losses were two from combat, plus the company commander's tank which became irrecoverably trapped after falling into a bomb crater made during the simultaneous Operation Goodwood. On the Eastern Front, it was first used on 12 August 1944 by the Schwere Heers Panzer Abteilung 501 (s.H.Pz.Abt. 501) resisting the Lvov–Sandomierz Offensive. It attacked the Soviet bridgehead over the Vistula River near Baranów Sandomierski. The majority of King Tigers went to Wehrmacht units, while some 150 were assigned to the Waffen SS. The first Tigers II tanks reached schwere Panzer Abteilungen of both Wehrmacht and Waffen SS as early as February 1944. Only two companies of Schwere Heers Panzer Abteilung 503 (s.H.Pz.Abt. 503), equipped with Tiger II tanks (with Porsche turrets), were committed to the fighting in Normandy. Tiger II tanks of schwere Panzerabteilung 506 (s.Pz.Abt. 506), saw combat during the Operation Market Garden in the Netherlands in September 1944. On 15 October 1944 Tiger IIs of s.H.Pz.Abt. 503 played a crucial role during Operation Panzerfaust, supporting Otto Skorzeny's troops in taking the Hungarian capital of Budapest, which ensured that the country remained with the Axis until the end of the war. The Tiger II was also present at the Ardennes Offensive of December 1944, the Soviet Vistula–Oder and East Prussian Offensives in January 1945, the German Lake Balaton Offensive in Hungary in March 1945, the Battle of the Seelow Heights in April 1945, and finally the Battle of Berlin at the end of the war. During the war, the mass of a panzer increased from the 5.4 tonnes of a pre-war Panzer I light tank, to 68.5 tonnes of the Tiger II. In the meantime, the Soviets continued to produce the T-34 by the tens of thousands, and U.S. industry nearly matched them in the number of M4 Sherman tanks built and deployed in Western Europe. Throughout the war, the panzer was a key piece of the combined arms doctrines supporting the German blitzkrieg. The tanks were used in almost every theatre of German involvement. Their largest engagement occurred at the Battle of Prokhorovka, which saw about three hundred panzers pitted against five hundred Soviet tanks. Cold War After the war, West Germany was given United States-built M47 and M48 Patton tanks and in 1956 the Germans began development of the Leopard tank project to build a modern German tank, the Standard-Panzer, to replace the Bundeswehr's outdated tanks. The German