Tiger II (10.5 cm Kw.K)
Contents
Description
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The Pz.Kpfw. VI Ausf. B mit 10.5cm KwK L/68 (or just Tiger II (10.5 cm Kw.K)) is a Rank IV German heavy tank
with a battle rating of 7.0 (AB/RB/SB). It was introduced to the main tree during the Closed Beta Test for Ground Forces before Update 1.41 as a main tree vehicle, however as of Update 1.91 "Night Vision" it was shifted to become a gift vehicle for players who previously owned it. Increasing Tiger II's main cannon to a whopping 10.5 cm cannon, the Tiger II boasts a much more powerful armament than any of the preceding German heavy tanks.
General info
Survivability and armour
The armour on this variant is the same as on the regular Tiger II (H). The upper front plate provides excellent protection against any regular AP (APCBC, APHE etc.) shell you might face. The turret, however, is only 185 mm and easily penetrated by most enemies, but you can make it very difficult to hit by "wiggling" the turret left and right which will often result in bounces or non-pens. The lower glacis is a weak spot but the transmission right behind it often takes most of the shrapnel, it can catch fire pretty easily though, meaning researching FPE should be done as soon as possible.
Armour type:
- Rolled homogeneous armour
- Cast homogeneous armour (Gun mantlet, Cupola, driver MG port)
| Armour | Front (Slope angle) | Sides (Slope angle) | Rear (Slope angle) | Roof |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hull | 150 mm (50-51°) Front glacis 100 mm (50°) Lower glacis |
80 mm (27°) Top 80 + 5 mm Bottom |
80 mm (28°) | 40 mm |
| Turret | 185 mm (8°) Turret front 200 mm Gun mantlet |
80 mm (19-21°) | 80 mm (20°) | 40 mm |
| Armour | Sides | Roof | ||
| Cupola | 150 mm | 150 mm |
Notes:
- Suspension wheels are 20 mm thick while tracks are 30 mm thick.
- Some part of the turret side have track links on them, which gives an additional 30 mm of protection to the armour.
- The weak spot is the front of the turret (185 mm), but it is small and very difficult to hit at mid-long ranges, where it is also harder to penetrate.
- Machine gun port could be marked as a close-range weak spot. Although most of it is still 150 mm thick, the angling is much worse.
Mobility
| Mobility characteristic | ||
|---|---|---|
| Weight (tons) | Add-on Armor weight (tons) |
Max speed (km/h) |
| 70.5 | N/A | 44 (AB) |
| 42 (RB/SB) | ||
| Engine power (horsepower) | ||
| Mode | Stock | Upgraded |
| Arcade | 1,162 | 1,431 |
| Realistic/Simulator | 796 | 900 |
| Power-to-weight ratio (hp/ton) | ||
| Mode | Stock | Upgraded |
| Arcade | 16.48 | 20.29 |
| Realistic/Simulator | 11.29 | 12.77 |
Armaments
Main armament
| 105 mm KwK L/68 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Capacity | Vertical guidance |
Horizontal guidance |
Stabilizer | ||
| 54 | -8°/+15° | ±180° | N/A | ||
| Turret rotation speed (°/s) | |||||
| Mode | Stock | Upgraded | Prior + Full crew | Prior + Expert qualif. | Prior + Ace qualif. |
| Arcade | 14.97 | 20.72 | 25.16 | 27.82 | 29.60 |
| Realistic | 11.01 | 12.95 | 15.72 | 17.39 | 18.50 |
| Reloading rate (seconds) | |||||
| Stock | Prior + Full crew | Prior + Expert qualif. | Prior + Ace qualif. | ||
| 20.02 | 17.71 | 16.32 | 15.40 | ||
Ammunition
| Penetration statistics | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ammunition | Type of warhead |
Penetration in mm @ 90° | |||||
| 10m | 100m | 500m | 1000m | 1500m | 2000m | ||
| PzGr.Rot | APCBC | 250 | 248 | 234 | 219 | 205 | 191 |
| PzGr 40 | APCR | 276 | 272 | 247 | 220 | 207 | 170 |
| Sprgr. L/4,4 | HE | 20 | 20 | 20 | 20 | 20 | 20 |
| Shell details | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ammunition | Type of warhead |
Velocity in m/s |
Projectile Mass in kg |
Fuse delay
in m: |
Fuse sensitivity
in mm: |
Explosive Mass in g (TNT equivalent): |
Normalization At 30° from horizontal: |
Ricochet: | ||
| 0% | 50% | 100% | ||||||||
| PzGr.Rot | APCBC | 1,005 | 16 | 0.8 | 28 | 343.2 | +4° | 48° | 63° | 71° |
| PzGr 40 | APCR | 1,150 | 10 | N/A | N/A | N/A | +1.5° | 66° | 70° | 72° |
| Sprgr. L/4,4 | HE | 900 | 15 | 0.4 | 0.5 | 1,550 | +0° | 79° | 80° | 81° |
Ammo racks
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| Full ammo |
Ammo Part |
1st rack empty |
2nd rack empty |
3rd rack empty |
4th rack empty |
5th rack empty |
Visual discrepancy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 54 | Projectiles Propellants |
43 (+11) 45 (+9) |
27 (+27) 37 (+17) |
15 (+39) 19 (+35) |
1 (+53) 9 (+44) |
1 (+53) |
no |
Right side empty: 27 (+27)
Machine guns
| 7.92 mm MG 34 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coaxial mount | ||||||
| Capacity (Belt capacity) | Fire rate (shots/minute) |
Vertical guidance |
Horizontal guidance | |||
| 5,850 (150) | 900 | N/A | N/A | |||
Usage in battles
This tank's best and almost only possible role so far is a sniper/support tank. Stay at distance, or your reload time and mobility will be the death of you.
