King Tiger

Overview
Instead of Producing... you know... more Panthers, Nazi Germany began work on the Tiger II, or 'King Tiger' (Arguably a pretty bad decision). Work on the project started in 1943, and the first examples were produced that year, with the official designation being 'Panzerkampfwagen Tiger Ausf. B'. Its ordinance inventory designation was Sd. Kfz 182. The vehicle was designed as the successor to the Tiger I tank, however its appearance was more like that of the Panther. The armor was very thick, and was sloped unlike the armor on the Tiger I. The tank came in at around 70 tons, and was impervious to all Allied anti-tank weapons of the time. The King Tiger's armament was the long-barreled 71-caliber long 88 mm KwK 43 anti-tank gun, the same one that was used on the Panzerjager Tiger (P) Ferdinand. This gave it almost unequaled offensive capabilities. The King Tiger was given to Heavy Tank Battalions of the Wehrmacht and SS, where it served on both the Eastern and Western fronts.

Development
The idea of the King Tiger had been conceived in 1937, and the contract was awarded to Henschel. In 1939, however, another contract was given to Henschel's rival, Porsche. Both designs used Krupp's Tiger II turret. The Henschel version was very orthodox, featuring an engine at the rear, a central fighting compartment, and a forward position for the driver and bow-gunner. The hull featured 9 inter-leaving road wheels per side, with steel rims. The wheels were fitted to transverse torsion bar suspension.

Porsche created a much more unusual machine. They mounted the engine centrally, and fitted the fighting compartment to the rear. The suspension was the same as that on the Elefant/Ferdinand, featuring 6 road wheels per side on longitudinal torsion bar suspension. Unlike the Ferdinand, the Porsche Tiger II was to feature a diesel-electric drive system, as opposed to the latter's petrol-electric. This unusual system consisted of two, parallel hybrid-drive trains per side, with electric generators powered by the engines. These in turn were connected to a series of motors, which powered the drive sprockets. However Porsche's dabbling in forces he could hardly control gathered him little gain.

Design
Henschel received the contract for the King Tiger, and Porsche was once again beaten. All early Tiger IIs featured a prototype Krupp turret. A common myth is that Porsche designed this turret, however it was merely an early Krupp experiment. Both Tiger II designs originally featured this turret, and so it was only natural that the first tanks were thus equipped. It featured a bulge in one side for the commander, and a rounded front, which had the same shot-trap problem as the Panther. Only 50 King Tigers received the early turret, and after that, all examples were mounted with the production turret. This one had a flat frontal face, eliminating the shot trap, and had less steep sides. These turrets were both designed to mount the 88 mm KwK 43, and featured a telescopic sight by Leitz. The weapon arrangement was very accurate and deadly, even over very long ranges. The gun could fire armor-piercing rounds, high-explosive rounds, and high-explosive-anti-tank warheads. An L4S electric motor provided power for turret traverse in the even of an engine failure, or to avoid having to start up the engine to traverse the turret. There was a manual backup, should the electric drive fail, however the traverse speed was fairly slow using this method. The engine was a Maybach HL230 P30, which provided 690 hp. This was insufficient for such a large vehicle, thus power-to-weight ratios were bad, as well as reliability. The OLVAR transmission was very easily damaged, causing many problems. Furthermore, the transmission was difficult to replace. The drive train was immensely overburdened, which caused even more problems.

There was a command variant of the vehicle, the Panzerbefehlswagen Tiger Ausf. B, which eliminated some ammunition for more radio equipment. The engine was up-armored, and long radio-antenna were added.

Production
Only a handful of vehicles were produced before the war ended, as the vehicle was complicated and the German war industry was increasingly hampered by bombing. Only around 480 vehicles were produced, and many were lost to reliability issues. The only other variant of the King Tiger was the Jagdtiger heavy tank destroyer.

Action
As was previously stated, the vehicle proved highly unreliable in combat. The transmission and drive train were the vehicle's main problems, and they greatly decreased its usefulness. Schwere Heeres Panzer Abteilung 501 reached the battlefield with only 8 of their 45 vehicles. Most losses were due to drive train failure. Over time, reliability was improved, however it remained an Achilles heel for the tank. Despite being rather slow, it was fairly mobile, able to cross rough terrain fairy well. This trait has been observed in other heavy vehicles, including the British Conqueror, and can be described as 'slow but steady'.

The first use of the King Tiger happened at Normandy in June of 1944, against the Allied landing forces. In August of that year, they saw their first action against the Red Army on the Eastern Front. Several King Tigers on this front suffered early losses against T-34/85s, due to ammunition explosions inside the tanks. The next major use of the vehicle was in support of Otto Skorzeny's forces in Budapest, the Hungarian capital city. Eventually, the city fell, and a fair amount of Tiger IIs were lost.

The last major use of the vehicle occurred during the Ardennes Offensive, or the Battle of the Bulge. Around 150 King Tigers took part in the battle, most of which were destroyed. Afterwards, some Tiger IIs participated in the Vistula-Odor offensive. The King Tiger had an advantage against most Western and Soviet tanks due to its immensely heavy armor and powerful gun. It was able to knock out enemy vehicles at ranges up to 3 km, and proved well-nigh impenetrable. However the armor was not as thick on the sides, making the vehicle susceptible to ambushes. According to some sources, the King Tiger's frontal armor was never penetrated by an enemy shell during the war. However, during Soviet tests on two captured vehicles at Kubinka, it was proven that powerful anti-tank guns of the time such as the A-19 122 mm gun could in fact destroy the King Tiger frontally. Also, the British Ordinance QF 17-lbr equipped with APDS (Armor-Piercing-Discarding-Sabot) could penetrate the frontal armor of the Tiger II, however this was never tested.