Tiger ausf. E : Bearing ring in the New Turret

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Bearing ring in the New Turret

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The new turret

A "new" turret was introduced on Tiger 250391 in July 1943 [1, see page 81] . It introduced many changes, including a redesign of the ball bearing race.

Ball-bearings, mid-late type

There were now 113 load-bearing balls, each one wrapped loosely in a metal loop of 55mm diameter [2, see page 9] as this model shows. These loops spaced the balls evenly. Also, the ball race was slightly expanded such that the balls now lay on a circle of diameter 1995mm. The patterns of bolt holes in the inner and outer rings were not changed.

Model of ball-bearing races

The steel rings were reshaped so that the loops fit loosely between them and thus remained vertical. The insertion hole didn't need to be modified.


The final changes

There were at least two more changes to the Tiger's turret ring. The submersion ability was deleted from the tank in late 1943, requiring changes to many components, including a minor change to the outer bearing ring.

Ball-bearings, final type

The other change was the omission of every second spacer loop. I have seen no documentation about the date of this change. This version of the ring is found in Saumur Museum's Tiger, whose turret serial number is 250857.

Cross section of ball-bearing races

The balls were now more closely packed, and all 130 of them were load-bearing.

[1] Germany's Tiger Tanks, volume 1 : DW to Tiger 1

[2] Tiger Turret Manual

 
 

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