@@derrickstorm6976 oh I did not calling them idiots at all. Some of the greatest engineers of all time. They had to design a tank of specs that were outrageous. My point is they most likely would have been a death trap and I'm sure they were happy to be building them then fighting in them if that makes any sense.
aye 1942 Premise, when technology militarily was developing so fast. Was a Odd choice given that the gun on both the maus and e-100 was overkill till the 60s and debatably after with 105mm Sabot/Heat being prevalent in the west.
@@julmdamaslefttoe3559 The 128mm suffered from 2 piece shell loading which took a lot of time, and that is what killed its potential as a decent gun post war. Also by the 1950,s HEATFS shells got introduced which had more penetrative capability then the 128mm.
I think the grand thing a lot of people forget about the Maus is that it didn't really fit all the requirements needed of a tank versatile to change a battlefield: 1: 188 tons, a whole lot of man-hours, resources, assembly time, and maintenance going into a singular tank that could instead be used to make 3-4 Panthers or 2&1/2 Tiger IIs doesn't tend to be very good for supply lines or actual force projection. That one finished Maus can maybe get to one front after a lot of time in the logistics line, meanwhile a batch of Panzer 4s or Panthers could be divvied up among multiple locations where they were needed the most. 2: Combined arms. You know what the worst nightmare of a tank is? Being unsupported. You know what an air force loves? Enemy tanks and strategic targets that aren't supported. As far as I'm aware the German air force had been effectively wiped out by the end of the war, so the Maus probably would've been going into conflict zones where there would be no deterrents from American or Russian air attack, and seeing how fond the US was of their close air support and strike runs?...Only takes so many passes from a P-47 or P-51 before one of those bombs or rockets gets lucky. 3: Size matters. The Maus was big, heavy, and slow. Armor was fantastic, that's a fact, and it would've stopped Allied 75s, 76s, and maybe even the 90s dead in their tracks, but when this thing barely clears 10 KPH and can't go over most bridges due to the fact that it'll collapse them, you're looking at a tank which is very limited in combat and deployment capacity, and being a big, slow target not only means it'll be easy for the enemy to see coming and engage from range, but artillery and indirect fire weapons are probably going to love chewing it to pieces. Also don't forget the survivability onion, the Maus would definitely be seen, due to its large size, acquired, due to its slow speed, and hit, due to a lack of overall maneuverability, which means the only two layers it has left are 'Don't be penetrated' and 'Don't be killed'. 4: Numbers, if you have an unkillable super-tank that can beat everything it comes across, that's great, but if you only have one, your ace in the hole can only be in one place at a time, and it has to get re-sorted and travel between all the points on the front to really make a difference. For a Maus? Once one was in the theater, it'd probably be staying there, because trying to load it onto a train or use the roads to ferry it to another side of the front would be far too impractical. You're also fighting a war where hundreds of thousands of hostile troops and thousands upon thousands of hostile tanks and vehicles are pushing your frontline from all directions. Sure, a Sherman might not be able to fight a Maus in a head-on engagement, but the Sherman can outmanuever and outrun the Maus, and if it decides it wants to disengage, there's no way in hell the Maus is ever keeping up with it. I wouldn't be surprised if the actual tactic would've been to just keep slamming smoke rounds into its face while one was getting out of engagement range. 5: Last but not least, supply. Sure, the Maus was a big, intimidating battlestation on tracks, but even if it did manage to get produced and deployed in a capacity to potentially make a difference, every single one is a massive drain on fuel, ammunition, spare parts, and crew, both of the tanking and mechanic variety. Not to mention you'd have to ensure those crews assigned to it knew how to operate the behemoth and didn't wind up botching the transmission or fouling one of the important internal systems. This doesn't even get into the risks or time required to reload and resupply it after engagements, the potential hazard of it running out of fuel or breaking down en-route to the fight, or the fact that the second any Allied forward scouts got their eyes on one they'd be forwarding its coordinates to every artillery battery active in the theater or every available strike craft looking to earn another mark for tanks killed. I'm no history expert, but part of me is left to think pursuit of ordeals like the Panther II (If that's even what it might be called) and the E-75 would've been...Maybe not more practical, but more reasonable in implementation and returns. Even then, Germany still would've lost, as when one's this far on the backfoot and this far into the pit of no potential recovery...Even a wonder weapon probably isn't enough to make a difference.
@@thewhiteowl9885 It didn't affect the world. All it did was surprise the Russian when they stormed the testing facility, be an absolute pain to the Russianz in post-war testing and re-affirm the idea that heavy tanks serve no real purpose anymore and medium / main battle tanks are far better. It think he deserves a generous "B+", he did reuse some parts of his argument over and over, so no A.
Well, tanks are all about balance. If you make a tank super heavy and near invisible to armor penetration, it will have some major downsides that limit its use to specific scenarios. Transportation becomes a nightmare and so does maintenance and recovery. In the end the disadvantages outweigh the advantages heavily.
i think of the maus was redesigned it could be decent like they could have shaved some weight off why does it need 150mm of armor ok the back? if you took the sides and back armor off the thing would still be unlikable and 3x more mobile
@@popinmo and a different engine and drive system as well as a small turret and hull. This will include removing the circular shot trap and coaxial 75mm gun
That's why I don't really respect late WWII German designs. They became more and more harder to operate and maintain. With their "wonder weapons" just being even heavier versions than they had, which wouldn't have been able to operate in a meaningful capacity.
Not to mention by that point the allied airforces had effectively green air so a super slow huge tank would be a free kill for any plane that could carry a bomb bigger than 50KG
Exactly, they wouldn't even need to destroy it with that 50kg bomb, just break a track because you ain't changing the tracks on a maus in the field, at least not before something with a bigger bomb comes along
Very By the time they could be fielded.. On both fronts all German airpower would be completely decimated leaving it nye unprotected against aerial attacks. And considering how large the silhouette is.. It would be hard to miss Not to mention the problems with transport, repair infrastructure
While it certainly would not have been the most effective solution, I would imagine they would recognize this issue and try to make sure every Maus was accompanied by some form of Anti-Aircraft unit
Tank busting air power has been pretty conclusively shown to be overrated, and as a P-47 I have no ulterior motive to mention that. While yes, air power would be dangerous, thicker armor also means more resistance to already ineffective air attack.
@@p-47thunderbolt57 yea, but you don't have to destroy the tank. You just have to bust the tracks, and it's game over. Also, Im pretty sure a 250-500 kg bomb going off close to it will still do bad things to both the tank and crew. It may be mostly impervious to rockets, guns and 50-100 kilo bombs, but giving some of your ground attack aircraft 250 kg bombs is not exactly hard.
@@gustavchambert7072 in order for a super heavy like the maus to have adaquete anti air defence, you'd need something like a powered turret on top of the main turret armed with belt fed 20mm's at least. Insane.
@@Rendell001 yep, and even that's probably inadequate. Hell, it might even do more harm than good, since it will put up a giant "HERE I AM" sign for every ground attack aircraft in the area as soon as it starts shooting.
While the electric transmission was referenced as having been used for tanks and busses, I think it's notable that the real sucess of such systems were on trains, which revolutionized that industry, difference being of course that they have all the space in the world to give adequate cooling and power generation, in addition to the obvious differences in traction type and load demand. What are the "superheavy" soviet tanks that supposedly brought about the Maus? I'm aware of WoT having the KV-4 and KV-5, but it seems to me like they lack any basis in reality.
According to their pages on the WoT wiki (which, obviously, can be of very questionable reliability), the Soviets caught wind of the Germans developing the Lowe or something, and something to counter it was ordered. I've run across what are supposedly recreations of the proposed designs, though the most noteworthy thing (IMHO) about them is that none of them have even a close resemblance to WoT's KV-4 or KV-5. (Considering that the programs for those tanks were still working on which design they wanted to go with when Barbarossa started, and the programs were scrapped, I'm not surprised WarGaming kinda came up with their own design.) IIRC the T-150 and KV-3, the latter of which weighing as much as a Tiger II, actually got to at least the prototype stage, but like the KV-4 and KV-5, once Barbarossa started, development was halted. IIRC the T-150 got a KV-1 turret slapped on it and sent to the front, and the KV-3 either got the same treatment or was scrapped.
Germany saw Soviet armor growing not only in size but quantity as well, tanks like the ISU-152/122 and IS-2 were already very capable vehicles and Germany correctly assumed the Soviets would make even bigger more powerful vehicles, these were tanks like the IS-3, IS-4/6 and even later vehicles like the IS-7 and T-10. Germany knew they couldn't out produce these tanks ("yet") but knew they could outperform them, so they constructed tanks like the Maus, Maus II (yes there was a second) E100 and Jagdpanzer E100 (yes this was a real design which had a working gun and could use the already working E100 chasis.) They also needed a heavy breakthrough tank for offensives like Kursk that could survive incredible damage and breakthrough after only 5-20 miles so "blitzkrieg" tanks like the panther could penetrate deep behind enemy lines and encircle enemy forces.
