King Tiger ( Tiger II)

The Idea to produce Tiger II started as early as May of 1941, one year before the Tiger I even entered production. Designers started working on a new heavy tank with increased armor protection  and firepower that could replace TigerI. Hitler ordered that the new tank should be protected by 150mm of frontal armor and 80mm of side armor. Once again , Henschel and Porsche were ordered to develop the vehicle. Porsche provided two designs that were very similar to each other and their only difference was the location of the turret and some other mechanical components. Hensche's design was developed at a mmuch faster rate and was destined to enter production. It shared many parts with PanzerV ( Panther ) and Panther II in order to standardize tank production. A wooden mock up of Henschel's design was shown to Adolf Hitler in East Prussia. Henschel made preparation for the production of the new unit on schedule (for the first time after the begining of the war ) in its plant at Kassel in December 1943. From December 1943 to April 1945 only 489 units were manufactured  out of the 1500 ordered. Overall war situation and the destruction of Henschel's plant in Kassel did not allow a full scale production.

The first 50 King Tigers were equipped with turrets designed by Krupp for  Porsche's designed Vehicle. Later models  were equipped with Krupp desined turrets for Henschel's vehicle. A picture of a Henschel's King Tiger with Porsche's Turret.

Tiger II was armed with an 88mm KwK 43 L/71 gun  with maximum effective range of 10km. It was powered by Maybach HL230 P 30/ 12 Cylinder / 700hp engine and Tiger II could reach the maximum speed of 35-38km/h.  Though it had huge feul capacity (860lit) it high feul consumption (500lit per 100km ) was a serious problem.  In November 1944 , 20 Tiger II were converted to command vehicles equipped with additional radio equippments. King Tigers were issued to Schwere Panzer abteilungen ( Heavy tank Battalions) of both Wehrmacht and Waffen SS. King Tiger was the most powerful tank of WWII (Soviet  JS III was produced in March of 1945 so it didn't had any serious impact on the situation) Up to the end of th war the Allies didn't introduce anything that could effectively counter it. The combination of a powerful gun with its thick armor made it virtualy invinsible.