FIERCE BUT FLAWED? KING TIGER

The Tiger II was the largest tank used by Nazi Germany in WWII, but the behemoth was problem-prone and never had the impact on the battlefield its creators had sought

- CRAIG MOORE

The Tiger II was the largest and heaviest operational tank used by Nazi Germany during the Second World War. It was designed to break through enemy lines, smash their defences and knock out their armour with its powerful gun. By 1942, the Soviet Union was proving to be a far harder nut to crack than expected. Something had to be done to turn the tide on the battlefield. The decision? A tougher, larger and more powerful tank. German High Command wanted a deadlier Tiger, armed with a higher-velocity gun capable of penetrating new, thicker Soviet armour at longer distances. Two firms, Porsche and Henschel, were given the task of designing the new hull, while Krupp had the responsibility of creating the turrets for each design.

When the Tiger II engaged in battle with enemy armoured formations it proved to be a formidable opponent, but these occasions were few and far between. In fact, more Tiger II tanks were destroyed by their crews than enemy action. Being extremely heavy, the German Army did not have enough suitable resources to recover them if they broke down because of a mechanical fault, enemy action or they just got stuck in the mud. To prevent their machines from falling into enemy hands and being turned on their former masters, tank crews would often destroy their crippled vehicle before abandoning it.

Vast resources were required to build just a single Tiger II, and by this stage in the war they were being produced at a time of shortages and heavy Allied bombing of German factories and infrastructure. It has often been said that the Germans should have abandoned these heavy tank projects and concentrated on building greater numbers of Panzer IV tanks, which required far fewer resources to build.