The reason I like the Maus is it seems so crazy and the fact the German's considered going even further with the Ratte. Same basic idea with the German proposed battleship plan that had ships double the weight of the Iowa class battleship.
Britain had plans for a super battleship with 20” guns in 1920. The battle against Bismarck would have been a little bit different had the Royal Navy not kept strictly to the treaties. Unlike every other nation.
@@jugganaut33 The treaty was actually enforced for a while. It halted the construction of Japanese, American and Brittish battleships. The issue for Hood was that it was a WW1-era design Battlecruiser. Armor wasn't adecuate to fight battleships. And Bismarck got one REALLY lucky shot. The King George V class was terrible because the quad 14" turrets were unreliable. They should have just ditched the treaty and proceeded to make more 16" BBs like America did.
Both the Ratte and the H-44 were never seriously considered. Everything beyond the H-39 class were just studies how a BB this size WOULD look like. And if you think about how the Ratte neither had any blueprints nor any specs that you find reliable information about should make it obvious that there was no serious planing involved in the project. Other Tanks like the E-Series on the other hand have defined stats and some "blueprints".
@@jugganaut33 if I remember correctly it's name was to be HMS Incomparable. And the ship was to be considered a Battlecruiser because the design had poor armor protection compared to battleships but had a higher speed.
@@warpey5632 And probably over two dozen Hetzers. Perhaps as many as 30. As mediocre as the Hetzers can be at times, I'd take 20-30 more sneaky TDs over one superheavy political statement of a tank.,
I remember watching a video about the maus and Why it would fail, one of the arguments was that, by the time the maus would've come out, it wouldn't have been able to do much because allied CAS were pretty much free to bomb it to hell since the luftwaffe was basically gone.
The Maus would have been an awful heavy tank, but it was not designed as a heavy tank. It was designed as a "tracked bunker", and in that role it could have performed adequately. Attach 3-5 of these to an engineering section, roll them into prepared positions, and use them as bunkers. This would have allowed defensive positions to be more mobile while still giving better protection and firepower than could be provided by other vehicles. The Maus wasn't as good as some people claim, but it definitely wasn't as bad as some people claim either. It's still debatable if the resources were better spent on more assault guns, though.
Until the Mauses get bombed by allied fighter bombers. Don't forget the Luftwaffe wasn't really a factor anymore at the time these things really could've seen any action. And, given the resource shortage the Reich already had before that, the numbers would make them quite rare targets that could be outmanouvered if really necessary. Not to mention the fact that it couldn't go over many bridges or fit on rail cars so getting into position would be a hastle if it wasn't right outside of factory gates ...
@@gamingfox9845 If the Maus was able to be produced, I doubt allied air wouldve been an issue if it was under production since Germany wouldve had to be winning the air war and likely the ground war.
@@stirlingramsay DISCLAIMER: this is not my opinion what he's saying is that under the circumstances that Mäuse were produced in any significant capacity, Germany would've had to be in a far better position than they were, so that they could be built. In that circumstance the Luftwaffe probably would have been able to contest control of the air. MY OPINION: this makes some sense, but if Germany is in such a position there is no need for a slow and impractical tank, that is more suited for defence (it would likely fail in this role too though), because such a tank cannot keep up with rapid advances and redeployments.
The problem with the Maus is its basic design. It would be completely ineffective and unusable in combat. It was extremely vulnerable to aircraft and would have been just a slow-moving artillery target. It honestly kinda seems like something someone with no real idea on how warfare works would design a tank, "Just put an absurd amount of armor and a really big gun on it, then it will kill everything." The Maus would have basically no strategic mobility and likely by the time it got to the front, the battle would be over.
Vulnerable to aircraft? Literally would be the LEAST vulnerable tank to aircraft for the entire war. Firstly CAS vs tanks were absolutely horrendous and the amount of claimed kills compared to actual kills is fucking hilarious, second the maus has way thicker armor and much more protected tracks than other tanks would make it all the more difficult to knock out by aircraft not to mention they would 100% be escorted by SPAA so cals won’t even be able to get close in the first place.
Yeah it was a excellent tank compared to every other nations available tanks in service. Reliable armor protection that took several hits from the 12.8cm cannon the same gun the maus tanks had and took minimal damage. Great handing and top speed. And a 120/130mm main gun. It's a shame logistics and overall cost of producing the prototypes resulted in the end of a extraordinary tank project in my opinion.
it is well known that soviet tanks are massively propaganda and whenever actual conflict broke out such as ukraine right now, their tanks are exposed as rubbish
I think the maus would have been scary but i dont think it would have changed anything about the wars outcome. Honestly i think hitler was way too obsessed with armor rather than providing better infantry equipment and bolstering materials for the luftwaffes planes to be repaired or replaced. There was immense pressure from hitler to produce more tanks that were heavier and heavier. I think this really hurt them in the long run.
It was specifically designed by Porsche so it could be added to War Thunder. Wasn't really meant for real life. They did played with it a little tho. German time travelers loved War Thunder so they started the project as far as I know.
@@zahylon5993 The Mendeleev Tank fits that even better. It was supposedly designed around 1898, although we only have solid evidence for 1911. Literal cube with 120mm naval gun and 150mm of frontal armor and 100mm for the sides and rear. Also had a MG turret on top that could be raised and lowered. The hull itself would've been 32 feet long (42 feet with gun barrel) and around 10 feet wide. How much would it weigh? Around 173 tons. Speed? Supposed top speed of 15 mph/24 kmh. Somehow faster than the Maus despite being from WW1. Engine? If you guessed submarine engine, you'd be right. Crew count of 8-12 crew. This is the true cartoonish villain tank.
The Maus was basically a land battleship, and it would have failed for the same reason sea battleships did. Air power. While ground attack aircraft were not as effective against ground vehicles as is sometimes claimed, it would have been different for the Maus. That thing is so big, sliw and clumsy that it is almost impossible to miss. Sure, you might have to arm your ground attack aircraft with 250-500 pound bombs, so that even a not so near miss will take it out, at least track it, but that's easily worth it. That is, if it could get to the battlefield at all, due to it having a fuel consumption closer to a battleship than a regular tank....
Battleships aren't actually obsolete because of air power, because they can be equipped with similar anti-air capabilities as modern warships The main reason why it was obsolete is because Cruisers and Destroyers are now able to fulfill its role perfectly while being much cheaper to built and maintained
@@Kalashnikov413 battleships are obsolete because any ship able to withstand Antiship munitions cant float, because armor doesnt do anything when the ocean is folding your ship in half like paper
@@F14thunderhawk ''reminder that both Maus prototypes were killed by IL-2s. the only confirmed CAS gun kills of the war'' - Source: trust me bro ''battleships are obsolete because any ship able to withstand Antiship munitions cant float, because armor doesnt do anything when the ocean is folding your ship in half like paper'' - That literally doesn't prove anything at all
This thing was too heavy to transport effectively. It was too difficult to repair reliably. It would have been bombed or artillery'd to death. A very poorly conceptualized tank design. (Edit) I see a lot of individuals have a great many misconceptions about the Maus. Dare I say delusions, even. I can only imagine what spook is dealing with right now. Metal fatigue, no matter how thick the armor is, will cause it to break. It would run out of fuel before it could make any significant progress with germany's supply lines in shambles. Even if it wasn't taken out by allied ordnance or its massive fuel consumption, it was more likely to break it's own parts due to the stress exerted on its components from such extreme weight. To say nothing of it getting potentially stuck in the terrain. A problem even far lighter tanks suffer from. I realize some individuals will continue to be delusional about the Maus, but I ask anyone who's read this far that has even the faintest glimmer of wisdom to not listen to the deluded, and look at the Maus objectively, with everything surrounding it in mind. Thanks for trying to help spread knowledge, Spook.
"It would have been bombed or artillery'd to death." No, it wouldn't. It has such ridiculous armour on all arcs that the only thing it is vulnerable to is direct hits no matter what tonnage of bombs are dropped on it. And before guided weapons direct hits didn't happen (which is why air support was notoriously bad at killing tanks in general in WW2). A nice illustration is looking at divebomb attacks on capital ships. Most accurate form of bombing during the era, in what is as close to ideal circumstances as possible, and still a 10% hit rate was abnormally good. Same thing with artillery of course, basic rule of thumb was that artillery of WW2 had a rough CEP of 1 tenth the distance being fired. As big as the mouse is, the probability of a direct hit, never mind a catastrophic direct hit, was basically nonexistent.
@@danielzhang5395 The tracks are functionally invulnerable to artillery and low poundage bombs as well due to how little exposure they have. But even assuming the tracks do get wrecked with regularity, the amount invested in bombing or shelling them vs the amount required to repair them is an overall win for the Germans, (which if you know how they worked for recovery is just how the Germans worked back then). So the only threat that knocked out tracks present is the vehicle being overrun if there is no recovery vehicle present, which the way the Maus is an indestructible strongpoint makes difficult. The Maus would have been an effective tank if produced, the idea that it would have been useless is silly. Whether or not it would have been more effective than a greater investment in panthers however is questionable.
