Jagdtiger

"That such a monstrosity had to be constructed in the final phase of the war - at all times!"

– Tiger Ace Otto Carius on the Jagdtiger

The Panzerjäger Tiger Ausf. B, more commonly known as the Jagdtiger, was the heaviest and most powerful Tank Destroyer of WWII. It was also an even bigger pile of fail than the Elefant, taking everything wrong with the Elefant and dialing them up to 11.

IRL

The Jagdtiger was a design meant to emulate successful tank destroyer designs that had been used throughout the war: Take the base chassis of an existing tank, shove a fuckoff hueg gun into it, add extra armor, and proceed to let it utterly rape anything that got within 2 kilometers of it, with mostly great success.

In 1942, German high command and old Adolf very much wanted a 128 mm cannon mounted on a tank. Why in god's name anyone thought this was necessary is known only to them, but the vehicle was to be built out of the Tiger II chassis. Now, an astute reader may remember that the Tiger II was, for all its faults, still pretty much impossible to kill efficiently. Therefore, it stands to reason that the Jagdtiger would be pretty epic, right?

Good one.

In reality, the 128mm cannon added an absurd amount of weight to a chassis that was already straining the engine to a breaking point, decreasing the mechanical reliability of the already dubiously reliable Tiger II. Worse than that, it was reported by Otto Carius that the gun would often have to be recalibrated after driving on rough terrain, and just to fire the gun in combat, some poor dude had to get out of the tank and unlock the gun. Combine this with the fact that it kept the absurd complexity of Tigers and very poorly trained late war German tank crews, and you have a perfect way to lose valuable assets pointlessly.

Even though the gun was reported to have shot through a house and killed an American tank, this is not an accomplishment due to the fact that the Sherman chassis didn't really stand a chance against most late war German tanks. Combined with its high muzzel flash and the cannon being so powerful that it blinded the loaders (yes, loader, but PLURAL), it could fire exactly once, then maybe breakdown trying to move 2 feet before being abandoned. Even the much-maligned Elefant was a more effective weapon than the Jagdtiger.

Two other facts stand out as utter hilarity: More Jagdtigers were lost to breakdown and mechanical issues than they were combat losses, and one Jagdtiger was attacked by Volkssturm with Panzerfausts because they had no idea what the fuck it was.