14th Brooklyn wrote:There were actually quiet a few Tiger II in Normandy, including a whole Abteilung with the Porsche turret.
The whole Abteilung Burkhard?
I thought it was just one company of the 503rd Heavy Tank battalion with about half a dozen Königstigers? (The rest of the battalion was Tiger I's) Mind you, I'm pretty rusty on this stuff so I've probably missed something, and either way, you're right. I underestimated. Thinking about it more, a full company would be around 10 or so Königstigers.
[edit]
You got me interested now!
Just dipped into my books (which are admittedly a bit old, so there may be more up to date information available) and I read s.H.PzAbt 503 had just 12 Königstigers in its 1st Company. This unit had the distinction of being the first company entirely equipped with Königstigers, but the other two companies of the Abteilung had Tiger I's.
The Abteilung didn't arrive in Normandy until July 2nd but not surprisingly soon had a big impact! A couple of weeks later 3rd Company lost most of it's Tiger I's to Allied carpet bombing around Caen and the company was withdrawn east of Paris to re-equip with Königstigers (1st and 2nd Companies remained in Normandy). However, the Normandy campaign was as good as over before these Königstigers could rejoin the Abteilung (3rd Company was stopped somewhere west of Paris after their returning rail column was attacked by Thunderbolts on the 12th August). So only the 12 Königstigers of the 1st Company took part in Normandy - all these tanks had been lost by the end of the Falaise gap battles.
[and another edit...]
Just spotted on-line a claim that 316th Funklenk Panzer Company of the 101st SS Heavy Tank Battalion also operated some Königstigers in Normandy - so there's a few more of them.
...hmmm, another source implies these were Tiger I's - but even if they were Königstigers the 316th Funklenk Panzer Company had just 6 tanks (despite a 'paper strength' of 14) of which only 3 tanks were listed as operational in June 1944. Apparently this company mysteriously disappears from the 101st SS Heavy Tank Battalion's order of battle in July (?)
DPT