THE TIGER TANK was dramatically more powerful than any other tank when deployed in 1942. Why were the Allies taken by surprise? How did the Germans preserve its secrets? After 20 years of research on three continents, across 25 battle maps, 31 tables of data, more than 500 photographs and drawings, and previously unidentified first-hand accounts, these volumes reveal what Allied technicians discovered and what the propagandists covered up and distorted. Thus, we can learn more about the Tiger as it really was, rather than the hearsay that history books perpetuate. THIS FIRST VOLUME explains what foreigners knew about Germany's heavy tanks from 1926 to 1943; how the British decrypted signals about Tigers months before confirmation in the field; how the Soviets fought Tigers eight months before sharing intelligence with Allies; how the Western Allies fought Tigers seven weeks earlier than they realized; how the French were the targets of the first deep battle involving Tigers, but the Americans captured the personnel and components, while the British captured the imagery. The capture of Tiger 231 is stranger still. British units claimed it, but a Canadian commanded the company that first fired on it, and a Canadian engineer was the first to exploit it; although it lay within Allied lines, the Germans demolished it; they rated the demolition as thorough, but two British technicians heroically and accurately analysed the wreck; yet propaganda and political spin proved more enduring, even today.