Michael Fröhlich

This is an impressive volume that covers vehicles that appear frequently in other works, so I was interested to discover whether there was anything new here. Design histories on these vehicles have appeared in abbreviated form in works published by the likes of Osprey and Panzer Tracts; however, this is the first detailed design history that I have seen dedicated to the Porsche vehicles.

The source books for this volume are "Der Andere Tiger: Der Panzerkampfwagen Porsche Typ 101" and "Der Panzerjaeger "Ferdinand", Panzerjaeger Tiger (P), Porsche Typ 131". They were published separately by the German publishing house Motorbuch Verlag in 2019 and 2020 respectively. Schiffer Military Publishing picked up the books and released translated versions as a combined volume in 2022. The German author of both volumes is Michael Froelich.

"The Porsche Tiger" is an expansive 496 pages long divided into two parts. Part I covers the Porsche Tiger program in Chapters 1 through 5. Chapters 1 and 2 introduce the reader to the arcane world of Wehrmacht armored vehicle development and procurement while highlighting the innovations and impracticalities of automotive designer Ferdinand Porsche. Chapter 3 details how the Wehrmacht technical branches rejected Porsche's concepts, while Chapter 4 describes what would have been the production version of the Tiger (P). Chapter 5 gives a system-by-system breakdown of the Porsche Tigers and includes a discussion of the alternative hydraulic drive system that equipped one of the vehicles. Chapters 6 and 7 are written by different authors, the first being about the special railcars that were necessary to transport both the Porsche and Henschel Tigers. Chapter 7 is an interesting historical analysis of the potential of electric drive armored vehicles that, in essence, proved that Porsche wasted valuable time and resources on a concept that no one has been able to make practical for military use. Part I ends with Chapter 8 in which Froelich revisits various locations in Germany and Austria that were significant in the Porsche Tiger's history.

Part II tells the tale of the tank destroyer version of the Tiger (P), the vehicle that eventually appeared on Russian and Italian battlefields. It is a story of an attempt to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear: the Wehrmach ordered 100 Porsche Tigers and needed to make use of the chassis on which so much effort had been wasted. Chapter 9 describes the new vehicle, while Chapter 10 details the only variant of the Panzerjaeger, the much-needed recovery vehicle. Chapter 11 confines itself to describing the two surviving vehicles, a Ferdinand in Russia and an Elefant in the United States. Chapter 12 is a systems breakdown of the vehcile, like Chapter 5 in Part I. There are three appendices: one is a listing of the standard equipment provided with each Ferdinand vehicle, the second is a list of Porsche Typ numbers that spanned the Third Reich era, and the final is a transcription of the Wehrmacht D656/1 manual for the Panzerjaeger Tiger (P).

This is a quality publication which justifies the high price tag with glossy pages and an abundance of illustrations, some in color. Froelich's perspective is interesting. He is clearly a Ferdinand Porsche fan, yet he includes a chapter that discredits Porsche's electric drive fixation that shows that no one has been ever able to make electric drive for armored vehicles a working proposition. The book shed some light on the Tiger (P) program by providing an exhaustive accounting for all of the chassis of the program along with some of the major components. Overall this was a good buy and a good read for me despite a couple of hiccups with the translation.… (plus d'informations)