King Tiger V2. It’s the oldest surviving King Tiger in the world. And it’s also the only King Tiger that survives with the unusual pre-production turret. This has, in the past, been referred to as the “Porsche Turret”. But why? And why did they change the turret on later models?
There are many misconceptions and rumours about this tank – the most common of which that the turret was built by Porsche. It wasn’t. How did it end up on this tank? Well, that’s a bit of a confusing story, but it was basically down to Krupp and Henschel working on a winning design.
The production of King Tiger would begin with three prototypes: V1, V2 and V3 – and the V stands for Versuchs, the German word for trial. V1 was a mild steel prototype that was used for demonstrations, and V3 was used as an engine test rig. V2, however, was retained for testing by Henschel and was captured by the US Army before being handed over to the British.
V2 left Germany in one piece, but by the time it reached Bovington in 1952 a number of parts had gone astray – most notably, the gearbox! King Tiger V2 is now a star of The Tank Museum’s collection, and the team have now begun to assess whether a restoration might be possible…
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Credit to : The Tank Museum
