I knew they unloaded them since they were in theatre in the org chart. Those are PzIIIs on the crane, the Tiger is heavier, could also be a bergestiger or ARV etc. Some of the African ports would have very rudimentary methods of getting close to the unloading area, I suppose that 1-2 just fell in the ocean for some collector to retrieve in the 21st century.
To second CWO Marc’s point, the Tiger is a defectively designed tank–it has too many flat 90 degree surfaces that don’t take advantage of sloped armor. The Russians consistently led in these tank-design innovations in both manufacture and application.
There is a myth that the Germans were the most advanced, technologically, when in reality their most useful advance was in the USE of armor on the battlefield.
The book I’m reading now (Tank Tactics, Stackpole) argues that of the Western Allies, only Canada took the correct lessons away from the use of tanks in WW1 and that even after Normandy and the early cold war, only the Russians had internalized the german Schwerpunkt method of massed attacks and decisive action. The US and UK continued to apply misguided lessons (tank destroyers, use of strategic bombers to support armor attacks, ineffective massing and coordination) even into the 60s and 70s that meant that they would have lost the conventional war over the Fulda Gap and would have required the Western Allies to use nuclear weapons to stop the Soviets, who had correctly learned the German mobility tactics and strategy, and beaten them with it.
