>>The Tiger was a great defensive tank, but that didn’t
>>make it a good weapon choice. It was too large and too
>>heavy for the infrastructure of the day, making it hard
>>to move across a simple creek.
Umm..no.
The Tiger 1 or Panzer Mark VI was BREAKTHROUGH TANK.
It was designed to assault a densely packed anti-tank gun line, take hits from high velocity 50 mm and below AT guns or 76 mm medium velocity field guns on its front and side armor, and destroy the guns who took the shots with an 88mm dual purpose high velocity gun.
It was meant as a specialist weapon to get Mark III and Mark IV panzers.
It has a run of early 1942 through early 1944 in it intended role.
Then the Russians deployed the 85mm high velocity gun as high velocity 100mm, medium velocity 122mmm, low velocity 152mm guns on various tanks and other AFV’s as big cat killers and it was game over for the Tiger 1.
...And heavy assault tank. Yes, granted, but that still didn’t make it a great choice of weapon for the money.
A lot of ifs obviously, but I would point out that after the war the U.S., UK, and USSR all fielded a similar concept of super heavy tanks supporting smaller tanks. Each country found the same problem. They were super expensive, although fielding considerable armor they were impossible to conceal and massive targets, they were tremendous logistical problems being too large and heavy for the normal infrastructure to support. I didn’t make them bad, just questionably useful. After experimenting with their own “Tiger” concepts, all of the major powers realized that the extra armor just wasn’t worth it. A lighter, yet still heavy, tank with the same gun made for a better all around weapon system.
Although monsters when in position, the Tigers posed a huge problem with movement. Often not taking part in fights because they couldn’t be transported in time, or they were withdrawn early, for fear of not being able to make a hasty enough withdrawal if the line moved too fast and they were caught on the wrong side of a creek, marsh, etc.
Armor-gun-weight-power is always a balance, which isn’t to say that having the right balance is always best. The best all around athlete isn’t the best football lineman, but when you are playing football being a 300 lb monster is great.