Wittmann's Tiger Rampage | Villers-Bocage, June 1944

Now see here, the crews did not stop for tea. They stopped for a vital planning meeting that happened to include tea. 😁

Never forgotten, Cheers to "Rex" Ingram, M3 Stuart commander who faced the Tiger with all he got, bravest soul in Villers-Bocage

Imagine being in a Stuart and finding yourself facing a Tiger, that Ingram was a badass.

Thanks for the film. My Great Uncle Rennie FitzHugh was one of the casualties on the day. His body was never found and he is commamerated at the Bauxeux Cemetery. Gone but not forgotten.

A Canadian Sherman tanker in Normandy put it this way; "No matter how well you are trained, without luck you won't survive."

You can say he was lucky, and he was. But he was also singularity aggressive and tactically brilliant. Let's say a different officer says "I've been found out" and fights a defensive battle or attacks with a whole platoon of Tiger. The former would have allowed the British to get their act together and given away the initiative. The latter would have been more cumbersome, also giving more time for resistance to pool. Wittmann was audacious without being utterly reckless. That is how you do things like this. Military history is replete with examples. And as for luck, well, Napoleon said he'd rather his marshals be lucky than brilliant.

Say what you want about the Tiger. It being expensive and complicated to build and it's a maintenance nightmare but there's no doubt that when it was operated by a professional crew it was an extremely effective beast.

Now, there is a huge difference between being lucky to find an opportunity to grab, and getting lucky and succeed when making a mistake. I do not think Wittmann made a mistake, his actions that day were, as you say yourself, still remarkable. That propaganda runs away with it is just business as usual in war.

While Lazerpig’s videos are fun, Dan Taylor of the Kent & Sharpshooters Yeomanry museum is the man who’s done the recent research in this battle - his book is eye opening.

One of the best presentations by The Tank Museum.

I seem to remember 1 British officer saying V-B was 3 battles. We lost the 1st, the 2nd was drawn, and the 3rd was won. It's the last one that counts.

Exceptionally done narrative of a small fragment ofWW2 history! It's one of those truly surprising tank encounters of WW2 that indeed deserve a minute to minute telling of just what happened. Witmann's charge is really one thing that stands out from the tank battles of Normandy. Cheers to the Tank Museum to do this kind of history video! Thanks for the supporters of the Tank Museum that have given the chance to make such awesome recreation of a tiny part of the history of WW2. Hopefully you continue with this kind of historical work further!

Otto Carius and another panzer commander went on a similar rampage in one of the three small Baltic countries and wiped out 60 Soviet tanks; big ones, the JS2 and such. It would be nice to see a similar analysis. I have to say, this was a very informative video. Well done!

Best description of the battle I have ever seen/heard/read. Well done.

What a harrowing story. I haven't heard about this engagement. What a great job y'all have done in telling it.

Brilliant video, thank you for putting it together and sharing!

This was such a fantastic explanation if this encounter. Thank you Bovington tank museum for making the video and sharing the story. :)

Excellent video my sister in laws father was in 8th irish hussars in ww2 and Korea there battle honours include villa bocage and imjin River sadly he past away before my brother met his wife so never got to meet him but my brother has had his service medals and a picture of him in uniform aged about 19 taken in 1944 before the D day framed and proudly on display

Cracking episode... edge of the seat suspense... more, more , more!

There were a couple of RA OP tanks with the HQ Troop on the bend outside Villers. They all turned around and fled back into the town. There is an unpublished account of the battle that describes this event and the narrator says one of the OP tanks got 'hung-up' on a tree trunk that was lying at the side of the road. The driver managed to get his OP free just before the Tiger arrived. If you check the photos of the Panzer Lehr Pz IV that is shown being towed on the bend outside Villers you will see that this Pz IV got hung-up on the same tree trunk. It could not drive off and had to be towed off by another Pz IV. Look closely at the photo16:48 and you will see the muzzle brake of the towing Pz IV is just visble behind the Cromwell and the tree-trunk is sticking out behind the Pz IV .