The Maus Tank, Germany's RR Guns and Other Discussions.

[JerseyJohn]

In a discussion with Panzer_39 the topic of very heavy tanks and oversized battleships came up. Panzer told me about the incredibly large monstrosity (photo below) with the deliberately misleading name. I thought it would be a good idea to link the article, with photos, of this 188 ton odditiy through a URL for anyone interested in reading about it.

[click here for illustrated Ariticle on the Heaviest Tank Ever Made.]

[ April 23, 2003, 01:31 AM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]

[Liam]

If I walked into this badboy in any Allied tank I would call in the Battleships for anti-tank support!!!

Even though what you really have is an artillery gun on wheels which you ask most good Generals is a waste. Interesting topic on the Russians having more workable parts with their mass production. Showing that a less powerful tank that was easy to fix and easy to make in #s was the leader...

I think SC has a lack of Russian armor to start with and from the Siberian reinforcements. Isn't this a fair statement?

[Konstantin V. Kotelnikov]

The Maus was a terrible waste of german resources. Good thing it never made it to the battlefield.

It would have been easily outflanked by the allies. Along the lines of the Jagdtiger.

The Maus would have crushed bridges it tried to go over. It was incapable of being transported by rail. Basically what you have is a semi-mobile pill box.

Hitler's obsession with the biggest and badest was ridiculous. They would have been better off channeling the resources into a sucessful program like the Panther. Or even designing a better engine for the King Tiger instead of powering it with Panther engines.

Of course you wanna see a major waste, look at Germany's 800mm Railroad guns.

Maybe SC should have a random "Hitler" factor, where every turn an amount of German MPP's are wasted on foolish projects. Or a tech advance is delayed like when Hitler insisted that the ME-262 be a bomber instead of a fighter.

It would make it interesting.

[JerseyJohn]

Liam, Konstantin --

That was exactly the point of the conversation I was having with Panzer_39, the waste and uselessness of all Hitler's Giant projects. Origianally we were joking about his ideas for 100,000 + ton BBs.

This tank actually has two turret guns; the 150 mm and a parrellel 75 mm. As it says in the article, it would have expended all of it's fuel getting in range of a target.

Agreed about it being little more than a slightly mobile Pillbox.

I doubt there was any worry about the weapong being flanked, probably Hitler envisioned four or five in a line protected by smalller tanks (like the King Tiger! ) and large numbers of infantry.

[JerseyJohn]

Posting on the German 80 CM guns originally posted in the Conquest of Sevastapol Topic by JayJay_H.

. . . ..

Historically, the Germans employed Gustav, one of the two largest railroad guns ever produced at 80cm. They were originally built to crack the Maginot forts, then they were to be sent against Gibraltar, but Sevastopol was the only action either of them ever saw. Each gun tied up something like 4,000 men. They were much heavier than the largest Battleship guns. The link below has a great article about them complete with photographs.

link to Article with Photos of Gustav and Dora 80 cm Railroad Guns, Gustav used at Sevastopol.

[ April 22, 2003, 02:56 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]

[Konstantin V. Kotelnikov]

I still like the random "Hitler" factor.

You could set a random chance that anytime a german unit goes to move in a direction towards germany out of an enemies ZOC that a small message box would pop up and say:

"I said no retreat! Would you like to be relieved of command? Ja/Nein?"

If you answer yes the unit doesn't retreat and you are relieved of command. Thus the computer would take over for you with a random chance of you being recalled as the war progresses.

If you answer no, then the unit stays put and you can continue playing.

For for the whole family!

[JerseyJohn]

COS had two similar options, one was Stand and Fight and the other was Chaos at OKW . I tried them once or twice and the only result was extreme aggravation on my part. It succeeded in giving an idea of what it must have been like to be a high ranking commander serving under Hitler and having to put up with all that insane meddling.

Konstantin Good to see you posting frequently again.

