Jagdtiger

Additional armament was a 128mm anti-tank gun like that mounted on the Jagdtiger or Maus, two 15mm heavy machineguns and eight 20mm anti-aircraft guns, probably with at least four of them as a quad mount. The 128mm anti-tank gun’s location on the Ratte is a point of contention among historians. Most believe it would have been mounted within the primary turret, though some think a smaller secondary turret would have been mounted at the rear of the Ratte near the engine decking. The rear turret makes more sense logistically, but the surface area of engine decking at the rear of the Ratte might have made this unrealistic. A third option would have been a hull-mounted version of the 128mm gun similar to that seen on the Jagdtiger. This would have at least been able to engage nearer targets than either of the other options.

Additional armament would have been spread on and throughout the Ratte. The heavy-machineguns and some of the 20mm guns would have probably been mounted inside ball mounts in the hull of the Ratte. A quad 20mm flak gun could have been mounted on the extremely large top surface of the turret and additional 20mm guns mounted on the top hull at the rear of the Ratte. If they were willing to put up with the exhaust fumes, an entire platoon of Panzergrenadiers could have sat atop the rear hull of the Maus.

While the Ratte was supposedly a 1000-ton vehicle this number was an almost mystically optimistic figure, much like the 100-ton weight intended for the Maus. The turret alone for the Ratte would have weighed more than 600 metric tons. The actual combat-loaded weight of the Ratte would have been closer to 1,800 tons. The speed, range, and longevity of the engines and transmission would have suffered accordingly.

Variants

The Ratte was a paper Panzer and as such the only real variants were the two choices of engines.

Analysis

The Ratte was a very problematic vehicle and the size of the Ratte was responsible for most of the issues it would have encountered on a hypothetical battlefield. A Ratte on the move would have been relegated to fields and countryside because of its road-destroying weight. Without bridges as a river-crossing option, the Ratte would have been unable to cross flooded or deep rivers and scouting parties might have wasted lengthy periods and squandered lives finding a crossing point.

Gunners on a Ratte would have found it awkward to engage targets from close or medium range with even a hull-mounted 128mm gun. Concealing the Ratte from aircraft would have required a blimp hangar or some sort of bizarre camouflage that would make it resemble a building. Such camouflage is feasible, if comical, but would have been useless the first time ground units spotted the Ratte. From that point on the Ratte would have been constantly harassed by fighter-bomber. Even if the Ratte’s 20mm AA guns had managed to drive these off, the Ratte was such an enormous target that high-altitude bombers could have been employed to attack it.

What might have been.....

Not everything was bad about the Ratte. Infantry would have been less of a risk than with the Maus because of the number of point defense weapons and the space for infantry to ride on the vehicle’s hull. The Ratte would have likely served as the cornerstone of a unit of traditional military vehicles and these would have assisted in defending it from enemy tanks and aircraft. Enemy armor posed almost no conceivable threat to the Ratte. They might have destroyed things like the AA guns on the turret or damaged radio antennae or weapon optics, but beyond minor damage enemy tanks were toys next to this mammoth vehicle. Enemy artillery was slightly more threatening and became downright dangerous if the Ratte made the mistake of straying within range of naval bombardment.

The greatest strength of the Ratte would have been its ability to single-handedly halt a major enemy offensive. It would have been slow and poor on the attack but the sight of a Ratte looming out of fog on a battlefield would have almost immediately scattered enemy ground forces. If they didn’t flee right away they would have once they realized their weapons were nearly useless against it.

Make no mistake, the astronomical cost of building a Ratte would not have been offset by its strengths. Once deployed and used in combat, it was just a matter of time before enemy aircraft destroyed it. With such poor speed and the limitations of the terrain the Ratte would not have enjoyed the same advantages of a wide open sea as its naval counterparts. The Ratte could have turned the tide of a single battle at the cost of a campaign.

