Although formidably-supplied at first deployment with 45 new Tigers on initial assignment, the sPzAbt 501 suffered the same lack of re-supply which plagued the German forces in the East from almost the very beginning. Receiving no new production replacement Tigers until June 1944 -- and even then only six -- the 501 was effectively decimated by the Russian summer offensive of 1944. Those who survived were pulled out and re-fitted with the new Tiger II tanks, only to be sent back to the Eastern Front and once again overwhelmed by Soviet forces.