Another thing about that fight, Staudegger didn't face all 50 T-34s at once. Groups of 2-3 attacked in waves. He stated everytime he knocked out one T-34, another would come over the hill to take it's place.

its important to note that humans generally don't like dying, so they try their best not to die unlike games, where the only consequence is just losing a bit of time, players will often rush at their target because it's not a big deal

If I'm not mistaken the Tiger tank i n question was hit 252 times (according to someone who counted the number of impacts in the hull and turret). But, the Tiger was not undamaged, the suspension took a bad hit, the hatch on the commander cupola fell in, the recoil dampers of the gun was taken out (oil leak) and the engine was in bad condition. Yet the beast ran to home base (I think about 2 km) under it's own power all crew members where unharmed.

Some of these Tiger players didn't seem too good honestly..

Do T-35 versus Independent, to make the most epic landship battle to end all landship battles.

Germans could have easily wiped out all T34 if they knew how to play

In no way is this representative of what a ww2 tank battle would've been like

Terrible Tiger players… I feel like with better players the Tigers would’ve won

German optics or gun sights had also 2 advantages , first you could set a range wich other's don't had . And second there were 4 or 5 small triangles with different size and if you know how big the enemy tank is and he fits in one of this triangles , you had the range . That was a clever thing back then . The range finder and to set a range every tank has in WT , but that was not irl .

These tiger players are BOOTY

“Good player” missing all of his shots 😬

I'm pretty sure historically if real they didn't all go at the tiger in 1 wave. Im sure it was in like 2-4 waves, that'd be more realistically what happened back then. After one was killed, another would take its place

Irl the T-34 was also prone to breaking down easily and had terrible ergonomics and optics for the crew, making it more difficult to hit targets. None of which is represented in war thunder.

The German account is still very plausible. Not able to take into account crew skill. At Kursk you had Soviet tank crews who had spent maybe a few hours in their tank, let alone fighting in it. Quantity has a quality all of it's own.

One very strong point for the Tiger went to doctrines. As the soviets were trained and told to attack while moving, the german tank-crews were trained to only shoot while standing still.

From what I read t34 had bad optics. Narrow field of view and it could've been poor quality glass making it foggy or warped when aiming. Also this battle was at night and iirc t34 communicate with flags before they could make enough radios. Again I could be wrong this just from memory

It seems to me that the "at night" aspect was important to this story. I'm guessing the German crew was experienced at night fighting and the Soviets had basically no clue what they wete doing. It doesn't sound like the Tiger in question was even hit.

I play the tiger as a mid-long range sniper so I probably could of killed 17-20 t-34s during that first fight

Not to be that guy but the the first guy in the tiger didn’t seem that good. Same with the second round of tigers. They were missing some pretty easy shots.

The worst tiger player I have never seen in game or on video 😂 lack of experience or just first time playing wt or tiger on range map they miss a lot

Me thinks them German players are not good utilizing good communication and long range shots

Your comment on metal plates taking hit after hit and holding up is true, the Panther tank could have its hull armor cracked and destroyed by American 75mm HE rounds if enough of them hit the plate, around 5-7

I'm not sure that the real T-34s use smoke shells, knowing how bad tripulations were equipped... And smoke is a really big advantage here.

Love your videos. Always fun to watch... Some points that are not taken in to account: 1- the Soviets didn't flank, their tactic was rushing with numbers. 2- In war thunder the tanks are much stronger then in real life because they are based on what the tanks where supposed to be instead what they where in real life. In war time you use what you get and not what you want. In reality one hit(any hit) from the tiger round would disable the t -34 because his steel is harder then the tigers but the welds are bad (all the good welders where taken to the navy). This was causing the the tank armor to crack (like a broken plate) and the welds to break. 3- In practice the gun of the t-34 was so badly made that APHE rounds would sometimes detonate inside the barrel while being fired what lead the the Soviet t-34 tanks almost never using them. 4- The reload rate is much slower in real life because the tank is very cramped, on paper the time of the reload is faster because the testing was in a empty tank(only loader inside). basically the solo tiger didn't win, not because Germany used propaganda but because in War-thunder the soviet tanks are based on propaganda.

It wasn't propaganda, in real life the Tiger crew did not face all 50 t34's at once lol, obviously they would have swarmed the tiger. The account is that it was only a few that charged the tiger...then they got destroyed and sent another wave. The total KIA were 50 t34s at the end.

5:46: The truth is the advantage would have probably been in Staudegger's favour. They would not have all attacked at once and competence levels could have been questionable.

