this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2023
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At the end of 1941, Operation Barbarossa was decidedly a failure and Germany was facing mounting pressure in both the Atlantic and in North Africa. The Tiger entered service in 1942, the Panther entered service in 1943, and the Tiger II in 1944, when Nazi Germany was decidedly on the back foot and facing mounting pressure from the Soviets to the East.
You're assuming that Nazi arms development had anything to do with military necessity instead of fewer dreams. Germany? On the defensive? That's defeatist talk, any last words before your summary execution?
The prototype of the Tiger was called Durchbruchwagen, "breakthrough vehicle". Not very defensive, also, development started way before Barbarossa. The Tiger that went into production then got even heavier armour and even larger gun because what the Heer had during Barbarossa was shit compared to what the Soviets fielded.
The Tiger's system of interleaving road wheels weren't designed for offensive operations in the muddy and wet Soviet Union and are much better equipped for land closer to Germany. Henschel and Porsche were told to submit updated designs ready by mid-1942 (Henschel ended up getting the contract). By that point, the Soviet Union was launching an aggressive counteroffensive on the Eastern Front.
What, exactly, other than vague discussions prior to the war for prototypes that were conceived of but never completed, suggests that the Tiger was designed for offense?
That the Tiger I is a tripling down on the principles behind those prototypes? Also, Hitler being directly involved and ordering not yet even produced (or properly tested) tanks to Africa, long before the second Almein battle? That its main use on the eastern front was Operation Citadel?
Of course design-wise it was mostly a tank killer, able to destroy Soviet tanks at 2km while barely getting a scratch unless they came closer than 100m. That's a quality that's useful both offensively as well as defensively and the tech was quite new so speaking of "defensive design" or "offensive design" is probably an anachronism in the first place. The idea that anything Hitler touched ever had defensive intent, however, is rather ludicrous. It almost amounts to claiming that he wasn't insane.
He wasn't, though. Not in mid 1941, at least. At that point, Nazi Germany had conquered continental Europe and only had Britain to deal with. Operation Barbarossa was a strategic misstep, but not one born of insanity: there was no indication that the Soviets had the industrial capacity or capability to mobilize and modernize their military so quickly. Moreover, the USSR had vast natural resources reserves (most notably oil) and vast agricultural production, and so they were a legitimate strategic target.
By the start of 1942, the invasion of the USSR had failed and the US had joined the war, and the rest is history.
Hitler doesn't need to be insane to be a terrible person. Why make things worse than they are? Hitler's three critical missteps were aligning with the Japanese in the Tripartite Pact (for which he gained little but gave the US justification to join the war in Europe), pursuing the Battle of Britain (for which he burned a ton of resources and time but ended up not invading because he lacked naval superiority), and invading the Soviet Union (which he did too late in the season and after waiting too long because the Germans spent so much time dicking around Britain).
There's a lot of propaganda surrounding the efficacy of German tanks in WW2 (a good chunk of it coming from "sources" like Death Traps by Cooper). What we do know, though, comes mostly from US reports (because I don't speak Russian). According to a report by the US Army Ballistic Research Lab, the average distance a US tank (M4) would disable a German Panzer 4/5/6 was similar to th average distance that a German Panzer would disable a US tank. The purported advantage that German tanks had in terms of optics and in terms of gun weren't that relevant: Germany's primary advantage was in training over the Soviets and Americans.
We may be working with different definitions of "insane", here. We don't know exactly what went on, it's kinda hard to diagnose the dead, but symptom-wise his well-attested levels of mania as well as depression were anything but the sign of a well-adjusted personality. And taking meth to deal with the depression part certainly didn't help. Could be due to multiple underlying factors, though, borderline, narcissism, plain old PTSD, a nasty neurosis, all are candidates.
Strategically, possibly, as in those things being the straws that broke the war machine's back. Doctrinally everything about the war was straight nuts, though, like the no retreat orders. Not to mention starting it in the first place.