Use your mobility to reach sniping zones and wait for enemy tanks to show up. Keep your distance to maximize the effectiveness of your armour and use cover to reload without having to worry about being destroyed. Avoid close combat as much as possible since most of the other tanks at your battle rate can penetrate your armour very easily and your reload rate is 20 secs so if your shot doesn't penetrate you will be easily killed.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Like with most German guns, the main gun is very accurate.
- With the high muzzle velocity, high armour penetration value, and high damage of the PzGr 39 shell, there's really no need to every load any other shell.
- With the explosive mass of the PzGr 39 shell being equivalent to 343 grams of TNT, penetrating shells are devastating. They deal arguably more damage than any of the Russian 122mm shells do. Expect a lot of one-shots.
- With the upgraded engine, transmission, and filters, the 10.5 Tiger II has nearly 300 (AB/ 200 in RB) more horsepower than a fully upgraded Tiger II H. This will make the 10.5 accelerate quicker and climb hills faster than any of the other Tiger II's. Including the Tiger II Sla 16.
- With the upgraded turret, the 10.5's turret traverse will be 20.5 degrees per second. This will help you defend against enemy medium or light tanks trying to execute a flanking manoeuvre.
- Upper front plate still borderlines on impenetrable. You'll only have to really worry about APDS and HEAT going through it.
Cons:
- With the same lightly armoured turret as the Tiger II H, expect nearly every enemy tank facing you to aim right for it.
- Even with an ACE crew, the main guns take more than 15 seconds to reload. So close range brawls are not advised.
- Despite being quick and manoeuvrable for a heavy tank, it's still not a medium tank. So don't expect to outmanoeuvre any medium you're likely to face.
- Gun is easily disabled, rendering the tank helpless.
History
Tiger II
The Tiger II with its 8.8 cm KwK 43 cannon was one of the most formidable tanks in World War II. Its 150 mm thick front armour plate sloped was never penetrated by an Allied tank throughout the war and its cannon could destroy any Allied tank fielded in the war. However, some German higher-ups believe that the armament on the Tiger II was just not enough, something more was needed.
Concept
Ideas of rearming the Tiger II was brought up by Krupp in sometime in late 1944. The concept drawing Krupp made was for the Tiger II to be rearmed with a 10.5 cm KwK L/68 cannon. This design would require new mountings and new mechanical parts to be optimized for the larger 10.5 cm gun. While the idea was indeed a very interesting one to up gun the Tiger II, it was never implemented because of its drawbacks. The 10.5 gun uses two-piece ammunition, which requires the presence of another loader. This is impossible because the turret is already cramped as is with three people inside, and the addition of another will make the interior a very miserable place to be in. Plus, the fact the gun's ammunition is two-piece already means that the drawback behind this upgrade is a much slower fire rate. This causes the concept to be rejected by German high command, and if it wasn't, it certainly ended with Germany's surrender in May 1945.
No prototypes were made and its existence is only proven by a concept drawing.
In-game description
This project was commissioned to improve the combat capabilities of the tank with a boosted fuel-injection Maybach HL230 engine with a power of 900 hp and an improved transmission. The designers of the company Henschel proposed the engine to be used for further production and also installed on Tiger II tanks which had already been produced, but the engine's production was prevented by the deterioration of the German economic situation. The tank was to be armed with the new 105 mm 10,5 cm KwK L/68 gun, equipped with a stabilizer. The gun would have used an automatic ammunition feed. The turret was equipped with a Zeiss stereoscopic rangefinder and a ventilation system. The vehicle was equipped with a crew compartment heating device. The tank's ammunition capacity was increased by 12 shells, thanks to an additional rack mounted inside the turret. A crew of 5-6 operated the tank, whose combat weight was 70.5 tons.
Production on the new Tiger II project, featuring the 10,5 cm KwK L/68 gun, was never launched.
Media
Live.Warthunder
- Camouflages and skins for the "Tiger II KwK 105" can be found on live.warthunder.com
- RideR2's Realistic gunsight (TZF4a, TZF 5a/b/d/e/f/f2, TZF 9b/b1/c/d, TZF 12/a) for Pzkpfw II, Pzkpfw III, Pzkpfw IV, Pzkpfw V, Pzkpfw VI
Images
See also
Links to the articles on the War Thunder Wiki that you think will be useful for the reader, for example:
- reference to the series of the vehicles;
- links to approximate analogues of other nations and research trees.
External links
Paste links to sources and external resources, such as:
- topic on the official game forum;
- encyclopedia page on tank;
- other literature.
| Germany heavy tanks | |
|---|---|
| Tiger 1 (Henschel) | Tiger H1 · Tiger E · ␠Tiger |
| Tiger 1 (Porsche) | VK 45.01 (P) · Pz.Bef.Wg.VI P |
| Tiger 2 | Tiger II (P) · Tiger II (H) · Tiger II (H) Sla.16 · Tiger II (10.5 cm Kw.K) |
| Super heavy tanks | Maus · E-100 |
| Trophies | |
| Great Britain | ▀Pz.Kpfw. Churchill |
| USSR | ▀KV-IB · ▀KW I C 756 (r) · ▀KW II 754 (r) |
