German tank is immobilised!!
Apparently this is the Tiger:
From Wiki -
Fireball , for that was the tank’s name, was in a bad position, silhouetted in the darkness by a nearby fire. A Tiger, concealed behind the corner of a building only about 100 yards away, fired three shots - the first 88 mm projectile entered the turret through the co-axial machine gun port [the M26’s gun mantlet], killing both the gunner and the loader instantly. The second shot hit the muzzle brake and the end of the 90 mm barrel and the resulting shock waves set off the round that was in the chamber. Even though this round finally cleared the end of the tube, it still caused the barrel to swell about halfway down. The third and final shot glanced off the righthand side of the turret and in doing so took away the upper cupola hatch which had been left open. But that was the end of the Tiger’s run of luck. Hastily backing, to avoid retaliatory fire, it reversed into a large pile of debris and became so entangled that the crew finally had to abandon it.[1]
![[1]](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:M26_Fireball.jpg#cite_note-1){kind=link}