SImply gonna guess the tiger is gonna be barreled, tracked and even if nothing else can be penetrated, burnt down. Considering what you said during the video, I also do believe that if a shell penetrates 50mm of the front plate, that any further hits to that area should have reduced protection, just as if your tank is penetrated that area now has no protection, because a HOLE WAS MADE RIGHT THROUGH IT, though that is not how it works ingame, because I guess it would be too hard to make or something. Guess it also depends on the weapon, obviously a 50cal is probably not gonna bore it's way through 100mm, atleast not quickly, but i'd say if you have 50% of the penetration you would probably start causing permanent damage that would build up quickly.

4:51 that would be it. IRL you can't repair a broken gun barrel in the field. During the battle of Kursk Soviet gunners were trained to target gun barrels and there are photos of tiger barrels with shell holes in them.

This is more like a passive conversation but; I don't know the distance of this Staudinger's engagement but Tigers had most of their engagements at 1km+ which is quite sufficient against t-34s Also I think it's not impossible when they initially don't know where the tiger is, (or what the enemy vehicle is even...) I see it even random battles, players don't know or don't report where they got shot from so it ends up someone killing 7 tanks before being detected. It is even with a digital map in front of you 6:40 I really have made fun of the tiger1s armor, in past, which has no vertical angling going on, looks like a box tank. But it is really effective when it's angled correctly, taking hits directly to front 100mm would be really diminish the armor in time but angling really helps because it deflects the shot instead of stopping them which in physics halves the momentum so the damage. I bet it can take really quite a bit of beating. These tiger players are really bad, especially from the second game, missing 100-200m shots... just embarrassing.

Try the same exercise, from commanders view only as in Sim, AND no directional hit indicator.

The t-34s were also using tactics that were probably heard of at the time

A quick lesson from the stories I've been told: The battle (Battle of Kursk) from the German side involved German infantry encountering the tanks first within trenches outside of Kursk (they used grenades to stop a few), the t-34s passed the trenches towards there goal. The city of Kursk. Now Kursk at the time had a railroad track which had a bit of slope which blocked the line of sight into the city. The t-34 has very poor optics - a cheap periscope slit, the commander was also the gunner and spotter, and only a commanding tank had a radio due to the cost of radios at the time. Meaning there was no way to signal what someone was encountering without waving a flag or jumping out of your tank and talking to another tank. As the first wave of tanks (about 5) go over the railroad they get taken out by the Tiger which spots them. Their was no way for them to communicate about this surprise either to there other fellow tanks with out fleeing and running to the upcoming tanks if they survived. The point was that the first waves had no clue what was attacking them. More waves followed, until the Russian tank commander of the t-34s with the radio was killed. Russian tanks at this point had engaged the Tiger but were pushed back. This German tank on the other side of the hill had a town for cover, a veteran tank crew, and some infantry. Over time, the German tank uses buildings in the town to engage the upcoming tanks in more of a favorable fighting position for themselves. Eventually, the Russians retreat and the tank peruses them. Destroying them and capturing those who surrender. The counter story by the Russians is that they faced a large infantry detachment, an airborne jet, and yes a tiger. The Russians had no anti air defense, no escorting infantry, and they stated that this jet had been able to destroy their advancement since they traveled in a lined up column. Given the year of 1943, this was a possibility with German's advancing jet fighters and bombers. Followed by a heavy infantry defense and the tiger. They were forced to retreat. Then they were pursued by the fighter jet, tiger, and infantry. Which some of them surrendered to. The Russian story believes this German propaganda was made up and used to give credit to their tanks. Rather then credit the whole story of that day.

Russian tanks in War Thunder seem to bounce shots way more than any other nation. In reality, anything from that era that takes a direct hit, within 100m, from a Tiger will likely be disabled immediately.

The thing is that the T-34 had no real communication in the war. But it is possible that due to bad logistics the tiger hadnt had the ammo he needed

The Tigers are working as individuals instead of team tactics

And now do it in simulators, let tigers defent objective and they would kill much more, maybe all t-34s

To all who's commenting about historical accuracy, i might add, the soviets might have no smoke rounds for their tanks IRL.