1500-ton Self-Propelled 80cm Gun   By Gary Zimmer   "Heavy Gustav " or "Dora" In a paperback titled Tanks of the Axis Powers published over 20 years ago there is a brief mention of some of Germany's armoured follies. It mentions a 1500 ton super heavy tank, cased in 250mm of armour, armed with an 80cm gun and two 15cm weapons, and powered by four U-boat diesels. Although there was no illustration I have always been curious as to what this 1500 tonner would look like.   However we do know something about the proposed main weapon, the 80cm. Although not the largest calibre gun ever made, or the longest ranged, the 80cm railway gun 'Dora' was the biggest. As far as we know it was used only sparingly, to shell Sevastopol in the Crimea, and later Warsaw. Too large to be transported whole, Dora required several trains to transport it. Before assembly could begin, and this took several weeks to acomplish, a second track had to be laid at the chosen firing site. Movable straddle cranes also had to be assembled, these were on their own additional rails. The two 20 axle halves of the chassis were shunted onto the double tracks side by side, and coupled together. Only then could the cranes start putting the really big bits on. Once assembled Dora must have been an awesome sight, all one thousand three hundred and fifty tons of it. The barrel alone weighed 100 tons, the breech was also another 100 tons. It could fling a 7 ton shell about 45 km. As a piece of static siege artillery there was no question of its effect, but even its creators, Krupp, admitted while it was a valuable research tool, as a practical weapon of war it was useless.   Alleged wartime sketch of the "Monster" Which brings us to the 1500 tonner, aptly named 'Monster' by armaments minister Albert Speer. It may have been an attempt to make some use of Dora, or simply an extension of a policy to self-propell all heavy artillery, but someone got the idea of putting Dora on tracks. The wartime sketch (provided courtesy Karl Horvat, an Australian researcher) is all we have, but it allows us to deduce a few things. One reason why you can't simply scale up an existing tank design is ground pressure. If you know the mass and dimensions (i.e. area of track in contact with the ground) of a vehicle, it is quite easy to work out ground pressure. Put simply, weight will be roughly proportional to the volume or the cube of the dimensions, while the area of track in contact with the ground will be proportional to the square of dimensions. If we double the size of a tank, we get eight times the weight but only four times the track area, thus twice the ground pressure. (There's also twice the stress in suspensions, axles and everything else, it's why elephants have thicker legs than flamingos.) A very light tracked vehicle, such as a Bren carrier, will have what appears to be ridiculously narrow tracks. As a vehicle gets heavier, the proportion of its width covered by track increases. A Centurion has about 40% of its width as track, while for the 188 ton Maus tank, the figure was about 66% or two thirds. In fact the most striking thing about Maus is this proportion of track width to overall width.   Assuming a pressure of 1.2 kg per sq cm for this 1500 tonner, that's about midway between that of a Centurion and a Maus, and seems a realistic place to start. Working backwards, we can use ground pressure and weight (1500 tons, or thereabouts) to find how much contact area it needs. Track width appears to be around 80% of the width, giving tracks of 2.4m width (each) for an overall width of 6m. The illustration appears to be about 6m wide, as is the gun on its rail mount. If we stick to an assumed six metre width, close to an upper limit if we ever consider movement by road, this behemoth thus requires 27m of track on the ground. There's only one problem with this, it won't turn.     The Landkreuzer P. 1500 Monster was a pre-prototype ultraheavy tank meant as a mobile platform for the Krupp 800mm Schwerer Gustav artillery piece, in fact, a mobile grand cannon. If completed it would have easily surpassed the Panzer VIII Maus, and even the extremely large Landkreuzer P. 1000 Ratte in size. It would have been 42 m (138 ft) long, would have weighed 2500 tonnes, with a 250 mm hull front armor, 4 MAN U-boat (submarine) diesel engines, [though it would only have enough power to reach up to speeds of 10-15 kph] and an operating crew of over 100 men.   The main armament would have been an 800 mm Dora/Schwerer Gustav K (E) railway gun 10 times bigger in diameter than modern tank cannons, and a secondary armament of two 150 mm SFH 18/1 L/30 howitzers and multiple 15 mm MG 151/15 machine guns.   The shorter a tracked vehicle is, that is track length on the ground, the less resistance there is to turning. Also, the wider it is, the outside track is able to generate a greater turning moment, and overcome the resistance of both tracks to being pushed sideways. A governing aspect of tracked vehicle design is the ratio of the distance between track centres, and track contact length. Typically, this is about 2:1 for most vehicles. The 1500 tonner has a length/width ratio of about 7.5 to 1, and this is horrific. The way out of this is chassis articulation. By using four track units, each 14m long, and allowing each pair to be turned independently, it might just work.   Having four track units ties in nicely with the four U-boat diesels. All the Porsche heavy tanks were electric drive, and it seems hard to imagine anything else for a machine this size. In a U-boat, the diesels drove dual purpose electric motor-generators, but on the 1500 tonner these would function as generators only. It seems logical that each diesel would have its own generator. These four generators would each run an electric motor in each of the four track units. Of course the diesels and generators could be anywhere in the vehicle, as no mechanical drive to the tracks would be required. The other pieces of information are harder to fit into the picture. Just where the two turrets, each with a 15cm gun, would fit I have no idea. If the layout of Dora is preserved, as the illustration seems to indicate, there appears to be no place for them. Also, having these turrets side by side, as Axis suggests, implies a much greater width than 6m if these turrets are not to foul. More puzzling still is the 25cm of frontal armour. The illustration shows that the loading decks, and of course the crew doing the loading, had no protection at all, nor would they need any being many miles from whatever they were shooting at. Having this extent of armour is only required if the machine is going to be used as a direct fire weapon, in other words as a tank and not a piece of self-propelled artillery.   