Profile of Ougeyal

The Tiger tank was not produced because of the t-34 but because the Germans wanted a breakthrough tank to attack enemy positions that where well defended by enemy anti-tank guns. Neither the Soviet or American most commonly used anti-tank guns had sufficient penetrative ability to penetrate the Tigers armour from the front unless they used rare special ammunition. In battle this meant that the Tigers lead the way and were the first to engage the enemy anti-tank guns instead of letting the Panzer III and Panzer IV suffer heavy casualties attacking dug in anti tank guns.

The Soviets made the KV-1 and the IS-2 for the same reason. The Tiger tank performed its role on the battlefield. Something many people forget to consider is how many t-34s were saved because IS-2s routed German pak crews fled when they realised their shells simply bounced off the IS-2 and that the big powerful 122mm HE shells were going to rain down upon on them. Heavy tanks were more expensive but they also destroyed more enemy equipment and kept their crew alive so in many ways it was worth it.

In ww2 combat showed that a specialist breakthrough tank was needed and the heavy casualties Shermans suffered to pak 40s (biggest killer of US tanks) the weeks after D-day could have been avoided if the United States of America had a breakthrough tank. The greatness of US artillery helped the US Army but artillery bombardment always left plenty of surviving hidden paks alive who were able to defeat US tanks and without direct supporting fire from tanks US attacks often failed leading to the Americans being stuck not far from the beaches for a long time despite having complete dominance in both the skies, numbers and in artillery.