Infrared Night Vision - King Tiger

[STUPA216]

I had the opportunity to befriend a loader from the Sturmpanzer Abteilung 216 who was later to train and crew in combat a King Tiger in 1945. He insists that his unit was equipped with night vision sights which they used in combat. He is attempting to locate documentation that such sights were present on the King Tigers. Does anyone out there have any photos or references for such sights on the King Tiger

Thank you
Kurt

[Bjoern Clausen]

I know they had night vision sights on some of the Panthers late in the war... So why not! - It sure would be interesting to know if someone out there got some informations about this!

Bjoern

[Christian Anker]

This has been discussed elsewhere, with the result that it was quite unlikely for the Tiger II to have IR equipment, since it wouldn't work very well with the Tiger II.

[Mikko]

About the discussion

Did the SturmPanzer Abts use tanks? I have never heard any of these groups having KTs at their disposal as they were attached to sPzAbts. My understanding is that they used mostly Brummbärs.

About the whole discussion on the net around this issue (which I haven't participated before) - I think it have eventually ended up to be oversized ridiculous quarrelling with no point whatsoever in a sense of real new research. As long as there's no real evidence other than what somebody thinks or says it's utterly futile to make a big fuzz about these kind of things. I wonder when somebody comes up with new info that a Maus was used in combat...

[Christian Anker]

As Mikko also mentions, the Tiger II wasn't used with any Stu.Pz.Abt., but then again, a change of unit wouldn't be impossible...

[STUPA216]

Point if Information

He originally served in light mountain infantry, volunteered in Greece to be in Luftwaffe as a fallschirmjager, broke both legs in last qualifying jump and was given choice of armor or transportation and he chose armor. Served with 3 Panzer Army and was there to see the radio towers of Moscow. Was shot through the lung and after being in a replacement battalion was placed in the STUPA 216 and yes with the first Brummbars. He was present for Kursk where his entire crew but himslef were killed and he was wounded again. He was present at Netuno when the last of his units vehicles were put out of action. He served as a short time driver in the cleanup of Dresden and was later reassigned to be trained as a King Tiger crew member. His kampfgruppe I believe he said "Stempel" included two King Tigers were eventually overrun and teh tanks were scuttled and they were captiured by the Russians.

This is a very short summary of his service. He later served in the US Army and retired after more than 20 years.

It seemed important to him so I asked you all for info.

[Christian Anker]

The only mentioning of a Kampfgruppe Stempel (and which is of doubious authenticity) if of the 16. Pz.Div., and thus wouldn't have involved Tiger IIs. Is it possible he has confused them with Panthers?

Christian

[michael kenny]

'J'

STUPA216 this subject was gone over at some lenght over at Feldgrau. The individual who makes all these claims was unable to provide ANY checkable facts to back any of his story. When asked for some corroboration he simply stopped posting. Now If you are seriously interested in getting to the bottom of his claim perhaps you could privately get him to provide you with some proof and then we would know if we are wasting our time.

[STUPA216]

Ah Yes Feldgrau Associates

Yes, I know he posts on the feldgrau forum. So alas it must be him to which you are referring. He is 81 years old and I have checked and he is indeed a veteran of the Heer in WW2 and the US Military in the 50's and 60's. I even have photos of him in 1940 and 1943 in his black wrapper. I imagine he is trying to locate evidence that the night sites used on Panthers were what he claims to have used on his Tiger II. As to confusion he seems to this day to be able to readily discern the various types of WW2 panzers without err. I will attempt to get further details I can from him. Thanks for your time.

Kurt

[Christian Anker]

Even though he is very able to tell the Panzers apart, memory is very easy to manipulate, knowingly and unknowingly.

To show you an example from real life, a survey was made between guests leaving Disneyland. They were asked if they had met Bugs Bunney in there, and a large percentage answered yes (even though Bugs Bunney is from Warner Bros and not Disney).

60 years if s long time to remember details correctly, and once you are convinced of something, time will only make such an idea seem more correct...

[michael kenny]

Perhaps it would be possible for our Tiger driver to give us the location from where he picked up these Tigers and the Unit they were from? Simple basic facts like this would help greatly in our search. This is part of the bio he gave at Feldgrau:





After returning to Kamenz, we received new uniforms, because the stench of death was in them even after cleaning. After a few days, I was sent to a unit where I received training in Tigers. The new Royal Tigers were a beauty to handle. Pure luxury: a relatively comfortable seat, a steering wheel, hydraulic gear, a dream come true. Off to Naumburg-an-der-Saale, where we picked up two brand new Royal Tigers. These beauties had a few goodies built in, and on. A night-vision gizmo, no less; a far cry of what they are nowadays, but you actually could see orange blobs and distinguish what they were, larger objects or smaller ones, standing still or moving. All very primitive, but the other side had nothing even remotely like it. Such gear was unusual on a Tiger II; I think it was a sort of pilot project.

