[15] It was difficult to transport and vulnerable to immobilisation when mud, ice, and snow froze between its overlapping and interleaved Schachtellaufwerk-pattern road wheels, often jamming them solid.

The Henschel design was accepted, mainly because the Porsche VK 4501 (P) prototype design used a troubled petrol-electric transmission system which needed large quantities of copper for the manufacture of its electrical drivetrain components, a strategic war material of which Germany had limited supplies with acceptable electrical properties for such uses.

After the contract was awarded to Henschel, they were used for a new turretless, casemate-style tank destroyer; 91 hulls were converted into the Panzerjäger Tiger (P) in early 1943.

Normally, steering depended on a double differential, Henschel's development of the British Merritt-Brown system[36] first encountered in the Churchill tank.

[36] Powered turret traverse was provided by the variable speed Boehringer-Sturm L4 hydraulic motor, which was driven from the main engine by a secondary drive shaft.

There were three road wheels (one of them double, closest to the track's centre) on each arm, in a so-called Schachtellaufwerk overlapping and interleaved arrangement, similar to that pioneered on German half-tracked military vehicles of the pre-World War II era, with the Tiger I being the first all-tracked German AFV built in quantity to use such a road wheel arrangement.

The wheels had a diameter of 800 mm (31 in) in the Schachtellaufwerk arrangement for the Tiger I's suspension, providing a high uniform distribution of the load onto the track, at the cost of increased maintenance.

[44] However, in service, Tigers were frequently transported by rail with their combat tracks fitted, as long as the train crew knew there were no narrow tunnels or other obstructions on the route that would prevent an oversized load from passing, despite this practice being strictly forbidden.

At least 30 minutes of set-up time was required, with the turret and gun being locked in the forward position, and a large snorkel tube raised at the rear.

Early versions of the Tiger I's turret included two pistol ports; however, one of these was replaced with a loader escape hatch and the other was removed from later designs.

[51] The closest counterpart to the Tiger from the United States was the M26 Pershing (around 200 deployed to the European Theater of Operations (ETO) during the war[52][page needed]) and the IS-2 from the USSR (about 3,800 built during the conflict).

In Italy, a demolition carrier version of the Tiger I without a main gun was built by maintenance crews in an effort to find a way to clear minefields.

A report prepared by the Waffenamt-Prüfwesen 1 gave the calculated probability of perforation at range, on which various adversaries would be defeated reliably at a side angle of 30 degrees to the incoming round.

The Wa Prüf report estimated that the Tiger's 88 mm gun would be capable of penetrating the differential case of an American M4 Sherman from 2,100 m (1.3 mi) and the turret front from 1,800 m (1.1 mi), but the Tiger's 88 mm gun would not penetrate the upper glacis plate at any range assuming a side angle of 30 degrees.

[64] The M3 90 mm cannon used as a towed anti-aircraft and anti-tank gun, and later mounted in the M36 tank destroyer and finally the late-war M26 Pershing, could penetrate the Tiger's front plate at a range of 1,000 m using standard ammunition, and from beyond 2,000 m (6,600 ft) when using HVAP.

Soviet ground trial testing conducted in May 1943 determined that the 8.8 cm KwK 36 gun could pierce the T-34/76 frontal beam nose from 1,500 m (4,900 ft), and the front hull from 1500 m. A hit to the driver's hatch would force it to collapse inwards and break apart.

[70] The British Churchill Mk IV was vulnerable to the Tiger from the front at between 1,100 and 1,700 m (3,600 and 5,600 ft) at a 30 degrees side angle, its strongest point being the nose and its weakest the turret.

[76][77] The 503rd Heavy Panzer Battalion was deployed to the Don Front in the autumn of 1942, but arrived too late to participate in Operation Winter Storm, the attempt to relieve Stalingrad.

Two of the Lees were knocked out in this action, while the Tiger tanks provided effective protection from enemy fire, which greatly increased the crews' trust in the quality of the armour.

The resulting withdrawal led to the loss of many broken-down Tigers which had to be abandoned, with battalions unable to perform required maintenance or repairs.

For this reason, the Tiger was built with water-tight hatches and a snorkel device that allowed it to ford water obstacles four metres deep.

Due to reliability problems with the Maybach HL 210 TRM P45, which was delivered within the first production batch of 250 Tigers, performance for its maximum power output at high gear ratio could not be fulfilled.

The average reliability of the Tiger tank in the second half of 1943 was similar to that of the Panther, 36%, compared to the 48% of the Panzer IV and the 65% of the StuG III.

The British had observed the gradual increase in German AFV armour and firepower since 1940 and had anticipated the need for more powerful anti-tank guns.

Work on the 76.2 mm calibre Ordnance QF 17 pounder had begun in late 1940 and in 1942 100 early-production guns were rushed to North Africa to help counter the new Tiger threat.

The Cruiser Mk VIII Challenger (A30) was already at the prototype stage in 1942,[98] but this tank had relatively weaker armor with a front hull thickness of 64 mm.

The extemporised Sherman Firefly, armed with the 17-pounder, proved to be an excellent anti-tank weapon, but the gun lacked general-purpose capability until later in the war.

[107] This conclusion was partly based on the correct estimate that Tigers would be encountered in relatively small numbers, and on the assumption that anti-tank gun-fire (as in Tunisia and Sicily) rather than tanks could knock them out.

According to the memoirs of the veterans of the Kubinka training ground, dozens of captured Tigers were used in the USSR as the targets in the 50s, and then were sent to the Stalingrad plant for smelting.

Many large components have been salvaged over the years, but the discovery of a more or less and generally complete vehicle has so far eluded armour enthusiasts and tank collectors.