@@danielzhang5395 Oh and also on your "this thing is huge!". There's a reason why I mentioned capital ships. The maus is 10x4m. As a comparison the Yamato was 265x40. In its sinking the Yamato had approximately 300 bombs and torpedos launched at it, 15 hit. Bombing was incredibly inaccurate during WW2 and right up until the modern day.
Also the fact German fuel storages and you could hardly get the damn thing anywhere between the low speed and weight preventing it from crossing a lot of bridges in Germany.
Even if by a miracle for the germans, they had produced a whole divistion of Maus, shipped them to the front without breaking bridges, and have them and their crew ready to roll out into battle, they would either run out of fuel/break down very quickly or get decimated by allied/soviet air supremacy before any meaningful breakthrough in allied lines xD
A tank like this cand have anti aerian sistem on him. And he can fight against another tanks division alone. T34 or t34- 85 cand do nothing against him. In a war you cant just send air force to attack bcs enemy will have everywhere anti air.
Oh, it was absolutely awesome... from technical standpoint. As a series of really great components that should have stayed separate:D P.S.: so, apparently you don't use Maus's 75mm as glorified smoke launcher? Why?
I just want to say that Spookston still hasn't keybinded a separate button for firing the secondary, and possible tertiary weapons. He still fires both guns at the same time though he has a button for switching firing modes. I find it weird because it takes extra time select the secondary weapon and fire then.
If it was used in combat then one T-34 would drive under it to stop it and also act as a slope for the another T-34 that would drive onto the Maus's hull to block its turret in the sideways position and then the third T-34 would shoot into Maus's radiators from the high ground
the fact they even built as many as they did is astounding 24 hulls completed there was 12 turrets ready for mounting but it was such a waste of resources that could've gone to better use.
Maus was a total clown project yet no fuel resources and enemy bombers easily able to kill it even if maus was able to survive from bombs still would broke down from heaviness and no spare parts as well
Except only a 1000 pound bomb or larger could kill it, and that needed almost a direct hit, due to the Muas having extremly thick sides and rear armor, practically a 2000 pound bomb or better yet a 4000 pound one where needed, yet only 4 engine bombers where able to carry those, and those lacked the precision to kill it.
@@SomuaSomua I mean true, but they are 40 mm thick and mostly covered by 80mm of blast protection, so the bomb would have to be close to do it. And a Maus would almost certainly have been planned to be accompanied by anti-air vehicles
One thing a lot of people I think seem to overlook is that the Maus would have been an easy target for allied air power, and during the end of the war, Germany didn't have the production to be able to make enough individual Maus tanks as well as supporting anti-aircraft to change anything. It's like when people look at the P.1000 Ratte and think "That could have changed the entire war for Germany." Yeah, it could have, because it would have likely sped up the war significantly if Germany wasted their time, manpower and resources on something that would be a literal bomb-magnet. Sure, it had anti-air built onto it, but it would have been so slow and such a large target that even high-altitude-bombing would hit it, with alrge bombs at the very least destroying the tracks nad immobilizing it, allowing other bombs to hit it. Imagine how hard it'd be to change the tracks on a thousand-tonne tank.
Even if the logistical issues of the Maus were completely ignored, the Maus as a tank simply could not be used effectively in most combat situations. The horrid mobility and practically nonexistent visibility would render the Maus completely useless against and at the mercy of spread out infantry and other tanks, which perhaps could not destroy it, but could easily disable it, at which point repairing it in the field would be literally impossible. The Maus is little more than a nearly immobile, impenetrable steel cube with a gun at the end of it. It’s sole advantage would be against enemy tanks in open areas that it could somehow see and shoot at despite the horrible visibility.
0:25 even if germany had started production i doubt it would´ve changed the war. Firstly, its a big target, and considering its sheer size, the fuel consumption would be quite severe, likewise with the lack of resources. Even if they had it in the 1930s i doubt it would win them the war.
This is my best performing tank in WT, had many triple aces on city maps which i cant do in other tanks,the amount of shells u can take and keep going...
What people actually still think this could have changed something? I thought it was universally considered impractical and a massive target to planes.
@@bombercbc9431 don't play the game but enjoy your free kills. The submarine Type XXI was truly revolutionary and is widely considered the first "real" submarine but too late too little. There's real cool stuff that was developed so I don't get why people hang on to the stupid stuff.
Even if the Maus was constructed today with modern materials and methods it still wouldn't work. And even if it did, the "mobile bunker" concept can be achieved in better ways. Like making bunkers.... or design a tank purely for defense, like the Swedish S-tank.
It was basically a tank that could in theory destroy any tank up to 3 miles away and provide the crew with the protection of a bunker. In practice no one will know how affective it was because it was never used. People have copied its design for kids games but I don’t see how real that is as you can’t take in account the wear on the engine or a weak part plus people can’t decide how it handled or how fast it went because zero were ever used in combat there was no finished product the Russians put the turret on one I just hope they did a better job than this American guy that poured water in the engine thinking it was radiator. I made sure to not let him put fuel in my car
A train would have the strength to pull it, the issue would be the cars not being strong enough. There were some bridges strong enough in some areas. Mainly US bridges though. Like the Brooklyn Bridge.
The gun being half a second away from loading then the gunner replacing thus taking the shell out to load a new one or the fact the dude just overpressured a medium with a 75mm HEAT on a 70° angle?
name’s the more frightening part honestly. they were most aware of their madness yet embraced it anyway. that said next to everyone tried to build phat af tanks so i would not mock them. somehow their shortcomings were not obvious enough to always stop at the drawing board.
Great video as always. Some notes: The Ferdinand actually used the already produced Porsche Tiger hulls as a basis, thats why only a few of them were made.
Man I can't wait to have this puppy out in the battlefield... Sinks seconds after leaving the concrete assembly line in a mud puddle, can't tow because of weight, already used all the fuel in the region starting, bombers pick it up miles away, exhaust turns the factory into an oven, breaks down with no access to crucial components. Luckily the blast from the bombs relocated the factory around it allowing use to disassemble it for repairs. Realize there is nothing left but tons on tons of scrap metal. Muh "German engineering"
One reason that E100 was canned off the gate was the width. Maus, for all her size and mass, was still narrow enough to fit on a rail car and be transported. Where as E100, tried to reduce ground pressure and leave more space for fuel by having even wider tracks, and had the side skirts to help protect the slightly thinner sides. As a result, to transport it by rail, you'd have to take off all the side skirts, break track, and replace them with much more narrow tracks, then find somewhere to store those modules. Then reverse all that once you were there. And I remember hearing from somewhere(Not sure where), that one of the heads of the German armor board felt the proposed power train and engine would be inadequate in every measure for a tank of that mass. Say what you want about Porsche, but he did have good ideas to make very flawed concepts mostly work.
Maus is about 3ft wider than a standard rail car and around 80 tons passed the weight limit. They needed to design its own special flat car to move it. Then there is the question of if your rail bridge could hold the weight of the thing as it crossed. The Russians had to send the one they captured back in pieces.
The Maus, in my opinion (and most superweapons in general, really) is the kind of project that should've only really been undertaken by a nation not at war looking for a defensive superweapon to act as a deterrent. And, further, such an expenditure would essentially depend on some form of technological plateau that has not been observed to my knowledge in the past century in order for it to provide any return on investment. Ultimately, the reality with superheavy tanks was that armaments were simply advancing too quickly for them to ever have been of value, even in an optimal use case. Outside of the realms of fiction, the situations in which they would be useful are few, and not enough to offset the ridiculous development, production, and operational costs they incur. And all of this is ignoring the same elephant in the room that slew the super-battleship-air power. Again, barring some flight of fancy in fiction, these things would be sitting ducks for dive bombers, which would render all of that expensive production and maintenance work moot in moments. In short, superheavy tanks should be confined to the realms of speculative fiction-where they are often quite beloved for their cool factor, I will grant (like Warhammer 40k's Baneblade, which... appears to have had its spec-sheet written-up by someone who merely checked the Maus for reference without any concept that armor had already advanced massively in the decades after its design, let alone in the 38 millennia that would transpire to arrive at the setting in question, even with the way it handles technology). However, taking a realistic approach to their limitations and justifications is important. In 40k's case, the Baneblade is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to ridiculously over-the-top equipment that the Imperium needs just to have a chance in the galaxy it inhabits. Even then it plays fast and loose with a great deal, of course, and different settings might need radically different methods to justify their own superheavies, but the point stands that you can concoct scenarios (confined to the reaches of speculative or fantastical fiction, granted) in which a superheavy is not just feasible, but actively a good idea. I suppose, then, this is a bit more of a writer's perspective than a more technical one, at this point, but I find that side particularly interesting as I work on my own material.
