Tank Paranoia of The Third Reich

In early 1940, sensing the growing power of the enemy, “Third Reich” making desperate attempts to win a number of powerful blows the Second World War.

Hitler blesses any development of weapons designers, even deliberately amateurish, but aimed to obtain “super weapon” that could change once the situation on the fronts. By that time, began a frantic attempt to create a German atomic bomb – attempts, fortunately for the world, ended in failure.

Mania gigantism seized at the time, and the German tank industry.

Under pressure from Hitler and his inner circle – the people who believed uneducated and rather a miracle than the real possibilities of art – the drawings of Ferdinand Porsche and other designers, and then the factory floor were born unheard of monsters at once and pretended to power, and invulnerability armor protection, and the power of the fire tower.

55-ton “Tiger” was Hitler’s pride and hope of the generals. The first six supercar were collected in August 1942 with incredible diligence, literally by hand. Fuhrer personally ordered to test them in battle near Leningrad.

He was convinced that the famous Soviet 76-mm guns would be powerless against thick frontal armor. But first fight was for the Tigers fatal.

Soviet gunners calmly past the Giants missed the convoy of the battery, and then stabbed in the side of the first and last tanks. Lined with cars burned, and four other tanks were “locked up” and soon, too, were shot …

Departments Tigers, though without much success, participated in the battles at Stalingrad and in the grand battle of Kursk. The course of hostilities, and even more so, the outcome of war tank had no effect, not save the situation and the new model, called the “King Tiger”.

These machines, whose weight has reached 68 tons, and the barrels of guns were drawn on over six feet, first came on the battlefield in 1944 – and were ruthlessly beats the best medium tank of WWII, the T-34.

On “King Tiger” from side of the Vistula and son died when Ferdinand Porsche …

But “the tiger family” was only a forerunner of paranoid tank projects. To appease Hitler, Porsche started to develop cars with frontal armor thickness is 200 millimeters. Weight of the new tank had to reach 180 tons.

The project received a playful title of “Maus” (Mouse). Were made prototypes, but they are far departed from the factory yard: the car does not withstand any bridge, road surfacing just crumbled under it! Nevertheless, “Maus” began to prepare for mass production …

By the end of the war tank designers have proposed the Fuehrer project … land battleship. The tank was supposed to weigh over 500 tons and carry a huge Krupp cannon “Dora”. As the engine offers engines for submarines …

Understandably, the battleship Fields remained only on paper. And there, and the “Third Reich” collapsed, leaving the memory not only of political but also the technical madness of their leaders.