PzVI Tiger II (King or Royal Tiger), Porsche turret

The official designation for the Tiger II was the Panzerkampfwagen VI Ausf. B (SdKfz 182). It is also known under the informal name Königstiger (Bengal Tiger), often literally translated as King Tiger and by the British as Royal Tiger.
The initial design is sometimes misleadingly called the “Porsche turret” due to the belief that it was designed by Porsche for their prototype. In fact this turret was simply the initial Krupp design for both prototypes. This turret had a rounded front and steeply sloped sides, with a difficult to manufacture curved bulge to accommodate the commander’s cupola. The under curve of the gun mantlet acted as a shot trap, deflecting shots down into the weak top armour of the drivers position. Fifty early turrets were mounted to Henschel’s hull and used in action.
The first use of the Tiger II in combat was in Normandy on 18 July 1944 with the 503rd Heavy Panzer Battalion (schwere Panzerabteilung 503). It was first used on the Eastern Front on 12 August 1944 with schwere PzAbt 501 in the fighting at the Soviets’ Baranov bridgehead over the Vistula River. In this action, a single Soviet T-34-85 under the command of Guards Lieutenant Os’kin from the 53rd Guards Tank Brigade knocked out three Tiger IIs by firing at their sides from an ambush position. Later the Tiger II was present at, among others, the Ardennes Offensive, the Soviet offensive into Poland and East Prussia in January 1945, the German offensives in Hungary in 1945, fighting to the east of Berlin at the Seelow Heights in April 1945 and finally within the city of Berlin itself at the very end of the war.
The Sherman-equipped 4th/7th Royal Dragoon Guards claim they were the first British regiment to knock out a King Tiger, on 8 August 1944, in France.