One of many claims but as it was the 4th Canadian Armoured Division (Canadian Shermans supposedly surrounded and shot Wittmann's Tiger to pieces), it is credible. Problem is the damage to the Tiger was not consitent with a Sherman Tank and much more likey to have come from an aerial HE rocket attack. The only aircraft in the area at the time of SS-Haupsturmfuhrer Wittman's defeat were from the British Typhoons. Wittmann's Tiger was destroyed by a rocket fired from a Royal Air Force Hawker "Typhoon" MkIB - attack aircraft. Typhoons were armed with HE (High-explosive) rockets. This squadron knocked out a further 134 Panzers that day (8th August 1944).Big A wrote:Your are full of it dude.Guess wrote:The polite version is "Shermans" as in Sherman Tanks. A Sherman Tank was an American tracked war vehicle that if assembled in numbers of 50 or 60 or more could actually take on a Tiger.
Michael Wittman Tiger ace of the Eastern Front was ultimately defeated by the Firefly Sherman piloted by a Canadien crew. It took about three well placed side shots but it blew up and nobody got out.
The tank #007 was discovered when building a road in 1983 and Wittmans's body was identified by dental records and his crew by their dog tags. The damage to the tank confirmed that it was hit by two rockets, the first on epenetrating the air intakes and the second entering the fighting cell and killing all the crew.
Wittman himself self had taken out on his first day in a Tiger no less than 13 T-34s plus numerous other peices of Soviet Hardware in his three year career of mass carnage.
Shermans played a major role in the land campaign in Normandy but not in this one. Even the claim was that he was "surrounded" indicates that it took a superior number of Shermans to take out one Tiger.
My first remark was of course facetious but above is the history as recorded and substantiated today.