I did a project on the Maus on why it failed for one of my college engineering classes. This is why the Maus is my favourite tank, such a cool failure.
something i like to say is, if your tank requires a ladder to get into, all the enemy needs to be able to destroy is a ladder. this pertains to any aspect of a vehicle needing to be supported heavily by something else
When it comes to WW2 super vehicles in general, I think people often over look the importance of aircraft. When you look at battles like Normandy, where the Germans had a clear advantage in armor, the tanks that seemed unstoppable to the Sherman's became easy targets to the strike aircrafts.
What about that other thing that is said , that the Maus wasn't capable of "moving more than a metre" without running out of fuel . True , false or something in between ?
From what I could find, when it was originally found and transported (the only hull, and hull alone without turret) the vehicle absolutely chugged fuel, apparently taking mutliple refuelings because the Russians didnt realise how much it would take to move it just a short distance. So yea I imagine with the turret on this thing would have required a entire fuel depot to be towed along behind it.
As a tank, your main threats aren't even other tanks. Artillery, CAS and infantry have always been the primary threats to a tank. A super heavy tank only makes it easier for those threats to kill you. It's almost like everybody realized this hence the nearly universal adoption of MBTs.
The idea was to use the Maus together with other tanks and with air superiority. Probably 5 Maus and 50 smaller tanks. The normal fighting is done by the other tanks and the Maus tanks are only used when an obstacle blocks the progress.
The impressive thing is the overall growth of armament on tanks... the new German Panther has a 130mm gun, slightly larger than the 12.8cm behemoth shipped on the Maus.
the engine tech of these monsters always interests me. 1000 horsepower back then was the witchcraft inside a 30 liter engine, and now 1000 horsepower is a 3 liter whirly boy with some funny gas up the intake. And yet most of our tanks still only use 1500 or so at most. I know of course torque is the real factor to be measured here, but still. we never really made engines more powerful, just quieter, smaller, more efficient
There is another huge advantage to the petrol electric drive: it means that you do not need a gearbox. I think we all know how problematic WW2-era tank gearboxes tended to be.
People who think the Maus could have been gamechanging forget a lot of things. Here are just a few examples that come to mind: Ground-attack planes Sachel charges Anti tank mines The habit for german elitist armored divisions to spearhead and get surrounded (eastfront). For what it matters, I doubt that even the Ratte could have made a difference. One air strike, and it's dead. Congrats on putting all those resources in to craft one thing. Wanna craft another? No problem. Another air strike. Or anti-ratte landmine since it is so peculiar that I already know what path it will take.
@@ddoumeche Maybe it can't spearhead stationary defenses because the stationary defenses are too mobile for the Maus to engage, but it would be used for that purpose anyway.
Maus is for me the pinnacle of heavy tank engineering development. The mere fact it WAS possible for them to build a 188 ton vehicle and actually make it MOVE on its own... It is simply amazing. Mechanical problems aside, nothing has come close. Maus the best achievement of engineering a heavy tank.
The maus was a stupid idea its size and max speed made it so impractical that every bomber would have a field day bombing this thing or artillery or antitank mine or so on. And you say its a engineering marvel that they got it to move the bagger 293 moves and that is way bigger.
Honestly the biggest problem with ww2 German design was the fact they were on the defensive and that meant more are more and the horse power couldn’t keep up, some of the first MBTs were mainly medium tanks with decent armor and good enough speed
Hey Spookston, What are you thoughts on the VK30.01 (D) and VK30.02 (D). Outside of being able to be mistaken for the VK30.02(M) and Panther, do you think it would've been more viable/effective than the Panther?
There were two Maus projects aswell Tank encyclopedia has some articles about that and I think at some point ferdinant wanted to mount an AA turret on it too
There is also the unofficial story that the Maus was used to defend the base it was being tested at as the Russians came in, and that is the one at the museum in russia.
In world of tanks, you use the Maus as the vanguard of the team and its incredible amount of hit points to tank hits for the team. You also needed to drive back and forth while keeping the turret angled to the side for deflecting incoming fire. This is very far from what the tank was designed to be IRL, which cements how poor it would have been.
i've noticed in your video you seem to fire both the 75 and main cannon. do you do this on purpose? or just too lazy for that extra keybind for the like. 3 tanks that have multiple main cannons?
Using the electric motor as the transmission also was done on diesel electric subs and even on some ww2 steam turbine ships. Drachinifiel had discussed this in a video.
idea for tanks that should be added to wt: tanks of the German "E series", which the E100 was a part of. This series includes the E25, E50, E75, and tank destroyer modifications of the E100.
![โอ้เธอช่าง... - บี้เดอะสกา ft. ต๋อง เทวัญ (Prod. by ป๋าเพชร) [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/zbWhiLFmVL0/mqdefault.jpg)
Imagine you're a tank designer, and how happy you get when you are being told "you must not cut the weight on this thing under any circumstances" 😂
Ferdinand Porsche was the German mad doctor after all........
At this point I think the tank designers didn't really care. They were just glad they didn't have the drive the damn thing in battle
And this is how we got the p1000 ratte
@@jonathanperry8331 that logic hinges on the idea the designers were all complete idiots, like normal people without an engineering degree
@@derrickstorm6976 oh I did not calling them idiots at all. Some of the greatest engineers of all time. They had to design a tank of specs that were outrageous. My point is they most likely would have been a death trap and I'm sure they were happy to be building them then fighting in them if that makes any sense.
the development history of the maus along with its peculiar design compared to the tanks that Germany fielded at that point makes it really intresting
aye 1942 Premise, when technology militarily was developing so fast. Was a Odd choice given that the gun on both the maus and e-100 was overkill till the 60s and debatably after with 105mm Sabot/Heat being prevalent in the west.
@@julmdamaslefttoe3559 The 128mm suffered from 2 piece shell loading which took a lot of time, and that is what killed its potential as a decent gun post war. Also by the 1950,s HEATFS shells got introduced which had more penetrative capability then the 128mm.
Love your pfp :)
@@weaponizedautism6589 it does make you wonder what a 128 apds or heat round could do if it ever came to be
that's not my point (and 2 piece was never a factor, many modern MBTs now use multi piece ammunition
"Maus rolls into battlefield"
Every Allied Air Forces: *Oh look! Free target!!*
Every bridge in Germany: NOOOOOOOOOO!!!
Maus: exists
Overused CAS jokes: allow us to introduce ourselvels
Maus rolls into the battlefield!
it gets into the frontlines during Angela Merkel's term.
@@youlaughyouphill842 jealous you dont have the Maus?
@@dillonr6265If that's what you think people are jealous over, your life must be a joke.
I think the grand thing a lot of people forget about the Maus is that it didn't really fit all the requirements needed of a tank versatile to change a battlefield:
1: 188 tons, a whole lot of man-hours, resources, assembly time, and maintenance going into a singular tank that could instead be used to make 3-4 Panthers or 2&1/2 Tiger IIs doesn't tend to be very good for supply lines or actual force projection. That one finished Maus can maybe get to one front after a lot of time in the logistics line, meanwhile a batch of Panzer 4s or Panthers could be divvied up among multiple locations where they were needed the most.
2: Combined arms. You know what the worst nightmare of a tank is? Being unsupported. You know what an air force loves? Enemy tanks and strategic targets that aren't supported. As far as I'm aware the German air force had been effectively wiped out by the end of the war, so the Maus probably would've been going into conflict zones where there would be no deterrents from American or Russian air attack, and seeing how fond the US was of their close air support and strike runs?...Only takes so many passes from a P-47 or P-51 before one of those bombs or rockets gets lucky.
3: Size matters. The Maus was big, heavy, and slow. Armor was fantastic, that's a fact, and it would've stopped Allied 75s, 76s, and maybe even the 90s dead in their tracks, but when this thing barely clears 10 KPH and can't go over most bridges due to the fact that it'll collapse them, you're looking at a tank which is very limited in combat and deployment capacity, and being a big, slow target not only means it'll be easy for the enemy to see coming and engage from range, but artillery and indirect fire weapons are probably going to love chewing it to pieces. Also don't forget the survivability onion, the Maus would definitely be seen, due to its large size, acquired, due to its slow speed, and hit, due to a lack of overall maneuverability, which means the only two layers it has left are 'Don't be penetrated' and 'Don't be killed'.
4: Numbers, if you have an unkillable super-tank that can beat everything it comes across, that's great, but if you only have one, your ace in the hole can only be in one place at a time, and it has to get re-sorted and travel between all the points on the front to really make a difference. For a Maus? Once one was in the theater, it'd probably be staying there, because trying to load it onto a train or use the roads to ferry it to another side of the front would be far too impractical. You're also fighting a war where hundreds of thousands of hostile troops and thousands upon thousands of hostile tanks and vehicles are pushing your frontline from all directions. Sure, a Sherman might not be able to fight a Maus in a head-on engagement, but the Sherman can outmanuever and outrun the Maus, and if it decides it wants to disengage, there's no way in hell the Maus is ever keeping up with it. I wouldn't be surprised if the actual tactic would've been to just keep slamming smoke rounds into its face while one was getting out of engagement range.