It also appears that the shell hoists are retained, as on the rail gun. While having no on-board stowage of 80cm rounds is not an issue for SP artillery, it would be an absolute must for a 'tank'. Dora was supplied with 80cm rounds from the rail lines it sat upon, but this would not be any use to an SP operating away from any railhead. I imagine that ammunition vehicles would be required to deliver one round at a time to the hoists, they could possibly be similar to the Panzer IV carriers used with the Karl Mörsers. Apart from these carriers there would probably be a whole retinue of vehicles accompanying this giant machine; fire control and signals vehicles, a flak unit, the cook's truck, and so on. Munitionsschlepper Panzer IV E-D We can only speculate how this machine might be moved. As with Dora, it could conceivably be transported by rail in pieces, but once assembled and moving under its own power beyond the rail network the fun would really start. As with all oversize vehicles, the planned route would need to be carefully surveyed. It would occupy the entire width of a road on its own, and travelling through any town en route would no doubt lead to a fair bit of urban renewal. Rivers would be less of a problem, as the machine's great height would permit fairly deep fording. However the greatest problem would be the high centre of gravity due to the mass of barrel, breech, recoil system so high up, and sideslope of the ground would be the main restriction to travel, lest the vehicle keel over. As with other large land vehicles, there is a distinction between 'movable' and 'mobile'. The 80cm 'Gustav' in Action   The largest gun ever built had an operational career of 13 days, during which a total of 48 shells were fired in anger. It took 25 trainloads of equipment, 2000 men and up to six weeks to assemble. It seem unlikely that such a weapon will ever be seen again.   The 80-cm K (E), for all its size and weight, to say nothing of its 'overkill' firepower, went into action on only one occasion. It was originally intended to smash through the extensive Maginot Line forts but when the campaign in the West took place in 1940 the 80-cm K (E) was still in the Krupp workshops at Essen and, in any event, the German army bypassed the Maginot Line altogether. Thus when the 80-cm equipment had completed its gun proofing trials at Hillersleben and its service acceptance trials at Rugenwalde there was nothing for the gun and its crew to do. To justify the labour and effort of getting the huge gun and its entourage into action, the potential target had to justify all the bother involved, and there were no really large fortification lines left in Europe for the gun to tackle. The two major fortification systems, the Sudetenland defences and the Maginot Line, were both in German hands and it seemed that the 80-cm K (E), or 'schwere Gustav' (heavy Gustav) as it became known, was redundant even before it had fired an aggressive shot   During early 1941 one potential target appeared on the planner's drawing boards and that was Gibraltar. It was planned to assault this isolated fortress at the mouth of the Mediterranean to deny the inland sea to the Allies but as Spain was neutral permission had to be obtained from General Franco to allow German troops to travel through Spain to make the attack. Operational planning for the assault (named Operation 'Felix') got to the stage at which German parachute and glider troops were actively training for the assault before a meeting between Hitler and Franco showed that the wily Spanish dictator was not going to allow himself or his country to become mixed up in a major European conflict, Thus another potential target for the 'schwere Gustav' came and went.   The invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation 'Barbarossa') took place during the second half of 1941 without any assistance from the 80-cm K (E), but by early 1942 the advances of the German army were so rapid and deep that they were on the approaches to the Crimea. Ahead of them lay the naval base of Sevastopol, which was potentially a useful supply port and base for the southern German armies. The need for such a supply base was not very pressing, but what attracted the German operational planners was that Sevastopol was a heavily-fortified port. Around the perimeter of the city was a long chain of fortifications. some of them dating back to the days before the Crimean War of 1854-6 but others more modern, and near the sea coasts there were numerous heavy coastal .batteries. The place looked ideal for an investment and siege in the old manner, to be followed up by a huge assault which would demonstrate to the world the power of the German army. Soon the relatively light forces that advanced into the Crimea were supplemented by more and more troops and the German planners started to scour Europe for heavy guns to form an old-fashioned siege train.   Karl-Gerät For centuries it had been the task of the siege train to bombard a besieged fortress into submission or else open a breach for attacking troops to storm. The Germans decided to repeat this performance on a massive scale. From all corners of Europe the German army assembled a massive gun park of all types of artillery from small-calibre field guns up to pre World War I large-calibre howitzers. Some were German in origin but others were old captured weapons, and to these were added the modern embellishments of artillery rockets and super-heavy artillery. Into this category came the 60-cm (23.6-in) mobile mortars known as the Karl-Gerät, and it was realized that at last the propaganda coup could be topped by the first operational use of 'schwere Gustav'.   Accordingly the 80-cm K (E) trundled to the Crimea on specially re-laid track. Well ahead of its progress a small army of labourers started to prepare the gun's chosen firing position at Bakhchisaray, a small village outside Sevastopol. Well over 1,500 men under the control of a German army engineer unit dug through a small knoll to form a wide railway cutting on an arc of double track, and the sides of the cutting were raised to provide cover and protection for the gun. On the approaches railway troops laboured to re-lay track and strengthen possible trouble points against the passing of the 'schwere Gustav'. Work on the eventual firing site reached the point where the area behind the curve of firing tracks resembled a small marshalling yard over 1. 2 km (0. 