As a piece of military engineering, the tiger was a marvel. as a practical piece of military hardware it was an unmitigated disaster. The problem was its relative cost, short range, and at times mechanical unreliability. Tiger II losses during the ardennes is revealing. The battalion that attacked through Stavelot against the American positions there crossed the border with 45 Tigers on strength. After three days, the unit was down to 20 effectives, and by the end of the campaign the crews walked out of belgium with not a tank in their possession. Most had simiply ran out of fuel, but many had also broken down and were forced to be either abandoned, or destroyed by their own crews. During Kursk, only about 3 out of the 100 or so tiger Is committed were destroyed during the main battles, yet by the end of the month, not a one of that 100 tanks remained in german hands. The Germans found themselves overwhelmed by the flood of Soviet tanks, and the Soviets had numbers on their side because their tanks were built to a budget, as were the Allied Shermans. The Allies could afford huge losses, and keep on fighting with undiminshed power, whereas each tiger lost represented a near irreplaceable loss for the germans and a significant loss of capability.
Where the tiger excelled were in the long retreats the germans were forced to undertake in the last half of the war. A single tiger took up an enormous allocation of resources to bring down and could hold up an advance for many hours or days. As a nuisance weapon, able to pick off individual tanks at distance, the tiger was a supreme weapon system. as a war winning, game changing weapon, not a chance. Too expensive, too immobile too unreliable, but above all, too few in number