5: Last but not least, supply. Sure, the Maus was a big, intimidating battlestation on tracks, but even if it did manage to get produced and deployed in a capacity to potentially make a difference, every single one is a massive drain on fuel, ammunition, spare parts, and crew, both of the tanking and mechanic variety. Not to mention you'd have to ensure those crews assigned to it knew how to operate the behemoth and didn't wind up botching the transmission or fouling one of the important internal systems. This doesn't even get into the risks or time required to reload and resupply it after engagements, the potential hazard of it running out of fuel or breaking down en-route to the fight, or the fact that the second any Allied forward scouts got their eyes on one they'd be forwarding its coordinates to every artillery battery active in the theater or every available strike craft looking to earn another mark for tanks killed.
I'm no history expert, but part of me is left to think pursuit of ordeals like the Panther II (If that's even what it might be called) and the E-75 would've been...Maybe not more practical, but more reasonable in implementation and returns. Even then, Germany still would've lost, as when one's this far on the backfoot and this far into the pit of no potential recovery...Even a wonder weapon probably isn't enough to make a difference.
'Don't be penetrated' and 'Don't be killed' sounds like the tasking for the last house party i went to honestly
Good analysis but you didnt explain in various ways how this affected the world today so u get a C
You explained it better than spookston lmao
@@thewhiteowl9885 It didn't affect the world. All it did was surprise the Russian when they stormed the testing facility, be an absolute pain to the Russianz in post-war testing and re-affirm the idea that heavy tanks serve no real purpose anymore and medium / main battle tanks are far better.
It think he deserves a generous "B+", he did reuse some parts of his argument over and over, so no A.
@@gearoidcoleman8979 it was a joke I was just doing the teacher bullshit criterias lol
Well, tanks are all about balance. If you make a tank super heavy and near invisible to armor penetration, it will have some major downsides that limit its use to specific scenarios.
Transportation becomes a nightmare and so does maintenance and recovery.
In the end the disadvantages outweigh the advantages heavily.
i think of the maus was redesigned it could be decent like they could have shaved some weight off why does it need 150mm of armor ok the back? if you took the sides and back armor off the thing would still be unlikable and 3x more mobile
@@popinmo and a different engine and drive system as well as a small turret and hull. This will include removing the circular shot trap and coaxial 75mm gun
That's why I don't really respect late WWII German designs.
They became more and more harder to operate and maintain. With their "wonder weapons" just being even heavier versions than they had, which wouldn't have been able to operate in a meaningful capacity.
@@mando_dablord2646 *the germans working on the ratte even harder*
@@9000k4 That is something I can give them. They were certainly determined to make their behemoths work. 😆
2:38 What the hell was that kill? Now I get why I died in the past to that 75mm
I was about to comment. Wtf
Can we contemplate how cool that shot was at 3:45
gaijin overpressure
That was realism, comrade, -15 GJN coins, Gaijin is disappointed in you
spalling hit and killed the driver
Not to mention by that point the allied airforces had effectively green air so a super slow huge tank would be a free kill for any plane that could carry a bomb bigger than 50KG
smh UK going with the ahead of time fighter 3s meta
Exactly, they wouldn't even need to destroy it with that 50kg bomb, just break a track because you ain't changing the tracks on a maus in the field, at least not before something with a bigger bomb comes along
@@normalicious9734 or your crew is ambushed by infantry
@@irinashidou9524 or the track breaks on its own
CAS bascically never got tank kills in ww2. German tank commanders largely ignored allied planes because they couldn't hit anything.
It's like if a 12 year old designed a tank tbh
Bigger is better right?
Very
By the time they could be fielded.. On both fronts all German airpower would be completely decimated leaving it nye unprotected against aerial attacks. And considering how large the silhouette is..
It would be hard to miss
Not to mention the problems with transport, repair infrastructure
While it certainly would not have been the most effective solution, I would imagine they would recognize this issue and try to make sure every Maus was accompanied by some form of Anti-Aircraft unit
Tank busting air power has been pretty conclusively shown to be overrated, and as a P-47 I have no ulterior motive to mention that. While yes, air power would be dangerous, thicker armor also means more resistance to already ineffective air attack.
@@p-47thunderbolt57 yea, but you don't have to destroy the tank. You just have to bust the tracks, and it's game over. Also, Im pretty sure a 250-500 kg bomb going off close to it will still do bad things to both the tank and crew.
It may be mostly impervious to rockets, guns and 50-100 kilo bombs, but giving some of your ground attack aircraft 250 kg bombs is not exactly hard.
@@gustavchambert7072 in order for a super heavy like the maus to have adaquete anti air defence, you'd need something like a powered turret on top of the main turret armed with belt fed 20mm's at least. Insane.
@@Rendell001 yep, and even that's probably inadequate. Hell, it might even do more harm than good, since it will put up a giant "HERE I AM" sign for every ground attack aircraft in the area as soon as it starts shooting.
While the electric transmission was referenced as having been used for tanks and busses, I think it's notable that the real sucess of such systems were on trains, which revolutionized that industry, difference being of course that they have all the space in the world to give adequate cooling and power generation, in addition to the obvious differences in traction type and load demand.
What are the "superheavy" soviet tanks that supposedly brought about the Maus? I'm aware of WoT having the KV-4 and KV-5, but it seems to me like they lack any basis in reality.
According to their pages on the WoT wiki (which, obviously, can be of very questionable reliability), the Soviets caught wind of the Germans developing the Lowe or something, and something to counter it was ordered. I've run across what are supposedly recreations of the proposed designs, though the most noteworthy thing (IMHO) about them is that none of them have even a close resemblance to WoT's KV-4 or KV-5. (Considering that the programs for those tanks were still working on which design they wanted to go with when Barbarossa started, and the programs were scrapped, I'm not surprised WarGaming kinda came up with their own design.)
IIRC the T-150 and KV-3, the latter of which weighing as much as a Tiger II, actually got to at least the prototype stage, but like the KV-4 and KV-5, once Barbarossa started, development was halted. IIRC the T-150 got a KV-1 turret slapped on it and sent to the front, and the KV-3 either got the same treatment or was scrapped.
Germany saw Soviet armor growing not only in size but quantity as well, tanks like the ISU-152/122 and IS-2 were already very capable vehicles and Germany correctly assumed the Soviets would make even bigger more powerful vehicles, these were tanks like the IS-3, IS-4/6 and even later vehicles like the IS-7 and T-10. Germany knew they couldn't out produce these tanks ("yet") but knew they could outperform them, so they constructed tanks like the Maus, Maus II (yes there was a second) E100 and Jagdpanzer E100 (yes this was a real design which had a working gun and could use the already working E100 chasis.) They also needed a heavy breakthrough tank for offensives like Kursk that could survive incredible damage and breakthrough after only 5-20 miles so "blitzkrieg" tanks like the panther could penetrate deep behind enemy lines and encircle enemy forces.
The reason I like the Maus is it seems so crazy and the fact the German's considered going even further with the Ratte. Same basic idea with the German proposed battleship plan that had ships double the weight of the Iowa class battleship.
Britain had plans for a super battleship with 20” guns in 1920.
The battle against Bismarck would have been a little bit different had the Royal Navy not kept strictly to the treaties. Unlike every other nation.
NGL, I would’ve killed to see a Ratte irl I would sell all my extra organs just to see it.
@@jugganaut33 The treaty was actually enforced for a while. It halted the construction of Japanese, American and Brittish battleships.
The issue for Hood was that it was a WW1-era design Battlecruiser. Armor wasn't adecuate to fight battleships. And Bismarck got one REALLY lucky shot.
The King George V class was terrible because the quad 14" turrets were unreliable.
They should have just ditched the treaty and proceeded to make more 16" BBs like America did.
Both the Ratte and the H-44 were never seriously considered. Everything beyond the H-39 class were just studies how a BB this size WOULD look like. And if you think about how the Ratte neither had any blueprints nor any specs that you find reliable information about should make it obvious that there was no serious planing involved in the project. Other Tanks like the E-Series on the other hand have defined stats and some "blueprints".
@@jugganaut33 if I remember correctly it's name was to be HMS Incomparable. And the ship was to be considered a Battlecruiser because the design had poor armor protection compared to battleships but had a higher speed.
ironically, with how costly the Maus was to build, it was probably cheaper to build multiple AT bunkers with the gun
The mass of a Maus is equivalent to about:
7.52 Panzer IV
4.27 Panthers
3.48 Tigers
2.76 Tiger II
@@warpey5632 And probably over two dozen Hetzers. Perhaps as many as 30.
As mediocre as the Hetzers can be at times, I'd take 20-30 more sneaky TDs over one superheavy political statement of a tank.,
I was waiting this video. Thanks Spookston!
