From Wiki so usual disclaimers
"While initially the Soviets made a lot of poor defense decisions, worsened by recent "cleansings" of Soviet military command, the KV-1 was unlike anything the German army had expected to encounter, and some of the battles against numerically superior Axis forces became legendary. Even though the operations of the KV family of tanks were severely hampered by restrictions due to its weight, it was a fearsome and formidable weapon through most of the Second World War."
"The IS-2 tank first saw combat in early 1944. IS-2s were assigned to separate heavy tank regiments, normally of 21 tanks each.[14] These regiments were used to reinforce the most important attack sectors during major offensive operations. Tactically, they were employed as breakthrough tanks. Their role was to support infantry in the assault, using their large guns to destroy bunkers, buildings, dug-in crew-served weapons, and other 'soft' targets. They were also capable of taking on any German AFVs if required. Once a breakthrough was achieved, lighter, more mobile T-34s would take over the exploitation."
This may not be correct but there was a difference between a "breakthrough" tank and a "
breakout or exploitation" Tank. While the British didn't build any production tanks over 40 tons or so in WW II they most definitely had "breakthrough" (infantry) tanks and "breakout or exploitation" (cruiser) tanks.
The size of the British "heavy" tanks wasn't restricted so much by tactical brilliance of the British military but by Britain having one of the most antiquated and restrictive Railroad lading gauges (allowable size of objects on railcars) of any European nation.
This "idea" of "Breakthrough" tanks was popular in many countries in the late 30s when any future war was often in-visioned as a replay of WW I.
The US got lucky in that it's late 1930s "Breakthrough" tank
View attachment 271753
View attachment 271754
was able to be modified (or drive and suspension
borrowed) for the M3 and M4 mediums saving much time and trouble. Please note the angled plates on the rear fenders that allowed the reward facing machine guns in the sponsons to ricochet fire
down into trenches.
from the Wiki entry on the French Char B1
"The similarity resulted partly from the fact that the Char B1 was a specialised offensive weapon, a break-through tank optimised for punching a hole into strong defensive entrenchments, so it was designed with good trench-crossing capabilities. The French Army thought that dislodging the enemy from a key front sector would decide a campaign, and it prided itself on being the only army in the world having a sufficient number of adequately protected heavy tanks. The exploitation phase of a battle was seen as secondary and best carried out by controlled and methodical movement to ensure superiority in numbers, so for the heavy tanks also mobility was of secondary concern. Although the Char B1 had for the time of its conception a good speed, no serious efforts were made to improve it when much faster tanks appeared."
And
"More important than the tank's limitations in tactical mobility, though, were its limitations in strategic mobility. The low practical range implied the need to refuel very often, limiting its operational capabilities. This again implied that the armoured divisions of the Infantry, the Divisions Cuirassées de Réserve, were—despite their name that merely reflected the fact that they had originally been planned to be raised in a secondary mobilisation—not very effective as a mobile reserve and thus lacked strategic flexibility."
Germans were impressed with the Char B1 when it was used in combat though.
French did have the same problem the Germans did with tank production though. " Although the French expenditure on tanks was relatively larger than the German, France simply lacked the production capacity to build a sufficient number of heavier tanks. The Char B1 was expensive enough as it was, eating up half of the infantry tank budget."
Cavalry tanks were in a different budget and again show that the major powers had the idea that one tank could NOT
do it all.
The Tiger was coming at the end of a series of progressively heavier prototypes, the last round of which were ordered
before operation Barbarossa started. Once teh Germans encountered the KV series and T-34 in numbers the Tiger was the only real game in town. Throw it out and start over with many months delay (if not a year or more).
Tiger started production 4-5 months before the Panther and the early Panther production was slow and of dubious quality due the rush put on it.
The Tiger was far from ideal in a number of respects but criticizing it because it was NOT what we would now call an MBT doesn't seem quite fair. German's tactical/strategic situation had changed from the initial design period to the time of it's main combat service.