German "Maus" Tank

There is a photo that is suggested to be of a Maus destroyed by Soviet gunfire.

It is on a road near residential housing. It is certainly a Maus, but looks to have been destroyed by an internal explosion.

I am undecided as to the fate of the Maus prototypes. From what I have been able to ascertain, from people far better informed than me, it seems likely that only one turret was fitted with armament during the war.

The main theory seems to be that the one in the photo I mention above was being sent to fight the Russians and either broke down or ran out of fuel and was destroyed by the crew.

The Kubinka variant is a post-war hybrid of several proto-types. It was used for weapons tests by the Soviets and was built by them after the war.

I guess we will never really know what went on in the last days of the Reich...

 

Personally I would choose the JS-3 over the Maus any day of the weak

http://gunpoint-3d.com/images/artwork/aw-Maus.jpg


http://www.weapon.df.ru/tanks/sovtanks/war/foto/Is3.jpg

 

But the JS-III never saw action in Europe in WW2 either... Despite the comments of some so-called experts in their books!

Ugly looking tank!

 

If im not mistaken, only a hand full of JS-3 were completed in 1945. Also from what I have read, regiment of JS-3's may have been deployed to Manchuria in 1945...

Which one??

 

Some did go to the Far East... What they did there is open to debate.

Not alot that the Japanese had would have stopped one of those beasties though...

Both are equally ugly!!!

 

Agreed, both werent exactly the prettiest of designs, but the JS-III just seems more practical, my opinion at least.

 

I think you are right! The JS-III at least looks like it can move!

 

How dare you impugn such a fine old lady!
She may be a little wide in the beam and have strangely sloping shoulders but she's a fine, purposeful looking old thing... almost curvy.

Maus however, is definitely a shed on tracks.
Cheers,
Adam.

 

No,no,no. This 'lil beauty makes your JS-III look like a cyclops.

 

At least my cyclops can turn her head

 

I've always been a fan of Russian and German tanks.

 

I'd love to have a model of a maus
The name is bad. Why name a massive tank after a mouse!

 

The Is III? A parade boat if you ask me. As a battle tank it just has so many flaws......

 

Might very well be far from perfect, it is however considered the mother of all modern battle tanks.

 

I always thought of the IS series as a technological dead end with the IS IIm being the pinnacle of its development, much as the US M103 and British Conqueror were technological dead ends. By Soviet standards, the IS III was produced in just tiny numbers (a few hundred).
Its flaws included:
*Problems with weakness of the hull resulting in split welds in the early production models.
*The tiny ammunition supply of 28 rounds. This is compounded by its two-part ammunition and low rate of fire.
*The vehicle is very cramped making crew efficency difficult. This and the ammunition supply were addressed in the follow-on T-10 (IS IV) by lengthening the vehicle to a degree.
*The lack of a commander's cuploa and the small number of vision devices provided mean that the vehicle is almost blind in a mobile battle.
*The forward opening hatches for the commander and gunner are a perpetuated mistake. They make it more difficult for the commander to operate in an unbuttoned state in combat without unnecessarily exposing himself to fire.
*The slack track system is prone to failure.

The usually cited beginings of the MBT are found in the US M26, British Centurian, or Soviet T44 /T54.

 

T.A. it seems that you hit it right on the dot and I agree. Some ofcourse are minor but the 28 round supply and the splitting hull would be a little more then an inconvenience in battle

But I must still pick the Is III over the Maus

And even with all of its flaws, in comparison to other WWII tanks I would pick this cyclops over most.

 

Oooerr, did someone say Conqueror?
Pretty much obsolete from day one with yet another failed attempt at auto-loading but an absolutely beautiful vehicle aesthetically, and the first ever tank to get a gas turbine engine treatment... The wide-skirted hang of the thing!
A firm favourite, and the noise of one trundling past at Duxford is just unforgettable.


Centurion wins it hands down for me as the primary evolutionary step into the next generation. The short flowering of the ww2 German designs appears to me to be a blip in those evolutionary terms that was running down all sorts of atavistic routes by the end of the war, the Maus is kind of a full stop in their strange gene-pool. Traces remain, some important concepts survive, but the family would have died out eventually from inbreeding.

Cheers,
Adam.

I've never minded girls with splitting hulls.

 

Yes, the Maus was simply a waste of materials. It probably would have made a good anchor for the Queen Mary though......

 

I have always considered both of the heavies to be too much. I favor the smaller, faster, with a hard hitting gun. The Maus and III always seem to be better suited for defensive purposes that would not require a lot of manuevering. What bother me is that against other tanks, they may do fine, but the opposition would be more likely to counter with artillery and aircraft.

I suspose where you had air superiority and used a mixed of superheavies for punch and medium heavies as manuever units, they could work out. The problem is that if during a push, the tide turns, the superheavies become sacrificial targets during the retreat.