s.Pz.Abt.501 in Africa

About this Tiger unit

The 501st Heavy Tank Battalion was formed in mid 1942 and trained for months in Germany, firstly on Tiger (P) tanks and then on the Tiger E when development of the Tiger (P) was cancelled. The Tiger E was still under development, so some items of equipment were added to the Tigers already in the hands of the battalion.

The 501st was assigned to the 5th Panzer Army which was being hurriedly deployed in Tunisia to counter the Allied forces landing in Operation Torch. This put the Tigers under the command of von Arnim; they were not in Rommel's "Afrikakorps". Tigers first debarked in Bizerte in November 1942 and fought American tanks for the first time on 1 December.

The 501 battalion in Africa participated in several operations to halt the Allied advances, including the battle at Sidi bou Zid. Tigers were not present at the Kasserine Pass battle because von Arnim would not lend them to Rommel. Soon afterwards, he lost 7 Tigers in his risky attempt to capture Beja; the remnants of the 501st were then incorporated into the 504th.

The battalion had two companies and 20 Tigers. There were two staff Tigers, numbered "01" and "02"; two company commanders' Tigers, "11" and "21"; and four platoons per company, each with two Tigers numbered in the usual 3-digit scheme. The ranks were filled out with Pz.3 support tanks.

When the battalion was reassigned as the 7th and 8th company of Panzerregiment 7, the 2nd company dutifully changed the leading digit on its Tigers from "2" to "8", but apparently no other change was made. After Operation Ochsenkopf, the surviving tanks were grouped into the 7th company and (except for the Staff Tigers) renumbered as "7xx". The company commander's tank was now "71".

Published counts of the Tiger losses in this battalion contain obvious errors. Researchers now believe that the tally runs like so: twenty Tigers delivered; Tiger "122" lost on 22 January; Tiger "231" lost on 31 January; seven Tigers lost in the battle of Hunt's Gap; eleven Tigers absorbed into s.Pz.Abt.504. (Badly damaged tanks were not counted as losses until abandoned.)

"s.Pz.Abt.501 in Africa"

About this Tiger unit

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