[Mike Irwin]

The original concept for what became the Tiger was as an armored assault/break through vehicle that would be capable of taking on, and neutralized, hardened static obstacles, like the fortifications on the Maginot line. In that sense the Tiger was intended to fulfill the role that the T-28 super-heave "Doom Turtle" was intended to take against the Siegfried Line.

The Germans were, however, shocked to discover that French tanks were both more heavily armed and more heavily armored, which led to increased emphasis on development of the Tiger, with the final design parameters being set after lthe Germans met up with T-34 medium and KV-1 heavy tanks in the early states of the invasion of Russia.

The Tiger was never intended to the primary front-line tank. It was to be the heavy tank in tank units composed mainly of Panzer IV and V tanks, in much the same way that the Sherman Firefly was the specialist in combat groups of 3 standard Shermans and 1 Firefly.

Early production iterations of the Tiger were quite mechanically unreliable because the engine and transmission had both been rushed into production. Once those issues were sorted out reliability improved quite a bit.