Tank III.

This is coolbert:

Conclusion!

Maus und Ratte!!

This stuff has to be seen to be believed!!

Super-heavy German tanks of the Second World War [WW2]!

As proposed and ONLY existing as merely drawing board curiosities and oddities, and thank GOD for it too!!

1. The German Maus. Super-heavy tank very heavily armored and gunned but THERE NOT EXISTING AN ENGINE ABLE TO PROPEL THE BEAST!! Maus but NOT a mouse! Again only proposed but never got beyond the drawing board stage of development.

"the Maus's main armament was a 128 mm KwK 44 L/55 gun (55 calibers long barrel), based on the 12.8 cm Pak 44 anti-tank artillery piece, with a coaxial 75 mm gun."

Here the Maus! TWO MAIN GUNS IN THE SAME TURRET. One gun of super-caliber and bore that second gun less so but that 75 mm weapon nonetheless possessing under normal circumstances a considerable bang and wallop!

2. The German Landkreuzer P. The Land Cruiser. A land warship of super size A NAVAL GUN MOUNTED IN THE TURRET! This too a concept that NEVER got beyond the idea or drawing board stage. I would have to think ONLY a few of these ever could be built and probably too susceptible to breakdown as well!!

"The Landkreuzer P. 1000 Ratte was a design for a super-heavy tank for use by Nazi Germany during World War II. It was designed in 1942 by Krupp with the approval of Adolf Hitler, but the project was canceled by Albert Speer in early 1943 and no tank was ever completed. At 1,000 metric tons [that is about TWENTY times the normal weight of a heavy tank of the era], the P-1000 would have been over five times as heavy as the Panzer VIII Maus, the heaviest tank ever built."

For scale that is a HUMAN on the far left of the image, comparison tanks the Maus and the Tiger to the right!

"It was to be armed with naval artillery and armored with 10 inches (25 cm) of hardened steel, so heavily that only similar weapons could hope to affect it. To compensate for its immense weight, the Ratte would have been equipped with three 1.2 metre (3.9 ft) wide treads on each side with a total tread width of 7.2 metres (24 ft). This would help stability and weight distribution, but the vehicle's sheer mass would have destroyed roads and rendered bridge crossings next to impossible. However, it was anticipated that its height, and its ground clearance of 2 metres (6.6 ft) would have allowed it to ford most rivers with ease."

Right, would have collapsed roads and bridges and perhaps too even stuck on the bottom of a muddy river it attempted to ford. Was not a feasible idea and not even worth of consideration but such wonder weapons for whatever reason usually caught the imagination of Hitler as do-able! NOT SO!

The German during WW2 not even able to field even large numbers of the Tiger tanks to make a significant difference. Resources expended on a Ratte for instance might be better spent in the construction of a multitude of proven winning armor designs, tanks, PAK cannon and assault guns!

coolbert.