[Konstantin V. Kotelnikov]

Jersey,

Thanks. I've been around just not able to post much. Between work and all. Plus I have taken on researching the role of the Soviet Political Officers in WW2 and the decline of their authority, changes in structure and uniform. Eats up free time, but something I enjoy.

This weekend I actually putzed with the new 1.07 patch. First time I played SC in almost two months.

I actually forgot the number of german units to keep on the border to keep the USSR from jumping in early. Had the USSR attack me in April 1941. Much to my suprise.

"I said no retreat! Would you like to be relieved?"

Yes thank you mein fuhrer.

[Comrade Trapp]

It kills me to think how many chances Hitler had to win the war if only he had listened to his generals or had been somewhat reasonable.

The war could have been won if the German Army would have been allowed to crush the allied forces at Dunkirk.

It could have been won if he hadn't halted all tech research when France fell thinking the war was already won. (It wasn't restarted until after the Battle of Britian).

It could have prob been won of he had let his generals do what they wanted to do in Russia instead of personally commanding some units. Just think about how that Chain of Command must have been like.

I bet that if Hitler had taken a direct hand in the invasion of France he prob would have screwed that up too.

Oh well....lucky for us Hitler was in overall command of the military and not Rommel.

Comrade Trapp

[JerseyJohn]

Konstantin

It's true, the most interesting pursuits always seem to require the most time we never had in the first place! But it's worth it, those are the things that really expand a person's intellect. -- After all, how many Soviet Political Officer Reenactors are floating around out there? BTW, what did you think of their portrayal in the movie Enemy At The Gates ? I don't recall having ever seen a movie where they portrayed them either in such abundance, or where any attempt was made to get into a political officer's psyche.

Comrade

Good Points, seems the Allies were almost planning to lose the next war! Had it not been for a few pushy air chiefs the UK wouldn't even have developed the Hurricane and Spitfire during the late thirties. They started working on jet engines and aircraft design in 1930; but 1939 the best they could do was give up on the concept. Germany was no better, they had jet prototypes up and flying in the spring of 1939 and decided to scrap the idea till after the "brief" war was over.

Ironically, Hitler had the same idea as von Manstein for the Ardennes Offensive. His generals talked him out of it then, when the original plans for a revised Schleiffen were lost they produced Manstein's preliminary draft and Hitler immediately claimed the concept was his but only von Manstein had the vision to recognize it and work out the tactical details.

Equally ironic, on the day that Germany had it's highest losses over Britain, Goering issued a directive to cut back on fighter plane production.

Can you imagine a nightmare world where Germany won in the west and, instead of invading the USSR, decided to enter an alliance with them, expanding into Africa and the Middle East while the USSR moved on India and into Asia with South America in flux between Nazi Allies and American client states? :eek: I wonder how long United States isolationism would have lasted.

Probably, if such an alliance had ensued with the UK and French Colonial Empires falling by the wayside, the United States and it's old friend, Imperial Japan would have taken drastic measures to defend Freedom Loving Peoples everywhere from the combined threats of Soviet and Fascist Aggression. FDR might even have urged the obstinate Chinese to accept Japanese protection -- !

[ April 22, 2003, 06:02 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]

[Carl G. E. von Mannerheim]

The Maus was a terrible waste of german resources. Good thing it never made it to the battlefield.

Im 90% sure I DID make it too the Battle Field Particularly in that battle of the SeeLowe Heights outside Berlin. I am not sure of the specific numbers, but it took out a good few Ruskies

[JerseyJohn]

All the prototypes were in the Soviet zone and one of the two functional chasis was photographed after it had been blown apart -- it's possible. According to the article it was destroyed by the Germans as the Russians approached, whose to say it didn't get some use first or was actually destroyed in battle.

The specs given in the article indicate it was totally impervious any tank mounted guns or antitank guns in use at the time.

