The Tiger tank (Sd. Kfz. 181): technical descriptions, diagrams, photographs, etc. How this well-known historical weapon worked.

We don't have detailed drawings of this refined 1941 turret design, but we do have some images. In this factory photograph we can glimpse a wooden mockup of the turret, made around this time.

On this page I am building up plan diagrams that show many components of the tank in their correct place. Please bear in mind that some parts are not drawn yet.

The Tiger's hull was made of flat plates, many of them vertical, forming a box shape with protruding sponsons at the sides. This simplified model of the hull has been cut open, showing …

They were also different in that they were slanted, as this drawing shows. Their outer lip was folded. In this drawing, we are looking along the right-hand side of the tank from behind. Each …

The Tiger (P) is poorly documented, and the unit that operated this tank made changes to it that are recorded only in photographs. A set of drawings was published in "Panzer Tracts" [2, see …

The driver and radio operator of the Tiger 1 were both provided with hatches at their positions in the hull. These hatches were designed by Henschel and had no similarity to the hatches in the …

The fuel tank has a wedge shape because the air inlet duct for the radiator sits immediately above it. This image, extracted from a manual, shows such a fuel tank.

The standard way to identify a Tiger within its battalion was with a 3-digit number. The digits had the meanings shown in this photo; first the company number, then the platoon, then the tank.

In the drawings, green dimensions are copied directly from German design drawings. Blue dimensions are obtained by surveying vehicles, measuring undimensioned drawings, etc. …