Towards the end of April 1945, our two Royal Tigers were detached from an outfit called Kampfgruppe Simmel (big name, few tanks, and children as infantry) and sent to help an infantry unit that expected to be hit by T-34s the next morning in the fog. So we went there. No kidding: we had our ammo racks full with 88 extra-long and our gas tanks were also full; and that was very extraordinary in the last weeks of the war. I drove mine into position and could hear some Russian voices, clanking, smell gas and the stink of makhorka, the Russian smoke. The Ivan did not care about us, they could hear only two vehicle engines and so they went on their merry way. Until the proverbial ultimate product of the digestive process impacted on the electrical air circulatory system. In less then three minutes our gunner and the other knocked out 28 Soviet armor only because we had those blessed night sight gizmos. Pandemonium on the other side, heavy machine gun fire from us and our infantry and the Ivan vamoosed, leaving merrily burning tanks behind. I still remember the next morning; the regimental commander, an old guy from World War I, had tears in his eyes when he shook our hands. That was the last time I could smile happily, because shortly after that I was captured before blowing up our tank; I don’t know what happened to the other Royal Tiger. There were some combat engineers around with a load of explosives. We packed our Tiger II and boobytrapped it. We were about a mile from it when we heard the big BOOM.

At Kamenz, before I had been sent to pick up the new tanks, I had scrounged up a set of Infantry uniforms. I did this in the hope that I would have time to change into grays. This saved my life, because the Russians hated German tankers with white-hot passion. I, personally, know of no Panzer man who was taken prisoner by the Russians and returned home. Not a single one.



.

[Mikko]

I pretty much agree that the story has no really important facts to grab on. With this text at hand it's impossible even try to look for some additional information, since no unit/commander names for example are provided (and considering the discussions I've had with veterans, these are the things they are most likely to remember right). Presuming that the whole story is true, I think he should be - seeing the other more minor facts he explains - able to recall some names which would certainly lead forward, as this story has been explained in about every forum in the net and there's lot of people who could help with this issue. And since there's much information available related to KT's, even the phases of single tanks can be actually tracked - and that leaves us with only a few choises which inviduals could have been involved. KT is after all one of the best investigated tanks of WWII (considering this the story seems even more odd). Before anything more is given, this story leads only in yes-no debates already seen.

But concentrating on what is at hand - also this short story has a few things that makes me wonder if everything is correct with it. The most apparent being of course the destruction of "28 tanks in less than three minutes". Let's say that the circumstances were ideal and both tanks knocked out the same number of tanks - 14. That makes hardly over ten seconds for one destroyed tank in a given time. As expained, they used IR equipment which must have slowed down the process of firing dramatically, and they weren't on the shooting grounds, it was an actual combat situation...well, I won't go saying it's impossible, but for me it seems to be beyond imagination. Even if they've had scored a hit with every round and KO'd a tank with every round, the given time is simply in everything but in the cathegory of a believelable. I know that veterans often tend to overestimate their combat successess - however, if that's the case, I wouldn't go claiming that all the other details are true either. As said, minor and major things both are easy to forget, and often the stories and memories change over the years even unwillingly.

[Edward L. Hsiao]

Interesting Story!

Gentlemen,

I love that short war story! And the panzer veteran must have served well in the US Army as well. I wonder if the panzer veteran fought in Korea and Vietnam with the US Army?

Sincerely,

Edward L. Hsiao

[spaltring]

infra red

hello,
i know that the 250-251 half tracks some of them had infra red lights that looked like big search lights,
somewhere in 1944 the germans added a chemical substance into their paint that could be seen with infra red camera ,this paint was used for armoured and thanks so they could recognize in case they saw a thank at night if it was enemy yes or no
cheers
phil

[Sonnenwende]

"He is 81 years old"

Really! So 9 years old in 1945.

The whole story going from paratrooper in Greece, seing the radio towers of Moscow (1941?), being at Netuno with Brummbärs , cleaning up Dresden and finishing the war with a night vision equipped King Tiger knocking out 28:2 T34 in 3 minutes sounds like a real Sven Hazel Cock-and-Bull fairy tale IMO. Someone is pulling someones leg(s).

Also infra-red gives a lot better image than just "orange blobs", I have looked through the optics of nowadays primitive american IR equipment from the 50ies.

Regards
Sonnenwende