I can see this sort of thing as a very specialized weapon, possibly using two or three in a close group against a heavily forified position relying on both, it's huge gun and it's nearly impenetrable armor. More of a turreted assault gun than a tank. Or, with it's chasis protected, as part of a fixed defensive line; again protected by plenty of infantry to prevent something like a flame thrower attack.

[ April 23, 2003, 01:30 AM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]

[Liam]

John:

If that baby was in an area without divebombers, say overcast skies. Look out! It would be impervious to flamethrowers too! How many mounted MG Guns do you think it could support? Of course all armor has a weakspot just the fact that it was soooo new would've been hard for the Ruskies to figure out where the weak spot was. Even if it only made it a few blocks through Berlin here or there, that cannon could with every shot be a sniper of enemy tanks. In fact line them up right, perhaps a double wammy!

[Liam]

Konstatin:

I agree Hitler put a lot of money in the wrong places. It was the ole Male Ego thing<mine is bigger than yours> Think alone of the Manpower that he could've derived from tens of millions of slavs! Especially when Germany was so short handed towards the end. At least a hundred thousand men, and couple hundred thousand skilled craftsmen that wouldn't be peeing on your rockets to make them missfire<they'd be building them with German pride>

Though I disagree that it made a huge difference. Germany had no chance of outproducing the Allies and that clutching at straws was all Hitler could do towards the end anyways, so he made little or no difference afterall. Although had very "massive" strategic decisions been made at the right time perhaps I would be wrong. You can compete against 10 enemy soldiers that may not have a bigger gun, but know how to use what they got!

[H.J. von Arnim]

@Liam, Konstantin, JJ and the others:

OK, so you think that the german authorities put too much money and manpower to the wrong projects ?

Have you ever heard of "Neuschwabenland", the german base in the antartic ?

Well, take a look at these pages

(the first 2 are in german - but that shouldn't be a problem for JJ *gg*)

http://www.c2k.info/conspiracy/neuschwabenland/

http://www.hohle-erde.de/body_neuschwabenland.html

http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Bunker/3351/campaigns/antact.html

http://flagspot.net/flags/de_colon.html#nsw

[ April 23, 2003, 03:56 AM: Message edited by: H.J. von Arnim ]

[santabear]

If SC gets the "Hitler option" that wastes German MPPs, it also will need the "Churchill option." Churchill also proposed and championed useless projects against the advice of his military and scientific experts.

(for balance, yes, he did have good ideas too...)

===========================================

And Jersey:

Can you imagine a nightmare world where Germany won in the west and, instead of invading the USSR, decided to enter an alliance with them, expanding into Africa and the Middle East while the USSR moved on India and into Asia with South America in flux between Nazi Allies and American client states? I wonder how long United States isolationism would have lasted.

That's exactly what Hitler proposed to Molotov. Mr. M wasn't interested--he was smart enough to know that without the Balkans, Russia would always be at Germany's mercy.

A lot of diplomatic calculations were based on the (correct) premise that Germany and the USSR might sign a short term non-aggression pact, but forces 'beyond their control' (stupidity and greed, for example) would prevent an alliance.

There was also the calculation that Germany could not successfully invade Britain. If Germany had done better in the Battle of Britain, or had managed a credible navy, there would have been a lot more scrambling. As it was, the US make Churchill work very hard just to get those 50 obsolete destroyers.

The real nightmare scenarios would have been a German alliance with either Britain or France. Those are combinations that could

1. close the Atlantic,

2. dominte the Med, and

3. wage war against Russia

Dann haette ich auf deutsch geschrieben...

[ April 23, 2003, 06:02 AM: Message edited by: santabear ]

[Konstantin V. Kotelnikov]

Originally posted by JerseyJohn:

Konstantin

It's true, the most interesting pursuits always seem to require the most time we never had in the first place! But it's worth it, those are the things that really expand a person's intellect. -- After all, how many Soviet Political Officer Reenactors are floating around out there? BTW, what did you think of their portrayal in the movie Enemy At The Gates ? I don't recall having ever seen a movie where they portrayed them either in such abundance, or where any attempt was made to get into a political officer's psyche.

