Hi, so as the title says, why is there not more than one functional Tiger 1?
Given how popular the vehicle is, I would expect more effort being put into recovering existing ones and demand from collectors or some institutions to have functional one.
Were Germans or their enemies so diligent in destroying them beyond repair?
Is it forbidden to recreate 1:1 model?
And there a some projects to restor some of them in France
Yeah thats the one, but why there is not a lot more? I would expect it to be the most sought after vehicle for restoration projects.
not sure exactly, but a lot of tanks were melted down for their metal after the war if I recall
We must perhaps take into account what all this represented for the populations who suffered from the 3rd Reich.
Maybe no one wanted to keep them, given the memories it brought.
But these are just guesses.
Bruh i edited my message:
I said that after the war during the reconstruction the resources were essential and the tanks represent a big source of metals
yeah and its not like many of them would’ve been in working order after the way anyway, even less reason to keep them around
Yes already when they were on the battlefield it wasn’t always like that, then after the conflict.
I believe that a good part of them were engaged late during the landing and they suffered American lightning.
and any that did remain probably would’ve been sold to the syrians like the panzer 4s were, and used in a couple of the middle eastern wars
The knowledge to keep these vehicles and those who know how to are very limited. Besides that it would also cost you over 2,146,210.88$ USD to reproduce it.
Thanks you for the info !
I don’t doubt the recreation would be expensive, but I doubt there aren’t people willing to pay for it.
Regarding engineering, there are always talented people around that would be able give it a go.
Yeah those are very old vehicles, but the complexity isn’t that extreme.
The big conundrum is wether you would rebuild it with the flaws, in which case you’ll be needing someone willing to drop big money for an authentic barely working replica, or wether you iron them out and deliver an undeniable replica. To the logic of someone so far off the deep end that they’d be willing to drop that much money into such a pointless project, neither solutions are good. They’d much rather get a refurbished “real” vehicle.
Also the figure you were given is most likely fairly understated, every part would have to be custom built, whereas back in the days there was what passed for an industry in WW2 germany to lower the costs.
Ok, what is the current number of not working Tigers? In other words what is the estimated number of the pool of existing vehicles?
Consider for a second how much money and time you can sink into restoring a classic car. Lots. Even for a ‘common’ car built a few decades ago.
Then consider that it was only built in VERY limited numbers with a similarly limited parts/spares pool. Only built for a few years too. I have enough trouble sourcing parts for a 20 year old Subaru…
Then consider that for most of it’s service life - the armed forces of the free world took every opportunity to shoot, blast, rocket, demolish it. This further limits your pool of candidates.
Then add the passage of 80 years. Stuff rots, degrades, even knowledge disappears as generations move on.
Then multiply the complexity of a tank vs. a car. A factor of 10x - limits how many organisations have the manpower, knowhow and facilities to undertake the resto-job.
You have your answer as to why there are not more WW2 tanks running around. Much less low-volume production models like the Tiger.
Edit to add - It is a similar story with WW2 warbirds, old railway locomotives, ships, etc.
Mate no factory, no one has the know-how on how to replicate every single component. To a one to one. You quite literally have to reverse engineer the vehicle for us to figure it out even with modern components it’s still once again. Complicated.
Why do you think we don’t build Battleships? It’s not just because of impracticality its because everyone who knew how to produce them is 15 feet under.
The only 5 vehicles in the present day we can produce would be.
The PBY Catalina, P-51(SW-51), the Hispano Aviación HA-1112(Spanard BF-109’s), CASA 2.111 and Ju-52. This is primarily because they were or have enough documented proof and people who are currently producing it for ex: Catalina Company is working to get them into production, and the HA-1112 would still have some people who possibly worked on them back then would still be alive and can serve in the advisory and guidance roles, for the Ju-52’s Switzerland still has the tools and factory capacity to produce them cause they still use em.