75 miles) long. It resembled a marshalling yard, and that was exactly what it was. In the area the 25 separate loads that formed the gun and its carriage had to be assembled and pushed and pulled into the right position and order. Farther to the rear were the accommodation areas where the numerous men of the gun crew lived and prepared for their task   The manpower involved in assembling 'Schwere Gustav' was large, Each of the 80-cm K (E)s had a complete detachment of no less than 1,420 men under the command of a full colonel. He had his own headquarters and planning staff, and there was the main gun crew which numbered about 500, most of whom were involved with the complicated ammunition care and handling. Once in action these 500 would remain with the gun, but the rest of the gun's manpower was made up from various units including an intelligence section to determine what targets to engage. Quite a number of troops were involved in the two light anti-aircraft defence battalions that always accompanied the gun when it travelled and also supplied manpower for some assembly tasks. Once the gun was in position these AA battalions warded off unwanted aerial intruders. Two guard companies constantly patrolled the perimeter of the gun position (at one time these companies were Romanian), and at all times there was a small group of civilian technicians from Krupp who dealt with the technical aspects of their monster charge and advised the soldiers. Railway troops and the usual administrative personnel added to the manpower total.   Even using this small army of men it took between three and six weeks to assemble the gun, even using the two I 10-tonne cranes that had been designed specially for the task. just getting the right sub-assembly load into position at the right time was a masterpiece of railway marshalling and planning, but eventually it was all sorted out and by early June 1942, 'schwere Gustav' was ready, along with the rest of the siege train with all their cumbersome carriages and ammunition emplaced ready to hand.   Firing commenced on June 5, 1942. 'Schwere Gustav' was but one voice in a huge choir that heralded one of the largest and heaviest artillery bombardments of all time. By the time Sevastopol fell early in July 1942 it was calculated that no fewer than 562,944 artillery projectiles had fallen on the port, the bulk of them from heavy-calibre guns and howitzers, and this total does not include the noisy storms of artillery rockets and the extra weight of the infantry's own unit artillery. How the civilians of Sevastopol survived it all can now be explained quite easily. They simply went underground. The city knew the bombardment was coming, for not only had their own party and other authorities told them what to expect, but the Germans constantly assailed them with radio broadcasts and other propaganda as to the wrath that was to befall them. By the time the real bombardment started they had already dug deep shelters both underground and in the walls of quarries and hillsides, and there they lived and remained for weeks, A surprising number survived it all.   'Schwere Gustav' was not used against civilian targets. Its first targets were some coastal batteries that were engaged at a range of about 25000 m (27,340 yards), and all shots were observed by a special Luftwaffe flight of Fieseler Fi-156 Storchs assigned to the gun. Eight shots were all that were required to demolish these targets, and later the same day a further six shots were fired at the concrete work known as Fort Stalin. By the end of the day that too was a ruin and preparations were made for the following day. It might be thought that 14 rounds in a day was slow going, but in fact it was good going for a gun with a calibre of 80 cm (31.5 in). At best the firing rate was one round every 15 minutes, and more often the interval was longer. The preparation of each shell and charge was considerable and involved several stages including taking the temperature of each charge, accurately computing the air temperature and wind currents at altitude, and getting the shell and the charge to the breech. Projectile and charge then had to be rammed accurately, and the whole barrel had to be elevated to the correct angle. It all took time.   'Schwere Gustav' was in action again on 6 June, initially against Fort Molotov. Seven shells demolished that structure and then it was the turn of a target known as the White Cliff, This was the aiming point for an underground ammunition magazine under Severnaya Bay and so placed by the Sviets as to be invulnerable to conventional weapons. It was not invulnerable to the 80-cm K (E) for nine projectiles bored the way down through the sea, through over 30 m (100 ft) of sea bottom and then exploded inside the magazine. By the time 'schwere Gustav' had fired its ninth shot the magazine was a wreck and to cap it all a small sailing ship had been sunk in the process.   The next day was 7 June, and it was the turn of a target known to the Germans as the Südwestspitze, an outlying fortification that was to be the subject of an infantry attack. After seven shots the target was ready for the attentions of the infantry and the gun crews were then able to turn their attentions to some gun maintenance and a short period of relative rest until 11 June. On that day Fort Siberia was the recipient of a further five shells, and then came another lull for the gun crews until 17 June, when they fired their last five operational shells against Fort Maxim Gorki and its attendant coastal battery. Then it was all over for 'schwere Gustav'.   Once Sevastopol had fallen on I July the German siege train was dispersed all over Europe once more, and 'schwere Gustav' was taken apart and dragged back to Germany, where its barrel was changed. Including the 48 operational shells fired against the Crimean targets, 'schwere Gustav' had fired about 300 rounds in all, including proofing, training and demonstration rounds. The old barrel went back to Essen for relining.   There was nothing more for 'schwere Gustav' to do, It spent some time on the Rugenwalde ranges firing the odd demonstration projectile and being used for the development of some long-range concrete-piercing projectiles, and at one point there was talk of replacing the 80-cm (31.5-in) barrel with a 52-cm (20.5-in) barrel to provide the weapon with more range. That project came to nothing, as did a project to place the 80-cm (31.5-in) barrel on a tracked self-propelled chassis for street fighting. Considerable planning was spent on this outlandish idea before it was terminated, though the idea was no more impractical than the whole 80-cm K (E) project, which had absorbed immense manpower and facilities of all kinds, all to fire 48 rounds at antiquated Crimean fortifications.   