Jersey,

I thought the Danilov portrayal in EATG was interesting. Granted it was hollywood, and the real story was more interesting than hollywood. Excepting those that believe the sniper dual never happened.

Danilov being a Battalion Commissar seemed a little chummy with Kruschev who was Stalin's representative from Stavka. But it was important for the movie.

Overall the uniforms and equipment were not too bad. Movies have done worse in the past. I did not think there where too many political officers, as Politruks were assigned all the way down to company level.

CVM, What do you mean by this?

Im 90% sure I DID make it too the Battle Field Particularly in that battle of the SeeLowe Heights outside Berlin. I am not sure of the specific numbers, but it took out a good few Ruskies

Do you mean the Maus? It never saw combat. Or do you mean yourself through some sort of past life regression?

Seelowe was a combination of problems. Henrici was a excellent German general and Stalin was playing Zhukov off against Konev on the drive to berlin.

Thus Zhukov got bogged down trying to force the Heights. It only stalled his drive on Berlin, it did not prevent it. As great as Zhukov is, he had one problem, and that was he didn't care about casualties.

He chose to ignore what had made the Red Army so successful in the 43 and 44 offensives. Something they learned from the Germans. Bypass areas of resistance and push on. Of course in his defense there were lots of problems, poor terrain, narrow frontage, etc.

It just chalk it up to Henrici who was an outstanding defensive general.

Of course the Red Army got to berlin and that was all that mattered. To enter the lair and slay the beast.

[JerseyJohn]

Konstantin

That was pretty much my opinion as well, not bad for Hollywood. The opening sequences were particularly interesting and that's an excellent point about Krushev, who was already a very high party official at the time.

Another American movie using a political officer as a main character was Doctor Zhivago. The main character's half brother is a secret police official who starts by infiltrating the Czarist ranks in 1914 to sap morale. He rises in the 1917 Revolution and is shown eventually as a Stalinist general. While interesting in itself (more in Pasternack's novel than the movie, which is also very good), it isn't in the same vein as what we were discussing regarding WW II.

Of course CvM was alluding to a past life experience -- I read that passage literally and accepted it as such. CvM has often written depictions that ring a bit too true. Patton swore by reincarnation, so who knows!

I'd also like to think that lumbering hunk saw some action before being sabotaged by it's crew, but you're right, it probably didn't.

In the Battle of Moscow, many Soviet casualties were inflicted by fellow Soviet troops and artillery barages, most of them from one rival army against the other. There's a fine old book on the subject, The Russians and Berlin 1945. I loaned it out years ago and am still waiting to have it returned so unfortunately I cant give the author as I've forgotten his name. He makes the point that Zhukhov was particularly callous in this regard, seeing personal geographic objectives as his goals instead of total victory.

In other words, if his instructions were to take certain parts of the city and Russians from other commands had already occupied them, he directed artillery attacks against them as though they were held by Germans. No doubt this situation was created from above, Stalin's Machiavellian idea of dividing his generals against one another. In any event, when the war ended he wasted no time in assigning Zhukhov to some obscure post far below his capabilities and exalted rank. He was too popular to either kill or exile.

[ April 23, 2003, 03:32 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]

[JerseyJohn]

SB

Good points and you're probably correct, I doubt any Soviet/German alliance would have held up for very long. Neither side had much trust for the other. About the only possibility would have been if Stalin had gone wholeheartedly into an Asian strategy and Hitler would have done the same regarding Africa and South America. It might have helped if they both built extensive defensive lines along the Russo/European border as a show of good faith.

Hitler's prewar assumption was that, at some point, England would form a military/economic alliance with his Reich. He never quite understood why they didn't see the advantages of such an arrangement -- and they were real. The other thing he couldn't understand meant nothing at all to the Brits, and that was the wasteful spilling of mutual Nordic blood.