I remember watching a video about the maus and Why it would fail, one of the arguments was that, by the time the maus would've come out, it wouldn't have been able to do much because allied CAS were pretty much free to bomb it to hell since the luftwaffe was basically gone.
That and indirect artillery could zero in and pound that thing repeatedly until it dies
CAS is shown to be overrated. But that doesn't mean the Maus was a good idea.
@@FriedrichHerschel 30mm CAS is overrated, precision bombs however, are not
@@FriedrichHerschelalso the Maus would have been extremely expensive, take very long to produce, and have had Terrible mechanical problems
I literally just today finished researching the Maus. Perfect timing!
The Maus would have been an awful heavy tank, but it was not designed as a heavy tank. It was designed as a "tracked bunker", and in that role it could have performed adequately. Attach 3-5 of these to an engineering section, roll them into prepared positions, and use them as bunkers. This would have allowed defensive positions to be more mobile while still giving better protection and firepower than could be provided by other vehicles.
The Maus wasn't as good as some people claim, but it definitely wasn't as bad as some people claim either. It's still debatable if the resources were better spent on more assault guns, though.
Until the Mauses get bombed by allied fighter bombers. Don't forget the Luftwaffe wasn't really a factor anymore at the time these things really could've seen any action. And, given the resource shortage the Reich already had before that, the numbers would make them quite rare targets that could be outmanouvered if really necessary. Not to mention the fact that it couldn't go over many bridges or fit on rail cars so getting into position would be a hastle if it wasn't right outside of factory gates ...
@@gamingfox9845 If the Maus was able to be produced, I doubt allied air wouldve been an issue if it was under production since Germany wouldve had to be winning the air war and likely the ground war.
@@TheT-90thatstaresintoyoursoul you sound insane
@@stirlingramsay DISCLAIMER: this is not my opinion
what he's saying is that under the circumstances that Mäuse were produced in any significant capacity, Germany would've had to be in a far better position than they were, so that they could be built. In that circumstance the Luftwaffe probably would have been able to contest control of the air.
MY OPINION: this makes some sense, but if Germany is in such a position there is no need for a slow and impractical tank, that is more suited for defence (it would likely fail in this role too though), because such a tank cannot keep up with rapid advances and redeployments.
@@plasmacarrot6863 yeah but he's not talking about germany being in a better position, he's talking about if they were just built
The problem with the Maus is its basic design. It would be completely ineffective and unusable in combat. It was extremely vulnerable to aircraft and would have been just a slow-moving artillery target. It honestly kinda seems like something someone with no real idea on how warfare works would design a tank, "Just put an absurd amount of armor and a really big gun on it, then it will kill everything." The Maus would have basically no strategic mobility and likely by the time it got to the front, the battle would be over.
Vulnerable to aircraft? Literally would be the LEAST vulnerable tank to aircraft for the entire war. Firstly CAS vs tanks were absolutely horrendous and the amount of claimed kills compared to actual kills is fucking hilarious, second the maus has way thicker armor and much more protected tracks than other tanks would make it all the more difficult to knock out by aircraft not to mention they would 100% be escorted by SPAA so cals won’t even be able to get close in the first place.
@@Phantom-bh5ruthey are talking about it being bombed
In my opinion, the peak of heavy tank design was the IS-7, what a beast of engineering
Yeah it was a excellent tank compared to every other nations available tanks in service. Reliable armor protection that took several hits from the 12.8cm cannon the same gun the maus tanks had and took minimal damage. Great handing and top speed. And a 120/130mm main gun. It's a shame logistics and overall cost of producing the prototypes resulted in the end of a extraordinary tank project in my opinion.
it is well known that soviet tanks are massively propaganda and whenever actual conflict broke out such as ukraine right now, their tanks are exposed as rubbish
@@Tundraviper41 also it was the same weight as an abrams and similar frontal armor against kinetics
On concept maybe, but in terms of being an impressive and somewhat practical design, I think the t-10 has it beat.
There is also the obj 279
I think the maus would have been scary but i dont think it would have changed anything about the wars outcome. Honestly i think hitler was way too obsessed with armor rather than providing better infantry equipment and bolstering materials for the luftwaffes planes to be repaired or replaced. There was immense pressure from hitler to produce more tanks that were heavier and heavier. I think this really hurt them in the long run.
The mouse is such a hillariously stupid tank and I love it simply because of that
it sounds like something some cartoonish villian would come up with "big box with armor and big gun!!"
@@zahylon5993 it does really look like a cartoon tank
It was specifically designed by Porsche so it could be added to War Thunder. Wasn't really meant for real life. They did played with it a little tho. German time travelers loved War Thunder so they started the project as far as I know.
@@zahylon5993 The Mendeleev Tank fits that even better. It was supposedly designed around 1898, although we only have solid evidence for 1911.
Literal cube with 120mm naval gun and 150mm of frontal armor and 100mm for the sides and rear. Also had a MG turret on top that could be raised and lowered.
The hull itself would've been 32 feet long (42 feet with gun barrel) and around 10 feet wide.
How much would it weigh? Around 173 tons. Speed? Supposed top speed of 15 mph/24 kmh. Somehow faster than the Maus despite being from WW1.
Engine? If you guessed submarine engine, you'd be right.
Crew count of 8-12 crew.
This is the true cartoonish villain tank.
I think this is a certified document of the Maus but in a video
The Maus was basically a land battleship, and it would have failed for the same reason sea battleships did. Air power.
While ground attack aircraft were not as effective against ground vehicles as is sometimes claimed, it would have been different for the Maus. That thing is so big, sliw and clumsy that it is almost impossible to miss. Sure, you might have to arm your ground attack aircraft with 250-500 pound bombs, so that even a not so near miss will take it out, at least track it, but that's easily worth it.
That is, if it could get to the battlefield at all, due to it having a fuel consumption closer to a battleship than a regular tank....
Battleships could at least move at pretty high speed and get close enough to provide fire support (usually to ground operations)
Battleships aren't actually obsolete because of air power, because they can be equipped with similar anti-air capabilities as modern warships
The main reason why it was obsolete is because Cruisers and Destroyers are now able to fulfill its role perfectly while being much cheaper to built and maintained
reminder that both Maus prototypes were killed by IL-2s. the only confirmed CAS gun kills of the war
@@Kalashnikov413 battleships are obsolete because any ship able to withstand Antiship munitions cant float, because armor doesnt do anything when the ocean is folding your ship in half like paper
@@F14thunderhawk ''reminder that both Maus prototypes were killed by IL-2s. the only confirmed CAS gun kills of the war''
- Source: trust me bro
''battleships are obsolete because any ship able to withstand Antiship munitions cant float, because armor doesnt do anything when the ocean is folding your ship in half like paper''
- That literally doesn't prove anything at all
This thing was too heavy to transport effectively.
It was too difficult to repair reliably.
It would have been bombed or artillery'd to death.
A very poorly conceptualized tank design.
(Edit)
I see a lot of individuals have a great many misconceptions about the Maus.
Dare I say delusions, even.
I can only imagine what spook is dealing with right now.
Metal fatigue, no matter how thick the armor is, will cause it to break.
It would run out of fuel before it could make any significant progress with germany's supply lines in shambles.
Even if it wasn't taken out by allied ordnance or its massive fuel consumption, it was more likely to break it's own parts due to the stress exerted on its components from such extreme weight.
To say nothing of it getting potentially stuck in the terrain. A problem even far lighter tanks suffer from.
I realize some individuals will continue to be delusional about the Maus, but I ask anyone who's read this far that has even the faintest glimmer of wisdom to not listen to the deluded, and look at the Maus objectively, with everything surrounding it in mind.
Thanks for trying to help spread knowledge, Spook.
"It would have been bombed or artillery'd to death."
No, it wouldn't. It has such ridiculous armour on all arcs that the only thing it is vulnerable to is direct hits no matter what tonnage of bombs are dropped on it. And before guided weapons direct hits didn't happen (which is why air support was notoriously bad at killing tanks in general in WW2). A nice illustration is looking at divebomb attacks on capital ships. Most accurate form of bombing during the era, in what is as close to ideal circumstances as possible, and still a 10% hit rate was abnormally good.
Same thing with artillery of course, basic rule of thumb was that artillery of WW2 had a rough CEP of 1 tenth the distance being fired. As big as the mouse is, the probability of a direct hit, never mind a catastrophic direct hit, was basically nonexistent.
@@jimmydesouza4375 Tracks? This thing is also huge
@@danielzhang5395 The tracks are functionally invulnerable to artillery and low poundage bombs as well due to how little exposure they have. But even assuming the tracks do get wrecked with regularity, the amount invested in bombing or shelling them vs the amount required to repair them is an overall win for the Germans, (which if you know how they worked for recovery is just how the Germans worked back then).
So the only threat that knocked out tracks present is the vehicle being overrun if there is no recovery vehicle present, which the way the Maus is an indestructible strongpoint makes difficult.