By May 1945 'schwere Gustav' was scattered all over central Europe. The carefully-planned trains had been attacked constantly by Allied aircraft and what parts were still in one piece were wrecked by their crews and left for the Allies' wonderment. Today all that is left of 'schwere Gustav' and 'Dora' are a few inert projectiles in museums.   A Czech book seems to suggest that it was planned to move it to the Channel for bombardment of England, and there are drawings of the proposed tunnel.  There is a report, declassified by the National Security Agency only in 1978; the report is apparently a decoded intercept from the Japanese embassy in Stockholm to Tokyo. It is entitled simply "Reports on the Atom-Splitting Bomb."   The contents in their entirety, with the original breaks where they occurred in the text for transmission: This bomb is revolutionary in its results, and it will completely upset all ordinary precepts of warfare hitherto established. I am sending you, in one group, all those reports on what is called the atom-splitting bomb:   It is a fact that in June of 1943 the German Army tried out an utterly new type of weapon against the Russians at a location 150 kilometers southeast of Kursk. Although it was the entire 19th Infantry Regiment of the Russians which was thus attacked, only a few bombs (each round up to 5 kilograms) sufficed to utterly wipe them out to the last man.   The following is according to a statement by Lieutenant-Colonel UE (?) I KENJI, advisor to the attaché in Hungary and formerly (on duty?) in this country, who by chance saw the actual scene immediately after the above took place:   "All the men and the horses (within the area of?) the explosion of the shells were charred black and even their ammunition had all been detonated "   Moreover, it is a fact that the same type of war material was tried out in the Crimea, too. At that time the Russians claimed that this was poison-gas, and protested that if Germany were ever again to use it, Russia, too, would use poison-gas.   There is also the fact that recently in London - in the period between October and the 15th of November - the loss of life and the damage to business buildings through fires of unknown origin was great. It is clear, judging especially by the articles about a new weapon of this type, which have appeared from time to time recently in British and American magazines - that even our enemy has already begun to study this type.   To generalize on the basis of all these reports: I am convinced that the most important technical advance in the present great war is in the realization of the atom-splitting bomb. Therefore, the central authorities are planning, through research on this type of weapon, to speed up the matter of rendering the weapon practical. And for my part, I am convinced of the necessity for taking urgent steps to effect this end.   The following are the facts I have learned regarding its technical data:   Recently the British authorities warned their people of the possibility that they might undergo attacks by German atom-splitting bombs. The American military authorities have likewise warned that the American east coast might be the area chosen for a blind attack by some sort of flying bomb. It was called the German V-3. To be specific, this device is based on the principle of the explosion of the nuclei of the atoms in heavy hydrogen derived from heavy water. (Germany has a large plant (for this?) in the vicinity of Rjukan, Norway, which has from time to time been bombed by English planes.).   Naturally, there have been plenty of examples even before this of successful attempts at smashing individual atoms. However, as far as the demonstration of any practical results is concerned, they seem not to have been able to split large numbers of atoms in a single group. That is, they require for the splitting of each single atom a force that will disintegrate the electron orbit.   On the other hand, the stuff that the Germans are using has, apparently, a very much greater specific gravity than anything heretofore used. In this connection, allusions have been made to SIRIUS and stars of the "White Dwarf" group. (Their specific gravity is (6?) 1 thousand, and the weight of one cubic inch is 1 ton.)   In general, atoms cannot be compressed into the nuclear density. However, the terrific pressures and extremes of temperature in the "White Dwarfs" cause the bursting of the atoms and A-GENSHI HAKAI DAN. That is, a bomb deriving its force from the release of atomic energy.   There are, moreover, radiations from the exterior of these stars composed of what is left of the atoms which are only the nuclei, very small in volume.   According to the English newspaper accounts, the German atom-splitting device is the NEUMAN disintegrator. Enormous energy is directed into the central part of the atom and this generates at atomic pressure of several tons of thousands of tons (sic) per square inch. This device can split the relatively unstable atoms of such elements as uranium. Moreover, it brings into being a store of explosive atomic energy.       The end of this amazing intercept then reads: Inter 12 Dec 44 (1,2) Japanese; Rec'd 12 Dec 44; Trans  14 Dec 44 (3020-B), apparently references to when the message was intercepted by American intelligence, its original language (Japanese), when the message was received, when it was translated (December 12, 1944), and by whom (3020- B).   ~Edgar Mayer and Thomas Mehner, Hitler und die Bombe (Rottenburg: Kopp Verlag, 2002), citing "Stockholm to Tokyo, No. 232.9 December 1944 (War Department), National Archives, RG 457, SRA 14628-32, declassified October 1, 1978.   The date of this document two days before the beginning of the Battle of the Bulge must have set off alarm bells in the offices of Allied Intelligence personnel both during and after the war. While it is certainly clear that the Japanese attaché in Stockholm seems to be somewhat confused about the nature of nuclear fission, a number of startling things stand out in the document:   (1) The Germans were, according to the report, using weapons of mass destruction of some type on the Eastern Front, but had apparently for some reason refrained from using them on the Western Allies;   (a) The areas specifically mentioned were Kursk, in the approximate location of the southern pincer of the German offensive, which took place in July, and not June, of 1943, and the Crimean peninsula;   (b) The time mentioned was 1943, though since the only major action to have occurred in the Crimea was in 1942 with the massive German artillery bombardment, one must also conclude that the time frame stretched back into 1942; At this juncture is it worth pausing to consider briefly the German siege of the Russian fortress of Sevastopol, scene of the most colossal artillery bombardment of the war, as it bears directly on the interpretation of this intercept.   