I'm not surprised. T-34s are faster and more agile than tiger tanks. And tiger players generally rely on their armor too much

This video proves that not only technology matters but also the number of tanks

Real battles are slow, the whole operation took months and even as the German offensive clashed with the great soviet counter offensive, as fighting was the hardest, days passed. For example Tiger 231 was disabled from enemy fire, it was stuck for 6 whole hours being hit 252 times during that time. Most of the shots came from smaller caliber guns like anti tank rifles. Non then less the tank had to be scraped after the battle because it was damaged beyond the point of repair. Getting huge amounts of kills over such a long period of time is possible depending how one defines kills, often mobility kills do count as kills. Crews would sometimes abandon their tank when they were disabled or saw no chance fighting. Why would you stand still and catch a shell if you could run away? All of these things are kills that get credited towards for example the tiger. Visibility in realife is even worse then in warthunder, I know hard to believe right? But render distance do not exist in real life and objects blend much better into the environment. In WW2 during an ambush the ambushing tank in most cases got a few shots off before the opponent could realize where the shots came from. Then you also had to identify the tank and how much of a threat it is. The internet didn't exist back then, all information tankists had was told to them during briefings, by officers or simply hoaxes from their mates. In soviet anti tank manuells locations of certain modules were wrongfully labeled. Many American troops misidentified Panzer IVs as Tigers and so on... When you saw a tank you didn't aim at weakspots because often you didn't even know if you were able to penetrade the enemy or not or where the weakspots are at all. Once you realized, it was already too late

It took a while for them to notice that he was at the battle resulting in him being able to shorten their number before they even started firing at him

It was rare for any tank to go into battle while carrying maximum ammo capacity. Also, one factor the game cant acomodate is that the russians had poor metallurgy thus inconsistent armor

Well don't forget, the T-34's had no radios, the armour quality of cheese and the optics of a drinking straw xD Michael Wittman first got his fame because he took out something like 15 T-34's In a STUG, just because they kept just driving past him xD

the smoke shells were smart

You should ask TwiisterFG to play the Tiger E and you would be sure that the Tiger would win even in 1 against 50.

Not to be rude to the Tiger players, but they were terrible at calculating the ranges without the use of the range finder and also seemed to lack the knowledge of where to shoot the t34s to pen them. (Seemed to me like they thought you can shoot it anywhere and pen.) I think with the 1 Tiger a good player, in control, could have knocked out at least 10 t34s, and with the 4 tigers, if controlled by good players, they could have knocked out all 50. Overall a fun video to watch. I just think skill goes a long way in this sort of thing, so to get a proper test you would need to be using a skilled Tiger player. Of course we can never get an accurate test on this sort of thing from War Thunder, but it’s still fun to try it out!

OK, I have to say. I'm not very familiar with the actual story of the single Tiger I going against 50 T-34s and winning. But it's totally plausible and likely did happen as the story said. Him running out of ammo doesn't automatically mean he had a full compliment of ammo when he went into battle, he could have already used some of his ammo on other targets that day or week and hadn't resupplied yet, hence the only small number of kills. Also there's nothing saying the T34s all charged on open terrain at once, it was most likely varied terrain and elevations, as well as the Russians attacking in groups. Making it easier to be picked off. Additionally, if the soviet tanks had their tracks taken off or hit hard enough to Crack their brittle steel armor, the crews might have bailed before any real fight started at closer range.

A forgotten detaik was the t34s worked in small scattered packs and came in waves. Also german tanks had great visibility and t34s were damn near blind with hatches closed

Sloped armor is overpowered and unrealistic in war thunder. It would actually be fairly unrealistic for these shells to bounce off of the front plates of a t34, it's definitely overmatched.

Franz Staudegger would be proud of you ❤

The t-34s should not have access to Artillery, because most russian tanks did not have a radio, only the command tank, and try the game play on realistic settings

In my opinion they used the range finder too much, I only use it with high diameter shells because they take too much time to reload

Ooooh Also first MeraFirewing says something I support and should have thought of first. T-35 vs Independent

These tiger players are to put it nicely “suboptimal”

Actually to make more accurate, the t34's should be in sniper view the entire time since the visibility out side all models of the t34 were awful.

“His stats look like he’s a good Tiger player” -*Reduce your expectations to 0*

the main difference between WT simulations and historical battles is probably disable barrel thing

It's extremely doubtfull the guy had full ammo given the german logistics of WW2. Given how many had barely enough fuel

God what a good tactic the T-34 handled, that is the true lesson of the video

This video is wonderful.

IMO, the earlier T-34-s did not have radio communication, and neither optics to even aim their cannons. And of course the Tigers would not have parked in the middle of the field, but inside brushes etc.

To be fair The 50 t-34 vs tiger. Is a wave type and not a single rush just like In the video, So in reality Tiger has a few minutes to adjust and reposition.

This battle was a forgone conclusion...in warthunder at least.

this is looks like a lot of fun

A tiger’s main 88mm gun could penetrate 100mm of armour at up to 1000m and a T-34, accounting for the sloped armour, had 90mm of armour meaning those tiger shells shouldn’t be bouncing of the soviet tanks, especially the 1941 models.

