Tiger I

The Tiger I, deployed from 1942 on the Eastern Front and in Tunisia, paired an 8.8 cm gun — originally developed as an anti-aircraft piece — with 100 mm of frontal armor unmatched at the time. It could destroy most Allied tanks at ranges from which almost nothing could penetrate it in return. Its weaknesses lay not in combat but in logistics: only around 1,350 were ever built, fuel and spare-part consumption was enormous, and its wide tracks complicated rail transport. In the game the Tiger I is the heaviest land vehicle of its era — dominant in direct duels, but expensive to field and vulnerable to coordinated attacks from multiple directions at once.