Panzerkampfwagen VI Ausf. E (Early Production) “Tiger 131”

Type: Heavy Tank
Nation: Germany
Period: World War 2
Location: The Tank Museum, Bovington, United Kingdom

The 57-ton Tiger was designed as a breakthrough tank to be deployed in separate heavy tank battalions under army command. With its thick armour and 8.8 cm L/56 gun, it was at no point intended to replace the medium Panzer III and Panzer IV in the regular Panzer Divisions. The Tiger was an extraordinarily complex and expensive machine which cost about 300,000 Reichsmark to build. By comparison: A late-war Panzer IV could be produced for little over 115,000 and a Panther went for 144,000. Because Tiger I was a relatively conservative design with vertical armour on all sides and not much potential for upgrades – for example the longer 8.8cm L/71 gun – only about 1,350 were completed between 1942 and 1944, when production eventually switched to the Tiger II.

The Tank Museum’s famous Tiger 131 is a very early model with the horrendously complicated interleaving “Schachtellaufwerk” running gear, drum-shaped commander’s cupola, binocular gun sight and Feivel air filters. Many features would eventually be simplified on the late-production Tigers, partly to improve performance and partly because of the shortage of resources. The turret number “131” is not unique to this particular vehicle – it stands for 1st company of the battalion, 3rd platoon of the company, 1st vehicle in the platoon.

Tiger 131 was fighting in Tunisia with Schwere Panzerabteilung 504 which at the time was part of Heeresgruppe Afrika. On 24 April 1943 the tank was knocked out by British forces near a hill called Gueriat El Atach, also known as Point 174. You can still see the damage caused by the shell that jammed the turret and supposedly caused the crew to abandon the tank. Tiger 131 was the first of its kind to be captured intact by the Western Allies. After Prime Minister Winston Churchill and King George VI had personally inspected the vehicle in Tunis, it was shipped to the School of Tank Technology in Surrey for technical evaluation. In 1951 it was given to The Tank Museum, where it was restored to running condition starting in 1998. At Tankfest 2004 the vehicle was driving through the museum‘s arena for the first time in front of a public audience.

To make things even more glamourous, Tiger 131 can be seen in action in David Ayer’s 2014 film “Fury” – although the making-of documentary reveals that many shots had actually been achieved by using a CGI-enhanced mock-up vehicle. There had been a precise agreement between the museum and the filmmakers on how long Tiger 131 would be allowed to run during production, including the number of gear changes – it is, after all, the only running Tiger I in the world. To underline the vehicle’s significance, the Tank Museum has created a dedicated “Tiger Day” event for which they proudly take it out for a spin a couple of times a year.