The Maus would have been an effective tank if produced, the idea that it would have been useless is silly. Whether or not it would have been more effective than a greater investment in panthers however is questionable.
@@danielzhang5395 Oh and also on your "this thing is huge!".
There's a reason why I mentioned capital ships.
The maus is 10x4m. As a comparison the Yamato was 265x40. In its sinking the Yamato had approximately 300 bombs and torpedos launched at it, 15 hit.
Bombing was incredibly inaccurate during WW2 and right up until the modern day.
@@jimmydesouza4375 This thing is a bunker and suffers from the same issues as one
Also the fact German fuel storages and you could hardly get the damn thing anywhere between the low speed and weight preventing it from crossing a lot of bridges in Germany.
In practice the Maus would be a half-hour distraction at best, and free food for whatever aircraft was carrying bombs got to it first at worst
Its so big and slow I could actually see it getting picked off by a bomber formation instead of just attack aircraft.
i think it had 4 -20mm antiaircraft planed on top of it,probably for that reason ,still would be vulnerable
@@enizicanovic428you’re thinking of the ratte
I love this series, will you ever do a plane version? How good was the mustang, the hurricane, so on so forth?
Even if by a miracle for the germans, they had produced a whole divistion of Maus, shipped them to the front without breaking bridges, and have them and their crew ready to roll out into battle, they would either run out of fuel/break down very quickly or get decimated by allied/soviet air supremacy before any meaningful breakthrough in allied lines xD
A tank like this cand have anti aerian sistem on him. And he can fight against another tanks division alone. T34 or t34- 85 cand do nothing against him. In a war you cant just send air force to attack bcs enemy will have everywhere anti air.
Oh, it was absolutely awesome... from technical standpoint. As a series of really great components that should have stayed separate:D
P.S.: so, apparently you don't use Maus's 75mm as glorified smoke launcher? Why?
3:45 obviously this video is overlooking the Maus’ real purpose: high intensity anti-air.
The maus: invincible to almost every allied gun.
P 47s: *heavy breathing intensifies*
I just want to say that Spookston still hasn't keybinded a separate button for firing the secondary, and possible tertiary weapons. He still fires both guns at the same time though he has a button for switching firing modes. I find it weird because it takes extra time select the secondary weapon and fire then.
If it was used in combat then one T-34 would drive under it to stop it and also act as a slope for the another T-34 that would drive onto the Maus's hull to block its turret in the sideways position and then the third T-34 would shoot into Maus's radiators from the high ground
what If there is no high ground
nah man i saw the historical footage, it clearly was a captured hetzer used as a wedge, then an M3 lee was used to block the turret
@@riccardomariani9648 LOL Yeah how did Japan not win the war with their giant floating cities?
@@NomisdoowtsaeObviously they failed to secure the oil reserves to run them. Should have went to good old reliable steam air castles.
the fact they even built as many as they did is astounding 24 hulls completed there was 12 turrets ready for mounting but it was such a waste of resources that could've gone to better use.
Maus was a total clown project yet no fuel resources and enemy bombers easily able to kill it even if maus was able to survive from bombs still would broke down from heaviness and no spare parts as well
Theres 1 still around
@@Susanoo449 and it's a burned out hull with the inside compeletly gutted
@@erwin669 sadly
Maus: **exists**
Allied bombers: om-nom-nom.
Except only a 1000 pound bomb or larger could kill it, and that needed almost a direct hit, due to the Muas having extremly thick sides and rear armor, practically a 2000 pound bomb or better yet a 4000 pound one where needed, yet only 4 engine bombers where able to carry those, and those lacked the precision to kill it.
@Bhai Sahab Bombing in WW2 was not very precise, direct hits would be very very rare.
@@TheEsseboy the bomb only had to take out the tracks and boom it’s out it’s that easy it doesn’t actually have to kill the tank just disable it
@@SomuaSomua I mean true, but they are 40 mm thick and mostly covered by 80mm of blast protection, so the bomb would have to be close to do it.
And a Maus would almost certainly have been planned to be accompanied by anti-air vehicles
Dude for 200,000 subscribers you should do a Q&A
One thing a lot of people I think seem to overlook is that the Maus would have been an easy target for allied air power, and during the end of the war, Germany didn't have the production to be able to make enough individual Maus tanks as well as supporting anti-aircraft to change anything. It's like when people look at the P.1000 Ratte and think "That could have changed the entire war for Germany." Yeah, it could have, because it would have likely sped up the war significantly if Germany wasted their time, manpower and resources on something that would be a literal bomb-magnet. Sure, it had anti-air built onto it, but it would have been so slow and such a large target that even high-altitude-bombing would hit it, with alrge bombs at the very least destroying the tracks nad immobilizing it, allowing other bombs to hit it.
Imagine how hard it'd be to change the tracks on a thousand-tonne tank.
Even if the logistical issues of the Maus were completely ignored, the Maus as a tank simply could not be used effectively in most combat situations. The horrid mobility and practically nonexistent visibility would render the Maus completely useless against and at the mercy of spread out infantry and other tanks, which perhaps could not destroy it, but could easily disable it, at which point repairing it in the field would be literally impossible. The Maus is little more than a nearly immobile, impenetrable steel cube with a gun at the end of it. It’s sole advantage would be against enemy tanks in open areas that it could somehow see and shoot at despite the horrible visibility.
0:25 even if germany had started production i doubt it would´ve changed the war. Firstly, its a big target, and considering its sheer size, the fuel consumption would be quite severe, likewise with the lack of resources. Even if they had it in the 1930s i doubt it would win them the war.
That’s why one of them would of had the AA gun
This is my best performing tank in WT, had many triple aces on city maps which i cant do in other tanks,the amount of shells u can take and keep going...
What people actually still think this could have changed something? I thought it was universally considered impractical and a massive target to planes.
nah i think we should all thank german for making this to make wehraboo use it and give plane players free kill
@@bombercbc9431 don't play the game but enjoy your free kills. The submarine Type XXI was truly revolutionary and is widely considered the first "real" submarine but too late too little. There's real cool stuff that was developed so I don't get why people hang on to the stupid stuff.
Even if the Maus was constructed today with modern materials and methods it still wouldn't work.
And even if it did, the "mobile bunker" concept can be achieved in better ways.
Like making bunkers.... or design a tank purely for defense, like the Swedish S-tank.
Modern engines and parts would have made the Maus faster and much less likely to break down but it would still be slow and prone to failure.
It was basically a tank that could in theory destroy any tank up to 3 miles away and provide the crew with the protection of a bunker. In practice no one will know how affective it was because it was never used. People have copied its design for kids games but I don’t see how real that is as you can’t take in account the wear on the engine or a weak part plus people can’t decide how it handled or how fast it went because zero were ever used in combat there was no finished product the Russians put the turret on one I just hope they did a better job than this American guy that poured water in the engine thinking it was radiator. I made sure to not let him put fuel in my car
wouldn't be surprised if 5 guys with 1 anti tank mine a single frag and handgun could solo a Maus
3:36 that shot was just.. Damn.
Not to mention transport, no bridge or train was strong enough to carry 188 tons
A train would have the strength to pull it, the issue would be the cars not being strong enough.
There were some bridges strong enough in some areas.
Mainly US bridges though.
Like the Brooklyn Bridge.
Everytime he said "Porsha" i died a little inside
That just hurts me internally 2:33.
Overpressure working as intended
The gun being half a second away from loading then the gunner replacing thus taking the shell out to load a new one or the fact the dude just overpressured a medium with a 75mm HEAT on a 70° angle?
@@John.McMillan The latter.
name’s the more frightening part honestly. they were most aware of their madness yet embraced it anyway.
that said next to everyone tried to build phat af tanks so i would not mock them. somehow their shortcomings were not obvious enough to always stop at the drawing board.
Maus: Enters Battlefield
M1931 (B-4) "Stalin's Sledgehammer": So, You have chosen Death
BRO NO SHOT THE FIRST CLIP WAS YOU KILLING ME LMAO
Great video as always. Some notes: The Ferdinand actually used the already produced Porsche Tiger hulls as a basis, thats why only a few of them were made.
Man I can't wait to have this puppy out in the battlefield...
Sinks seconds after leaving the concrete assembly line in a mud puddle, can't tow because of weight, already used all the fuel in the region starting, bombers pick it up miles away, exhaust turns the factory into an oven, breaks down with no access to crucial components.
Luckily the blast from the bombs relocated the factory around it allowing use to disassemble it for repairs. Realize there is nothing left but tons on tons of scrap metal.