Loved participating, I was hyped to get 4 kills as a t-34

The chad T-34s superior stalinium armor casualy bouncing the virgin 88mm of the tiger

I think there are plenty of factors to consider. How was the visability? How many T-34s attacked at once? Did the T-34s have radios? How many AP, APCR, and HE shells had the tiger loaded? In real live, the tiger, if properly maintained, was a very combat effective vehicle. Good crew ergonomics, visibility and optics made the tank remarkable for it's time. The T-34s had very big issues with their optics and transmission. This made the T-34s blind, slow and clunky. Furthermore, the absolute crap armor quality of the T-34 meant it was actually very much vurnerable to HE shells, as the armor could crack. Oh and IRL, having a track shot off often also meant abandoning the tank, scuttling it if it was at risk of falling into enemy hands.

I feel the narroting the story have a mistake since not all 50 of the T34s rushed in from everywhere at once. They were in groups of 2-4 coming. Not all 50 went in.

I love these videos 😆

It would be more realistic if the Tigers could hit something...my god. If I was the commander of the Tiger, I would have shot the gunner myself. LOL

Real life and a video game cannot be compared bruh

According to the Soviets, there were some Stukas that would really help the tiger, but according to the Germans there was only the tiger which might be propaganda

10:35 my awesome kill at 2km, MBTs hold my beer cuz grandpa tiger 2 will snipe you from over the horizon

Most likely the kill claims where inflated, both allied and axis tank commanders gave vast over estimations of their kills, but against T-34s early in the war due to crew traininf a Tiger could have desteryed 15+, but later in the war with a decrease in training it would have bean impossible. People often overstate both the Tiger's strengths and weaknesses, in reality it was an ok heavy tank but not as great or terrible as many portray it.

But in real life the t-34s would not have pushed nearly as fast because of the surrounding environment and t-34s wouldn't be all coming out at once

Tigers had a 50/50 ap/he loadout

I asked dark productions to do this but I guess you did it first!

One of these days, I'm going to have to join in.

You should do all the different kinds of ww2 Soviet tanks vs ww2 German tanks 1941-1945

SINCE WHEN CAN THE MASS OF SMALLER TANKS USE ARTILLERY? I've never seen that allowed before but thats how the first 2 tigers died in round 2 and the 3rd was immobilized from fully functional for the same thing, without artillery they wouldnt have gotten that far

The T34s that was during the battle was the T34 STZ meant for urban combat

In real life, T-34 armor was nonexistent, due to the quality of metal, it frequently broke down, was uncomfortable, and was hard to shift. Sooo keep that in mind, as all of those things are not in WarThunder. Also, smoke shells should not be allowed. 😂 It totally negates the only advantage of the Tiger, which is its long range ability, and the whole premise of the video is to test the plausibility of 1 Tiger facing 50 T-34s from RANGE.

Bad tiger players its painfoul to watch

Another story you could try in WT is the lone tiger 1 that supposedly knocked out an entire british tank collumn.

These tiger players are just embarrassing

WHY DO YOU KEEP SENDING ALL THE TANKS AT ONCE. It is historically accurate if you send troops in waves because if you send all the troops you will over exert yourself, explosives/MGs will be more effective, and when the battle is over all the troops will be crowded into an area with little supplies and no idea what to do next. Also in every fight you do recreate it would be more accurate to send them in waves because you would have a giant bunch of players who have no fear of death because it's just a few seconds lost instead of real life where you lose 3-5 men and a few $100,000 per tank

the battle of Prokhorovka stalin lost 1200 tanks and germans 100 stalin was mad that day. Das reich Div was on offensive mission vs the elite of the soviets while they were advancing with 5 tigers they got counter attacked by 50+ t34's and they stil slowly advanced....

Ngl the tiger players were absolute trash

2:22 What is that old footage with the cursed tiger gun mantlet from?

I’d say you should do 73 Easting next, but there’s not enough player slots for the T-72a and T-55a players

i would recommend redoing it because there were a few you left out to see if it was possible

Yup, he did it...

I mean if a t 34 cares about its life in real life I think that they wouldn’t have rushed unlike video games where the player doesn’t care about their life

I have to say tiger players are playing very poorly or panicking missing so many shots and shooting on bad spots or on tracks

there are few that make the scenario , which russian don’t break formation so early and normal stay in groups . you think how they training on fighting . they won’t allow to break up what happened in this match.

you already know the tiger polayer is going to be bad when he takes 20 apcr rounds going up against t-34s....

truth is t 34s were so badly made that shifter had to be hammered into gear higher gears were impossible to shift into i think from 3rd or 4th can't remember which one making them very slow

Usually when I fight German players they hit me with the first shot any distance any direction idk what y'all's German players were smokin

Historically, t-34s had TERRIBLE optics which would really hurt the t-34’s effectiveness.