The Maus Tank.

The Maus was the largest and most powerful tank that has ever been made. Cynically, it was called the Maus ( mouse ) because of its sheer size.

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How The Maus Grew.

Operation Barbarosa the invasion of Russia in mid 1941 was at first thought by the German High Command to be an easy campaign against inferior forces with an equally inferior tank force. They were however soon proved to be wrong. The Russian T-34 and KV-1 tank was far superior to anything that the Germans had and the performance in combat of these tanks accounted for the loss of a large quantity of German armour as they advanced deeper into Russia.

Reports of these losses from the 'less than inferior' Russian tanks quickly reached Hitler and after the initial shock had subsided directives were issued to build better tanks. The agenda included the now famous Panther and Tiger tanks, but later Hitler wanted something even better after hearing rumours that the Russians were to build a 100 ton monster tank.

Hitler realised that he needed a super tank to confront any eventualities, and on June 8th 1942 he approached his chief tank designer, Dr Ferdinand Porsche ( The same namesake incidentally that today builds high quality super sports cars like the Porsche 911, Porsche Carrera etc ) and armaments minister Albert Speer. He told them to design a super tank that would carry a huge 128mm or even 150mm main gun with the possibility of a second coaxial gun with a calibre of at least 75mm within the same turret.

An Artists impression of the Maus above gives some idea of what the camouflage paint scheme looked like in colour, as actual colour photos are rare...see below for some modern real colour photos taken in a museum.

The Maus tank being loaded onto a train flat-back possibly for test purposes, another school of thought believe that this photo depicts the time when the Russians captured the Maus and packed it off to Russia for inspection. The Maus was made deliberately narrow for such transportation utilization.

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All tanks are designed around three deciding factors, Mobility, Protection and Firepower. Hitler stated that the super tank should be built around Firepower first and Protection second, whereas mobility was not a direct issue.

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Taking Shape.

The dimensions of the Maus were carefully considered and due to the fact that it would have to be transported by rail it could not exceed a certain width. Because of its estimated weight of over 100 tons, it would also need to be fitted with a snorkel device as small bridges would not have been able to support its weight. A wading depth of 8 metres was calculated.

The secret project to build this tank with Firepower as the precedence went under way on August 1 1943, the tank was at first referred to as the Mammut ( Mammoth ) and was assigned a project tank build number of 205.

The Hull was made by Krupp steel industries whilst the firm of Alkett ( Altmarkische Kettenfabrik ) did all of the assembly work and manufactured the heavy tracks, a Daimler Benz Maybach V12 engine was also installed. Electrical components came from Siemens-Schuckert.

The wheels were more like rollers and there were 24 of them combined in 12 bogies, 6 sets on each side.

They were hung from a cross member that was fixed to the hull, each set of rollers had its own fully independent movement.

The tank was extensively tested at Böblingen, Stuttgart on January 10th 1944 and apart from some problems with the suspension as a direct result of the weight of the tank, the trials were a success and the tank performed as its designers had at first intended. The only real change was to the tanks name, it was re-named The MAUS .

Click on above image to enlarge of this this ultra rare photo of two Maus tanks together at Kummersdorf, parked in a bunker for safety after the testing session for the day was over.

Hitler's orders were that the tank should be ready for combat by June 1944. It was on the 9th of June that the finished turret was finally installed and the Maus was again sent to trial grounds this time at Kummersdorf and a second prototype that was also constructed was tested at the same place but the installation of a new engine gave rise to big problems.

The engine in the Maus took up most of the internal chassis space due to its size so subsequently the fuel tanks were placed at the front lower end of the tank. There was an 8 hp auxiliary engine that provided starting power and charged up the batteries, this along with electric drive motors located at the rear, independently powered the turret and allowed full transversal in 16 seconds.

All the ammunition was stowed in the middle left hand side of the hull/turret area as space was restricted.

It has to be remembered that the turret alone weighed 50 tons ! It was cast in a complete part and had additional armour, 'dovetail' welded to the sides and rear with extra plates to the front.

The Maus on trial probably at the Kummersdorf testing grounds sometime in 1944. A 'sickle ' camouflage pattern has also been applied.

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Technicalities.

The Maus would have had a crew of either 5 or 6.

The tanks hull was 10.1 meters long and 3.67 meters wide and 3.66 meters tall.

and weighed in at 188 tons !

Armed with a colossal 128 mm main gun with 32 stowed rounds and a 75 mm secondary coaxial gun with 200 stowed rounds it would have destroyed any tank that was around at that time, or even today.

The guns elevation was from -7 degrees to 23+ degrees !