Muh "German engineering"
One reason that E100 was canned off the gate was the width. Maus, for all her size and mass, was still narrow enough to fit on a rail car and be transported. Where as E100, tried to reduce ground pressure and leave more space for fuel by having even wider tracks, and had the side skirts to help protect the slightly thinner sides. As a result, to transport it by rail, you'd have to take off all the side skirts, break track, and replace them with much more narrow tracks, then find somewhere to store those modules. Then reverse all that once you were there. And I remember hearing from somewhere(Not sure where), that one of the heads of the German armor board felt the proposed power train and engine would be inadequate in every measure for a tank of that mass. Say what you want about Porsche, but he did have good ideas to make very flawed concepts mostly work.
Maus is about 3ft wider than a standard rail car and around 80 tons passed the weight limit. They needed to design its own special flat car to move it. Then there is the question of if your rail bridge could hold the weight of the thing as it crossed. The Russians had to send the one they captured back in pieces.
I guess you could say the disadvantages of a super heavy tank outweigh the advantages... super heavily
It makes my little brain go crazy when I see spookston shoot both guns Simultaneously
What russian and american mains see: How bad is the Maus?
What i see: How good is the Maus?
The Maus, in my opinion (and most superweapons in general, really) is the kind of project that should've only really been undertaken by a nation not at war looking for a defensive superweapon to act as a deterrent. And, further, such an expenditure would essentially depend on some form of technological plateau that has not been observed to my knowledge in the past century in order for it to provide any return on investment.
Ultimately, the reality with superheavy tanks was that armaments were simply advancing too quickly for them to ever have been of value, even in an optimal use case. Outside of the realms of fiction, the situations in which they would be useful are few, and not enough to offset the ridiculous development, production, and operational costs they incur. And all of this is ignoring the same elephant in the room that slew the super-battleship-air power. Again, barring some flight of fancy in fiction, these things would be sitting ducks for dive bombers, which would render all of that expensive production and maintenance work moot in moments.
In short, superheavy tanks should be confined to the realms of speculative fiction-where they are often quite beloved for their cool factor, I will grant (like Warhammer 40k's Baneblade, which... appears to have had its spec-sheet written-up by someone who merely checked the Maus for reference without any concept that armor had already advanced massively in the decades after its design, let alone in the 38 millennia that would transpire to arrive at the setting in question, even with the way it handles technology). However, taking a realistic approach to their limitations and justifications is important. In 40k's case, the Baneblade is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to ridiculously over-the-top equipment that the Imperium needs just to have a chance in the galaxy it inhabits. Even then it plays fast and loose with a great deal, of course, and different settings might need radically different methods to justify their own superheavies, but the point stands that you can concoct scenarios (confined to the reaches of speculative or fantastical fiction, granted) in which a superheavy is not just feasible, but actively a good idea.
I suppose, then, this is a bit more of a writer's perspective than a more technical one, at this point, but I find that side particularly interesting as I work on my own material.
I did a project on the Maus on why it failed for one of my college engineering classes. This is why the Maus is my favourite tank, such a cool failure.
2:38 how tf did that puny little HEAT one shot the entire crew right there?
Overpressure
something i like to say is, if your tank requires a ladder to get into, all the enemy needs to be able to destroy is a ladder.
this pertains to any aspect of a vehicle needing to be supported heavily by something else
"When the tank threw a track, it would take the crew eight hours to repair."
....
Fuck.
the people who made this machine had a impossible project and they did it and your teaching it too the world thank you spooky boy
When it comes to WW2 super vehicles in general, I think people often over look the importance of aircraft. When you look at battles like Normandy, where the Germans had a clear advantage in armor, the tanks that seemed unstoppable to the Sherman's became easy targets to the strike aircrafts.
I really apricate your content for my learning and history also by watching you i can win internet arguments
What about that other thing that is said , that the Maus wasn't capable of "moving more than a metre" without running out of fuel . True , false or something in between ?
From what I could find, when it was originally found and transported (the only hull, and hull alone without turret) the vehicle absolutely chugged fuel, apparently taking mutliple refuelings because the Russians didnt realise how much it would take to move it just a short distance.
So yea I imagine with the turret on this thing would have required a entire fuel depot to be towed along behind it.
@@John.McMillan thanks 👍👌
@@dejvaju5052 thanks for the info 👍
Yay. New sportstime upload
As a tank, your main threats aren't even other tanks. Artillery, CAS and infantry have always been the primary threats to a tank. A super heavy tank only makes it easier for those threats to kill you. It's almost like everybody realized this hence the nearly universal adoption of MBTs.
The way I view heavy tanks is that their advantages could help win some battles, but their disadvantages would help you lose the war.
You posting about the Maus just made me so happy
The idea was to use the Maus together with other tanks and with air superiority. Probably 5 Maus and 50 smaller tanks.
The normal fighting is done by the other tanks and the Maus tanks are only used when an obstacle blocks the progress.
The impressive thing is the overall growth of armament on tanks... the new German Panther has a 130mm gun, slightly larger than the 12.8cm behemoth shipped on the Maus.
the engine tech of these monsters always interests me. 1000 horsepower back then was the witchcraft inside a 30 liter engine, and now 1000 horsepower is a 3 liter whirly boy with some funny gas up the intake. And yet most of our tanks still only use 1500 or so at most.
I know of course torque is the real factor to be measured here, but still. we never really made engines more powerful, just quieter, smaller, more efficient
"originally called Mammoth"... me, looking at Command and Conquer, sipping tea "interesting, very interesting..."
man back in times i played wot like 6-7 years ago, maus and e-100 was the only ones i was going for everywhere
There is another huge advantage to the petrol electric drive: it means that you do not need a gearbox. I think we all know how problematic WW2-era tank gearboxes tended to be.
I looked up the oxiclean commercial, and this was the 2nd video 😭😭😭
The Maus was good, because it wasted Nazi resources
People who think the Maus could have been gamechanging forget a lot of things. Here are just a few examples that come to mind:
Ground-attack planes
Sachel charges
Anti tank mines
The habit for german elitist armored divisions to spearhead and get surrounded (eastfront).
For what it matters, I doubt that even the Ratte could have made a difference. One air strike, and it's dead. Congrats on putting all those resources in to craft one thing.
Wanna craft another? No problem. Another air strike. Or anti-ratte landmine since it is so peculiar that I already know what path it will take.
Maus can't spearhead
@@ddoumeche Maybe it can't spearhead stationary defenses because the stationary defenses are too mobile for the Maus to engage, but it would be used for that purpose anyway.
It's like a fortress. Just drive around it. Make sure it cannot get any resupplies.
Maus is for me the pinnacle of heavy tank engineering development. The mere fact it WAS possible for them to build a 188 ton vehicle and actually make it MOVE on its own... It is simply amazing. Mechanical problems aside, nothing has come close.
Maus the best achievement of engineering a heavy tank.
The maus was a stupid idea its size and max speed made it so impractical that every bomber would have a field day bombing this thing or artillery or antitank mine or so on. And you say its a engineering marvel that they got it to move the bagger 293 moves and that is way bigger.
Honestly the biggest problem with ww2 German design was the fact they were on the defensive and that meant more are more and the horse power couldn’t keep up, some of the first MBTs were mainly medium tanks with decent armor and good enough speed
"How big would you like it mein fuhrer?"
"Yes"
Hey Spookston, What are you thoughts on the VK30.01 (D) and VK30.02 (D). Outside of being able to be mistaken for the VK30.02(M) and Panther, do you think it would've been more viable/effective than the Panther?
Ahh yes the dreaded mustache man
I can't even imagine something this heavy moving in a normal pace on land
3:40 sick kill
Drive gears and transmission: im bout to end this mans whole carear
There were two Maus projects aswell Tank encyclopedia has some articles about that and I think at some point ferdinant wanted to mount an AA turret on it too
Maus: 170t monster
Virtual every bridge in Europe: you shall not pass!
There is also the unofficial story that the Maus was used to defend the base it was being tested at as the Russians came in, and that is the one at the museum in russia.
I never really thought how bad the maus would have been till I saw this video so thx
Just wanted to highlight that the kill at 3:45 is AMAZING hahah
Name of the video: how bad was maus
The video: preceds to kill any tank with maus
In world of tanks, you use the Maus as the vanguard of the team and its incredible amount of hit points to tank hits for the team. You also needed to drive back and forth while keeping the turret angled to the side for deflecting incoming fire.
This is very far from what the tank was designed to be IRL, which cements how poor it would have been.
i've noticed in your video you seem to fire both the 75 and main cannon. do you do this on purpose? or just too lazy for that extra keybind for the like. 3 tanks that have multiple main cannons?
Using the electric motor as the transmission also was done on diesel electric subs and even on some ww2 steam turbine ships. Drachinifiel had discussed this in a video.
Typhoon pilot: I see a Maus.
(20 seconds later) 500 lb bomb impacts turret.
Th-th-th-that's all, folks!
idea for tanks that should be added to wt: tanks of the German "E series", which the E100 was a part of. This series includes the E25, E50, E75, and tank destroyer modifications of the E100.
If deployed in combat this thing would be any air support pilot’s wet dream of a target
Can you analyze the Fire Nation tanks in Avatar: The Last Airbender?