The siege was led by Colonel-General (later Field Marshal) Erich von Manstein's 11th Army. Von Manstein assembled 1,300 artillery pieces - the largest concentration of heavy and super-heavy artillery deployed by any Power during the war - and pounded Sevastopol with this mighty arsenal twenty-four hours a day for five clays. These were no ordinary heavy field pieces.   Two mortar regiments - the 1st Heavy Mortar Regiment and the 70th Mortar Regiment - as well as the 1st and 4th Mortar Battalions, had been concentrated in front of the fortress under the special command of Colonel Nieman - altogether 21 batteries with 576 barrels, including the batteries of the 1st Heavy Mortar regiment with the 11- and 12 1/2 inch high explosive and incendiary oil shells...   Even these monsters were not the largest pieces deployed at Sevastopol. Several of the 16 1/2 inch "Big Bertha" Krupp cannon and their old Austrian Skoda counterparts were massed against the Russian positions, along with the even more colossal "Karl" and "Thor" mortars, gigantic self-propelled 24 inch mortars firing shells that weighed over two tons.   But even "Karl" was not quite the last word in gunnery. That last word was stationed at Bakhchisary, in the "Palace of Gardens" of the ancient residence of the Tartar Khans, and was called "Dora," or occasionally "Heavy Gustav." It was the heaviest gun of the last war. Its caliber was 31 1/2 inches. Sixty railway carriages were needed to transport the parts of the monster. Its 107-foot barrel ejected high-explosive projectiles of 4800 kg -i.e., nearly five tons- over a distance of 29 miles. Or it could hurl even heavier armour-piercing missiles, weighing seven tons, at targets nearly 24 miles away. The missile together with its cartridge measured nearly twenty-six feet in length. Erect that would be about (the) height of a two-storey house....   These data are sufficient to show that here the conventional gun had been enlarged to gigantic, almost super-dimensional scale - indeed, to a point where one might question the economic return obtained from such a weapon. Yet one single round from "Dora" destroyed an ammunition dump in Severnaya Bay at Sevastopol although it was situated 100 feet below ground.   So horrendous was the bombardment from this massed heavy and super-heavy artillery that the German General Staff estimated that over 500 rounds fell on Russian positions per second during the five days' artillery and aerial bombardment, a massive expenditure of ammunition. The rain of steel on the Russian positions pulverized Russian morale and was often so thunderous that eardrums burst. At the end of the battle, the city and environs of Sevastopol were ruined, two entire Soviet armies had been obliterated, and over 90,000 prisoners were taken. ~Paul Carrell, Hitler Moves East, 1941-1943 (Ballantine Books, 1971) Why are these details significant? First, note the reference to "incendiary oil shells." These shells are the indication that unusual weaponry was deployed by the Germans at Sevastopol and delivered through conventional - though quite large - artillery pieces. The German Army did possess such shells and deployed the frequently and with no little effectiveness on the Eastern Front.   But might there have been an even more fearsome weapon? The Germans indeed developed an early version of a modern "fuel-air" bomb, a conventional explosive with the explosive power of a tactical nuclear weapon. Given the great weight of such projectiles, and the German lack of sufficient heavy-lift aircraft to deliver them, it is possible if not likely that super-heavy artillery was used to deploy them. This would also explain another curiosity in the Japanese military attaché's statement: the Germans apparently did not deploy weapons of mass destruction against cities, but only against military targets that would have been within the range of such weapons. To resume the analysis of the Japanese statement.   (2) The Germans may have been seriously pursuing the hydrogen bomb, since reactions of the nuclei of heavy water atoms -containing deuterium and tritium- are essential in thermonuclear fusion reactions, a point highlighted by the Japanese delegate (though he confuses these reactions with fission reactions of atom bombs)   (3) The enormous temperatures of atom bombs are used as detonators in conventional hydrogen bombs;   (4) In desperation the Russians appeal to have been ready to resort to the use of poison gas against the Germans if they did not "cease and desist";   (5) The Russians believe the weapons to have been "poison gas" of some sort, either a cover story put out by the Russians, or a result of field reports being made by Russian soldiers who were ignorant of the type of weapon deployed against them [The detail of "charred bodies" and exploded ammunition certainly point to non-conventional weaponry. A fuel-air device would at least account for the charring. The tremendous heat produced by such a bomb could also conceivably detonate ammunition. Likewise, radioactive burns with its characteristic blistering effects might well have been misunderstood by Russian field soldiers and officers, who would most likely not have been familiar with nuclear energy, as the effects of poison gas] and finally, and most sensationally,   (6) According to the Japanese cable, the Germans appeared to have gained their specialized knowledge via some connection to the star system of Sirius and that knowledge involved some exotic form of very dense matter, a statement that strains credulity even today.   It is this last point that directs our attention to the most fantastic and arcane recesses of wartime German secret weapons research, for if the allegation has even a partial basis in truth, then it indicates that at some highly secret level, physics, and the esoteric, were being pursued by the Nazi regime in some very extraordinary ways. [To anyone familiar with the wealth of material on alternative research into the Giza compound in Egypt, the reference to Sirius will immediately conjure images of Egyptian religion, its preoccupation with death, with the Osiris myth, and to the Sirian star system]. In this regard it is important to note that the extreme density of the material described by the Japanese envoy resembles nothing so much as a construct of modern post-war theoretical physics called "dark matter". In all likelihood his report greatly overestimates the mass of this material - if it existed at all - but nonetheless it is crucial to observe that it is material far beyond the ordinary density of matter.