The Daimler Benz Maybach MB-509 engine could deliver 1080 hp @ 2400rpm and the other engine the MB-517 could deliver 1200 hp. The maximum speed achieved ( on a flat surface) was only 20 Kph, 13 Kph was its normal operating speed. A very slow lumbering giant !

With 2 forward and 2 reverse gears the tank could tackle a 30 degrees incline on its 110cm wide tracks and climb over a two feet high obstacle. I would like to state that ' obstacles ' would probably have been ' pan caked ' due to its weight !

The testing continued.

The fuel tank capacity was 2700 litres with an extra 1500 litre fuel tank attached to the back of the hull. This fuel tank of course would have been empty by the time the tank got within range of the enemy.

The hull had 200mm armour plate with 180mm side and rear armour. The turret armour being 240mm thick at the front and 200mm thick on the sides. As stated earlier, this tank had so much armour plating the result was that it had very poor speed and mobility but if no enemy tanks shells could penetrate the armour then why worry !

A good close up is offered here of the frontal armour plate, that was nearly 10 inches thick ! and would probably have been impenetrable to any round fired at it.

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The Maus In Colour.

These photos were taken of the sole surviving Maus tank. It sits in the Kubinka Tank Museum in Russia.

Quite an impressive view of the Maus. In this photo the thickness of the armour plating can be appreciated as can the slope that the armour was set at to help to deflect enemy shell hits.

The Maus has recently been repainted in its original camouflage scheme by specialists from the Russian historical preservation society. As have all of the vehicles situated there.

In the above picture, shell and bullet impact indentations can be observed in the armour plating, these were probably done during tests of this tank by the Russians in 1952 to determine the strength of the glacis plate. After all, Kubinka was the Russians main secret tank testing ground at the time.

Above is a nice clear shot of the rear end of the Maus, and you may notice that the external fuel tank has been removed.

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Conclusion.

The Maus took too long to produce from the drawing board to a finished product. By the time it was ready to go into full production the war was nearly at an end.

Germany and its tank production in the Second World War was too full of changes and upgrading of 'best sellers' like the Tiger I, if like the Russians for a classic example had just stuck to one great design and mass produced it like the T-34 they might have been more successful.

The Russians stuck to one basic tank design, the T-34, and ended up making a staggering 50,000 of them by 1945 !. All the spares for T-34's were 100% interchangeable with every other T-34 made, unlike the Germans who could not get spare parts for 'obsolete' 3 month old tanks because they made so many different types and variants, always upgrading specifications and modernising already proven designs.

There were in fact only 2 prototype Maus tanks ever built to completion and the sole surviving tank is now as stated earlier situated in the Russian Tank Museum at Kubinka.

The other tank was blown up by the Germans at Kummersdorf as Russians were advancing.

Above: The Russians inspect what appears to be a relatively intact Maus tank, maybe this it the actual tank albeit renovated that now sits in the Russian museum at Kubinka. We could estimate that the Russians advance was so swift that the Germans didn't have time to rig this Maus up for detonation.

Above: This Maus wasn't so lucky, The Germans had packed explosives inside it which were then detonated, subsequently blowing it up. This measure was taken to stop it being captured by the Russians. The 'dove-tail' weld where the armour plates were "keyed in" down the front of the slanted glacis plate is quite visible in this photo.

The 50 ton turret is dragged of the wreck by the Russians for further inspection using a captured German half-track. You can clearly see the hawsers around the turret and one connected to a shank that was screwed into the turret for lifting purposes. Observe in the photo below that this shank was not in place when that actual photo was taken.

The total destruction of the Maus tank is quite evident in this photo. One can presume that when the tank was blown up the turret blew into the air only to come down on the hull and caused even more damage by its shear weight. The big 128mm barrel also appears to have embedded itself into the earth quite a way.

The photo above actually shows that the other side of the Maus is relatively still in one piece, with the wide tracks still in place and going around the roller wheels and drive sprog.

Imagine the explosion needed though to throw a 50 ton turret up into the air, the same internal force that has completely blown away the armour plating off the other side. The result of the Germans determination not to let the Maus fall into enemy hands.

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The whole project was a complete waste of time, effort and resources, fortunately for the Allies.

Nine of these super tanks were actually in various stages of completion but the war ended before they could be completed.

There is no known record of the Maus tank having actually been in any sort of combat.

These two pictures depict Maus tanks under construction at the Krupp steel works as found by the allies at the end of the war.

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Special thanks to Mr. Ken Duffey for kindly allowing me to use four colour photos of the Maus at Kubinka.

Click image below to visit Kubinka Tank Museum in Russia