In order to defeat any possible future enemy, the German designers began to plan the Tiger's successor as soon as its production began in late 1942. It would have even more firepower and more armor protection than the Tiger.

One rejected prototype was supposed to carry a 150mm!! gun. Another prototype was rejected because its electric system used "too much" copper, a sign of the extreme difficulties the German industry had to cope with in the later stages of the war ( the most extreme example of that, in my opinion, was the design and production, in late 1944, of the He-162 Salamander, which was a jet fighter made mostly of wood ! ).

The design of the new tank, which was marked Tiger II and named King Tiger, was completed in late 1943, and production began in December 1943, initially together with the Tiger, and since August 1944 instead of the Tiger. Only 485 King Tiger tanks were produced before the war ended.

It first fought against the Russians in May 1944 and in France in August 1944. Its very thick armor, especially in the front, protected it from the guns of enemy tanks, but made it slow, because its engine could not compensate for its very heavy weight of 69 tons, and its size made it harder to hide than other tanks, which was a serious problem given the massive presence of allied fighter-bombers at that stage of the war. It was also technically unreliable, like the Tiger. Many were simply abandoned or self-destroyed for lack of fuel, rather than by enemy fire.

The King Tiger had a crew of five. It was armed with an extremely powerful long-barrelled 88mm gun, even more powerful than that of the Tiger, which fired armor-piercing rounds at a muzzle velocity of 1200 meters per second, about a third faster than those fired by the Tiger. It carried 84 rounds and also two machine guns with almost 6000 rounds, like the Tiger.