The Großkampfwagen or "K-Wagen" had a crew of 27: a commander, two drivers, a signaler, an artillery officer, 12 cannoneers, eight machine gunners and two mechanics. In the beginning of the project it was proposed to incorporate a flamethrower but this was later rejected. The commander could give orders to the crew by means of electric lights: fire control was comparable to that of a destroyer, so the Germans saw the vehicle as a veritable "landship". The drivers would have had to steer the vehicle blindly, directed by the commander.   The type was even bulkier than the Ferdinand Porsche-designed World War II era Maus and therefore the largest tank ever built. It would never become operational however as under the armistice conditions Germany was forbidden to possess tanks and all hulks were scrapped. In 1942 Hitler had a full scale wooden mock-up built for comparison with his own examples of tank gigantomania.   World War I – the K-Wagen In June 1917, before the first A7V:s were even completed, the German War Ministry ordered the construction of a new colossal super-tank, the biggest tank ever designed: the K-Wagen. (K standing for Kolossal, meaning colossal.) The K-Wagen was thought as a enormous moving fortress bristling with guns and MGs, to be used in break-through situations. The weight was some 150 tons, and it would be powered only by two small 200 HP motors. (Later on these two tiny motors were switched for two 650 HP motors.) The enormous weight of the vehicle of course made it impossible to move any longer distances, so it was to be transported by rail in four parts of some 30 tons each, only to be put together behind the front line, at the point were it was to be employed. The K-Wagen was also supposed to have a trench crossing capacity of some 4 meters, and no less than four 77mm cannons. The design was done by Vollmer. Almost from the very beginning of the project sceptical voices was heard. The sheer size of the vehicle made it difficult to produce, as no standard components or techniques could be employed. So it was decided that the tank was to be built by companies with experience from building bridges and the tracks came from power shovel construction. Soon it was also discovered that the tank was too heavy, so the length was reduced to 13 meters, which at least cut the weight with some 30 tons. The original order was for ten vehicles. The weight was some 120 tons! It has been called "completely nonsensical" and  the Army actively sought to prevent the order as the type was seen by the military as hugely impractical and a complete waste of scarce resources, but two prototypes were actually under construction when the war ended - one was nearly finished. People doubting the whole idea were silenced by being told that von Hindenburg himself wished it to be built. Remember “Kolossal Wagen”? It’s the one shown on the bottom left for size comparison in this picture. By the way, on the bottom right is one of the Hitler’s macho dreams - the Maus.   This would give you some idea what unspeakable scale was projected for the Soviet “Bolshevik” tank from 1932. Designed by German engineer E. Grotte, under contract with power-hungry Communists, this beauty had 24,000 horse-powers multiple engines, weighed 1000 tons, had 6 turrets and crew of sixty people. O… my…. God…. It stayed only on paper, but these Russians had another shot at similar stupendous engineering: I bet Hitler did not expect this: How this thing would ever turn? What about the turning radius? “It doesn’t need to turn, it will drive straight to Berlin” - said Stalin when approving this project. (probably the most interesting thing he ever said) KV-VI Behemoth was more than a landship, it was a Communist wet dream. It had some hilarious history, too: “The first prototype was completed in December 1941 and was rushed into the defense of Moscow. In its first action during a dense winter fog, the rear turret accidentally fired into the center turret. The resulting explosion completely destroyed the vehicle. The second prototype was completed in January 1942, and was sent to the Leningrad front. This one had indicators installed to show when another turret was in the line of fire. In its initial attack on the Germans, the tank broke in half when crossing a ravine.”   In 1915 Friedrich Goeble, a German  engineer from Riga  came out with the Landpanzerkreuzer (armoured land cruiser).  building a small powered version and demonstrating it to the German war office commercial testing commission. This machine was rejected as being impractical and underpowered, and without any defined form of steering. Goeble was persistent, and he next presented a model which ran on a single tracked unit, which was very similar to the British Pedrail track. Again this vehicle did not impress the commission, they believed that Goeble was wasting money on this project. This was in May of  1917 when work had already started on the A7V. The German Crown Prince heard of Goeble’s  rejection, and arranged for a demonstration to take place in June 1917. Goeble altered the vehicle, discarding the tracked unit and substituting steel spheres like giant ball bearings; the vehicle moved over the ground as if it was on castors. The vehicle was still considered impractical. If the Landpanzerkreuzer had ever been built, Goeble estimated that it would have been 118 ft long, 17 ft high, and would have weighed 550 tons! - having an armour 4 inches thick. Goeble’s last tank design Panzerkreuzer (armoured cruiser) was at the end of 1917. This involved a small scale model, later a full scale vehicle running on a rail type track and elliptical balls. This vehicle resembled more of what we envision as a modern tank, driving compartment up front, and engine in the rear. Armour was also to be 4 inches thick. This vehicle was an improvement over his other designs, but it was to late, the commission had by now formed into the Allgemeine Kriegsdepartment 7, Abteilung Verkehrswesen (General War Department 7, Traffic Section) or A7V Commission, and as the name implies the German High Command had already made up to accept Vollmer’s A7V Sturmpanzerwagen  for production, and here Friedrich Goeble and his projects faded from memory.     The Flying Elephant was a proposed super-heavy tank, planned but never built by the British during World War I After the last order for the Mark I, an additional fifty vehicles in April 1916, it was far from certain that any more tanks were to be produced. Everything would depend on the success of the new weapon. William Tritton, co-designer and co-producer of the first tank, thought he had already understood what would prove to be its main deficiency. A direct hit by a shell would destroy the vehicle, a major drawback on a battlefield saturated with artillery. Tritton decided in April to design a tank that would be immune to medium artillery fire.   Tritton was unsure however of what this would entail exactly. How thick should the armour be to ensure complete protection? The same month' Lieutenant Kenneth Symes began to test two-inch (51 mm) armour plate by firing at it with various captured German guns. In June, this programme was expanded by testing several types of plate at Shoeburyness, delivered by armour producer William Beardmore and Company. The Tank Supply Committee approved the production of a prototype on June 19, 1916, but the design was not to be finalised until late August 1916.   The drawings have partially survived, and show a vehicle 8.36 metres long and about three metres tall and wide, not that much larger overall than the Mark I; the huge increase in weight came from the enormously thick (for the time) armour (three inches at the front, two inches on the sides). The hull roof consisted of a horizontal half-cylinder, apparently also with a uniform armour-thickness of two inches. The front was a vertical half-cylinder, the transition between the two being a half-dome.   Most sources claim that the main armament, a nose-mounted cannon, was a standard 57-millimetre six-pounder gun. However, John Glanfield, in his history The Devil's Chariots, states that it was a 75-millimetre, or twelve/thirteen-pounder gun. This certainly makes more sense, especially as it seems odd for such a heavy machine to have had half the main armament of conventional vehicles, and in view of the fact that the preliminary design, of which the blueprints survive in the Albert Stern archive at King's College London, featured two six-pounders in sponsons either side of a bulbous nose equipped with no fewer than five machine guns. Each side had two machine-gun positions on the flanks, with two more at the rear (the original Foster's drawings make this quite clear; the reproduction of the drawings in David Fletcher's book British Tanks 1915–19 is, for some reason, cropped in such a way as to make the rear guns ambiguous in nature). Originally, the shell-proof tank was referred to simply as the Heavy Tank, then Foster's Battle Tank. Where the nickname 'Flying Elephant' came from no-one knows for sure, though doubtless it was merely the result of the trunk-like nose gun, domed front, and enormous bulk combining with a certain traditional British lightheartedness.   The caterpillar tracks resembled those of the Mark I, but were flatter and 61 centimetres wide. The weight was estimated at roughly a hundred tons; as this might well cause the vehicle to get stuck in somewhat softer ground, the underside was equipped with two additional narrower tracks. All four tracks could be simultaneously driven, the inner tracks being connected to the main units via dog clutches, by two Daimler 105 horsepower (78 kilowatt) engines, positioned on the centre-line. Each engine had its primary gearbox, both of which drove into one single differential; this differential again powered two secondary gearboxes, one for each main track. This differs from the solution chosen for the later Whippet, to let each engine drive its own track.   It is certain that actual construction was started at some point, but that it did not result in a completed prototype. Albert Gerald Stern, the head of the Tank Supply Department, wrote that the War Office ordered the end of the project late in 1916, because it deemed mobility more important than protection.   Historian David Fletcher speculated that the project ran into trouble because the vehicle was grossly underpowered; top speed was estimated at two miles per hour, and it seems unlikely that it could have worked itself free when stuck in mud. The mere fact that the Mark I series turned out to be a success removed one of Tritton's main motives for building the heavier tank. However, John Glanfield writes that Tritton, in an effort to lighten the machine and make it more practicable, halved the thickness of the armour, reducing the overall weight to a still hefty 50-60 tons. Its appearance would have remained unchanged. Furthermore, the role of the Flying Elephant was changed from a rather vague 'attack' role to that of a 'tank-buster' when it was feared that the Germans were developing their own armoured fighting vehicles. Apparently, Stern planned to build twenty of the machines, before the project was cancelled for the tactical reasons given above.