France is also an interesting proposition. Instead of Vichy it's odd that Hitler didn't push for a forced Alliance in which Germany wouldn't have physically occupied northern France but the French Empire (including it's fleet, of course) were harnessed by the Axis. I think he could easily have forced such an agreement upon them but it's open to debate as to whether the global French colonies would have cooperated with the new regime.

Such a move might well have been more effective than Vichy in getting Britain to sign a peace treaty. Of course, there's always the possibility that French Axis troops and ships, instead of fighting the English, might have changed sides en masse. Anyway, an interesting possibility.

[ April 23, 2003, 06:02 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]

[JerseyJohn]

Generaloberst von Arnim

You misunderstand, I think the Maus would have been a fine tank, especially if it had been nuclear powered! Also, I get the impression that Liam really does like the Maus, except it needs a periscope and perhaps a built in swimming pool. The added weight would hardly have been noticed.

Went to your German language site hoping to utilize the German I'd learned in High School -- a mere forty years back. Unfortunately nobody was either passing potatoes or going to the library so my 17 word vocabulary was utterly useless. I'm still hoping to relearn it.

I really do have to become proficient in German, that article about the 1938 Antarctic expedition looks too interesting to pass up. Also, I found some things a while back on the SS expedition to Tibet, but they were all written in German; there's too much good material out there that I'm unable to read.

Thanks for posting those links, I'm returning to them now. JayJay_H posted some images a while back showing Flying Saucers with Swatztikas hovering over the South Pole. Now, with this added material I'm convinced the Antartica Base truly exists! :eek: It's The Boys from Brazil except a little farther south.

Glad you're posting, missed your entries the past month or so. Hoping JayJay_H will start posting more as well. You both add a different and needed outlook to these topics.

[ April 23, 2003, 03:39 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]

[JerseyJohn]

In the interest of being objective, this is a photo of the WW II Hughs Aviation project that never got very far off the ground, or water. It was called the Spruced Goose and was intended to be a gigantic sea plane that would make transatlantic flights carrying troops and material from the U. S. to England.

Howard Hughs made it his special project and, despite a fortune in government investments it never budged during the entire war. Later the senate investigated the project accusing Hughs of mishandling government funds, etc.. To everyone's surprise, Hughs told the investigating committee that he'd fly the plane himself. The following day he did the deed. The ungainly giant made a long run, rising and falling several times before finally rising above the water, flying successfully at a very low altitude, literally a few feet above the surface, with Hughs guiding it back to it's original berth, where it remained and became a tourist attraction.

The aircraft, oversized and underpowered, was sold after Hughs' death and, as evidenced by the photo, has been well preserved.

[ April 23, 2003, 05:59 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]

[Iron Ranger]

So is the 'mouse' a L5 tank - I don't think I've ever seen L5 in HvsH but this seams the right one. By the time you get this far you don't have enough money to purchase it!

[JerseyJohn]

Exactly!

I'd hope L=5s would be something that could be put into production.

Something else I was wondering about was how this thing was supposed to be moved around. Is it possible Germany had flatbed trucks large enough and strong enough to transport them?

[ April 23, 2003, 05:57 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]

[Shaka of Carthage]

I don't think the "heavy" tanks are part of the Armor Tech advances. Especially not the Maus. Heavy tanks are more of a infantry support weapon since the lack of mobility would cause them to be used more like an assault gun/anti-tank gun.

I think the tech level 5's are more like Panthers (or possibly Tigers) that have upgraded engines and armor.

[Panzer39]

Nazi UFO's attack from Artic Base Alpha!!!

While we are on the topic of some of the far out German Stuff, I figured I'd bring up the luftwaffe. Some of their ideas were out there; however, some were copied and developed into the allied powers airforces. I saw a program on the history channel that claims that the designers of the Stealth Fighter went to check out the Horten prototype stored at the Smithsonian while designing their plane.