Hello everyone,
this one’s on me actually – I made a pretty stupid mistake in the “Wargaming fake tanks” article and I would like to rectify it. I wrote in that article that the Jagdtiger with 128mm L/61 is a fake, because the gun was fitted in an enlarged superstructure and wouldn’t fit the regular casemate. That is not the truth – I made a mistake by confusing the 128mm L/61 and L/66. Here’s the deal.
This is the regular Jagdtiger with its original 128mm L/55 gun (not counting the 88m L/71 variant):
Sometimes however, you hear about “Porsche Jagdtiger” – this was not some different proposal by Ferdinand Porsche however, it simply was a regular Jagdtiger with experimentally mounted Porsche suspension. This is how it looked (source: Spielberger):
The Porsche suspension for the Jagdtiger was an effort to reduce the man-hours, needed to actually build a Jagdtiger. According to Spielberger, ten vehicles were fitted with this suspension and successfully tested. The goal of reducing the price and man-hours was reached: the classic Henschel suspension costed 866.000,- RM and it took 360 man-hours to prepare the hull for it. The Porsche system costed 462.000,- RM, it took only 140 man-hours to complete and it was lighter too. The results of this project were satisfactory and it’s possible that in the future, more Jagdtigers would be fitted with the Porsche system, but the end of the war prevented that. Other than the suspension however, there was no difference between “Henschel Jagdtiger” and “Porsche Jagdtiger”
Either way, the 128mm L/61 gun was never intended for the Jagdtiger, so that setup in game is fictional (I was right). I was wrong however with the casemate part, because I thought it was intended for the L/61. There was a project to arm the Jagdtiger with a 128mm L/66 gun that looked like this:
This was proposed by Krupp in November 1944, the project was refused in January 1945 as unrealistic. Basically, the gun would use the same mount as the L/55 variant, only it could not be mounted as such – it would have to be retracted before moving the vehicle, because it was too long and the Jagdtiger wouldn’t be able to move with it sticking out like that. Therefore, before moving the vehicle, it would have to be moved backwards and – vice versa – it would take time to prepare the vehicle for firing, because it would have to stop and then the crew would have to shift the gun forwards, negating Jagdtiger’s advantage as a tank destroyer – Wa Prüf 6 in fact reclassified such a vehicle as heavy artillery. It’s worth noting that even this long gun kept decent traverse (10 degrees to each side).
So, in short:
- Porsche Jagdtiger – only suspension is different
- 128mm L/61 Jagdtiger is fake
- 128mm L/66 Jagdtiger existed (see above)
A 12.8 cm L/70 was theorized for the Jagdtiger according to Spielberger in his book Heavy Jagdpanzer pg. 133.
any chance to see JT with Porsche suspension in game? Perhaps when they introduce different hulls?
It’s looking that way
A lighter hull would help with it’s acceleration as well
There’s already a system in place to change suspension models with different suspension modules, it’s been there pretty much since the beginning. The fact it’s not actualy used in the game (even with stuff that was pretty much in the game already at some point, like the transportketten for the big cats) makes me doubt if we’d ever see the porshe jagdtiger.
Imagine this: You were sitting in a little M4 Sherman and a Jagdtiger breaks cover and opens Fire on you with his devastating 12,8 cm Gun.. omg i would have s*** my pants..
When JT opened fire at a Sherman, its crew didn’t fear – they were already hit and dead or ouf of combat ;) It’s the others Shermans’ crews who were shitting their pants :P
And the fact that they were dead before somebody even heard the shot :P
I don’t need to imagine this as I have reports of this happening. Although I think it was a Jagdpanther in what I was reading but the effect is the same.
Jagdtiger with 128mmL/66 with some RoF buff and better accuracy would be a damn nice Tier X Tank Destroyer :3
There will be problems with the armour…the UFP can be penned by any tank that has more than 250mm pen(UFP not angled)…otherwise it would need some mobility and/or speed buffs.
But ingame Jagdtiger has 12.8 cm L/66, not L/61 (though the designation was wrong some time ago, the model was correct).
It would be interesting to know why its the L/66 since the new patch was apllied
Oh, it actually got fixed. I did not notice that.
if you can’t make it, fake it.
Don’t quote me on this, but I heard that the Porsche-type suspension wasn’t entirely successfull. It wasn’t as smooth cross-country as the Henschel-type, and the constant jarring sometimes threw the gun out of calibration.
With either suspension the gun was always being thrown out of calibration. Tigers in the Mud by Otto Carius discusses this problem.
Yes I know, read it myself. But if memory serves it didn’t say which suspension type the Jagdtigers under his command were outfitted with.
The suspension was very bad on most terrains, leading to very uncomfortable rocking for the crew.
It was partially remedied by using Ferdinand tracks but it still was pretty nasty.
Didn’t it also result in the gun going out of calibration if they drove over something as bumpy as a pile of wet leaves?
If you read the biography of Unit 653 which used the JT, as long as the crew put the gun in its cradle before moving it kept is calibration for a while on operations, but would need to be recalibrated often regardless. Even when using the cradle on road marches the gun would need recalibration before it could be used effectively.
The impression I got from this book was the JT was just a massive pain in the ass, more so than the Ferdinand which itself was a huge pain for crews and maintenance sections.
Nice.
Btw, could you state your sources? I see a scan of a book written in german … which one is it?
Perhaps you could do that for all your articles, you are already going through a lot of effort researching your stuff, so why not name the books you used for it?
Walther Spielberger: Tiger und seine Abarten (probably the ultimate book on Tigers along with Panzer Tracts). I thought that was a common knowledge – I use this book often. Fair enough though.
Make it for russian TD`s , pls!!!
The current Jagdtiger in-game uses the L/66 not the L/61
Do note that the L/61 model gun on the Jagdtiger is actually the correct visual model for the L/66, so the mistake by WG is in name only.
WG already fixed it
Im starting to like this fake series. Hope to see more.
these*
IS3, IS4 had only D-25-T
Tiger 88 L/57
Tiger 2 88 L/71
Jagdpanther 88 /L57
Ferdinand 88 L/71
ist all fake if you want so
1st: it’s 8,8 cm L/56
2nd: Jagdpanthers were armed with 8,8 cm L/71
Just saying.
English Sleipnir English.
when you start calling tanks with unhisoirical guns as fake 3/4 of WoT is fake.
WoT is the game of fake tanks. just some looking similar to like real tanks.
Thats why you wait for War Thunder Ground Forces.
And I don’t like it.
Wait, the Porsche Jadgtiger was… less expensive, and more practical than the non-Porsche design? What madness is this?
Madness? THIS… IS… BELARUS!
Is it just me? Or does the Porsche’s glacis look to be at a much reduced angle? The slope on that glacis looks terrible..
The book spine is warping this part of the picture. Same glacis.