Rumor has it, this massive war-machine, dubbed the "Siege Bot" in Western intelligence circles, was built by the Iraqi regime under Saddam Hussein. The huge gun tube launched rocket-assisted howitzer rounds, and was intended to crack Iranian fortifications during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. The Siege Bot vanished soon after the first Gulf War, having never fired on Allied troops. The United States denies having it….. It is reminiscent of the German assault gun ‘Panzermörser Sturmtiger’ of 1944... Sturmmörser Tiger   Type: Gigantic Rocket-Assisted Mortar Tank   Specific Features: One of the most fearsome and effective German tanks of World War II was the Panzer Mk VI, or Tiger as it was better known. The Tiger mounted a long-barreled 88mm gun specially designed for it, unlike the later King Tiger and Jagdpanther which mounted modified full-size versions of the 88mm anti-tank gun. The Surmmörser Tiger, or Sturm Tiger, was based on the effective Tiger chassis but replaced the turret and 88mm armament with an enclosed superstructure and a massive 380mm rocket-assisted mortar. The rocket activated shortly after firing and exhaust often backwashed down the stubby barrel of the Sturm Tiger. To counteract this potentially catastrophic effect the gun barrel had a ring of gas vents so that exhaust would vent outwards from the barrel. The projectile, larger than most naval artillery, was capable of leveling a building in a single shot or penetrating through 2 and a half meters of reinforced concrete. The Sturm Tiger had a surprisingly large internal magazine given the size of the rockets, carrying 15 in total. For replenishing the magazine a special hatch was built into the roof of the superstructure and a loading arm and pulley system was attached to the back. This system allowed the crew to stand outside the tank and "hand" shells in. When the mortar was utilized it was almost always fired over a "flat" trajectory, meaning that unlike conventional mortars this one was also intended to be fired straight at the target and not lobbed in an arc.   History: Proposed in early August of 1943 as the Germans were once again mounting an increasingly desperate summer offensive against the Soviets, the Sturm Tiger was championed by Panzer Leader Heinz Guderian. He clearly saw the limitations of even heavy tanks when it came to urban fighting and wanted a weapon that could roll in to support the infantry and route the enemy from the toughest positions. The armament was derived from a secret project of the Navy to develop a means for submarines to bombard shore positions. The Kriegsmarine abandoned this project but it proved perfectly suited for the Sturm Tiger and was adopted with modifications. Unfortunately for the Germans, by the time the first of only 18 Sturm Tigers had rolled out of the Alkett plant in Berlin-Spandau a slow-moving anti-bunker tank was of dubious value. Despite this the Sturm Tiger performed well, proving adequate at anti-tank and infantry engagements in defense of the rapidly collapsing Reich.   Panzerkampfwagen Bär The Bär was a large self-propelled vehicle mounting an awesome 30.5cm weapon. The running gear was largely to be taken from the Tiger tank, but rather than torsion bars, leaf spring suspension was to be used. These springs would have most-likely resembled a larger version of the Panzer IV leaf spring mounting. Similar systems were suggested for prototype Jagdpanzers which were on the drawing board toward the end of the war. The gun was rigidly mounted, but provision was made for a wide range of elevations. These features make the Bär closely resemble the Sturmtiger.

STRANGE VEHICLES OF PRE-WAR GERMANY & THE THIRD REICH
(1928-1945)