If you thought shooting planes out of the sky with a tank was only possible in Battlefield or War Thunder. Let me introduce you to Otto Carius. He joined the Wehrmacht in 1940 as an infantryman until volunteering for Panzers and getting assigned to the 21st Panzer Regiment of the 20th Panzer Division. He first saw combat in June of 1941 during Operation Barbarossa as a loader inside of a Panzer 38(t). After a month of intense combat, his tank was destroyed outside of Leningrad were he was severely wounded in the face from shrapnel. After recovering, he returned to the 21st Panzer Regiment and was given command of the 10th Panzer Company of which had no tanks. So his company fought as infantry until new replacement Panzer 38(t)’s showed up. In 1942 his Regiment started receiving the new Panzer 3’s and Panzer 4’s, Otto by this time had built quite a a good reputation as a tank commander. So he was promoted to Leutnant and in January of 1943 was sent back to France to the newly formed 502nd Heavy Panzer Battalion to begin training in the new Tiger 1 tank. After completing training his battalion was sent back near Leningrad in July of 1943. They spent 2 months in continuous combat and in November were moved to stop a Russian breakthrough near Vitebsk. Here he would destroy numerous tanks and his gunner would shoot down a Russian fighter. “My gunner, Unteroffizeier Kramer, can take credit for a deed that was probably unparalleled on the Eastern Front. That is, he succeeded in shooting down a Russian fighter with a tank cannon ... Kramer, upset by the unrelenting nuisance of these guys, elevated his cannon along the approach route. I talked him in. He took a chance and pulled the trigger. On the second attempt, he hit one of the ‘bees’ in its wing. The Russian crashed behind us”. - Otto Carius. In July of 1944 when the Russians had captured the village of Dunaburg and were on the verge of encircling his company of 8 Tigers. He and one other Tiger went down to the village while the other 6 waited in reserve to recapture the town. Otto and the other Tiger would end up destroying 17 tanks in 20 minutes, including a new Russian IS-2 tank. Two days later Otto was doing reconnaissance on a motorcycle (he often did this before missions) when he and his driver were ambushed by Russian infantry. Otto was shot in the arm, leg, and 4 times in the back. A Russian Officer walked to up to execute Otto but he turned and got shot through the neck. His company hearing all of the gunfire down the road rushed to save them. After saving Otto (his motorcycle driver was KIA) they stuck him on the back of a Tiger and he was trying to help the crew direct their fire. When the turret traversed it crushed Otto’s foot into the hull breaking it. After cheating death and long recovery in the hospital, Otto received the Oak Leaves for his Knights Cross (equivalent to the Medal of Honor). He was then transferred to the 512th Heavy-Tank Hunter Battalion and given command of the new Jagdtiger which he absolutely hated for its unreliability, no turret, and slow speed. His company was called into action before training was over in March of 1945 to stop the Americans in the Ruhr Pocket. After running out of supplies he destroyed the Jagdtigers and surrendered the Americans in April of 1945. He finished the war with at least 150 tank kills and one plane kill. Ironically Otto only claimed around 100 or less tank kills because he was actually a gunner. He never claimed any kills as a commander, researchers estimate that his time as a loader in Panzer 38(t), a gunner in Panzer 3 & 4’s, tank commander of a Tiger and Jagdtiger that his kill count is at least 150 from the information that they could discover. After the war Otto went to college then opened up his own Pharmacy business called “Tiger Apotheke” which he ran until 2011 when he retired. Otto Carius wrote several books in later years and eventually passed away on January 24th, 2015 at the age of 92 #ww2 #History #f - @warinhd