Maus Tank

I thoguht the Maus tank was a little too much tank?

 

I am not quite sure what you mean here, Tunic. Could you please clarify?

 

I think he means it is too big. Also I'm just speculation but if this tank would go into combat it would take out nothing because it is so slow and the planes would take it out long before it reaches the battlefield.

(It was more of a mobile bunker made of steel)

 

Yes, it was too big, expensive, and complicated and a product of a faulty doctrine. The vehicle was not worth the time used building it or the materials. The concept was not pursued post-war, AFAIK.

 

Since the project was cancelled in early 1944, it wasn't really pursuited during the war either.

Christian

 

It wasn't the result of any doctrine, because no doctrine was ever formulated for it. One of the reasons why the project was cancelled was that the tank had no purpose.

 

Roel:

Good point. I suppose a better phrase would be "Hitlers White Elephant".

Christian Ankerstjerne:

It was started in 1942, so it was pursued during the war.

 

A couple of years of low-level prototype development can hardly be considered being pursued, unless you want to include a whole range of vehicles in that category.

 

Curious?How easy or difficult would it have been for an aircraft to disable or destroy a Maus?

 

Considering the average hit rate of the rockets used by the fighter-bombers, it'd require at least 20 rockets to get one hit, which may or may not penetrate.

 

It is not that much larger than a Tiger, either.

Comparison:



(Disclaimer: I don't know if the dimensions of these models are correct)

Here are the correct ones, from: http://panzerworld.net

Maus



Tiger




The difference in size is not big enough to make the Maus a "dramatically" large air target, like many people would suggest. What do you guys think?

 

Whilst the height and width way not be much greater, it is nearly as long as 1 1/2 Tigers. A dramatically huge target for an aircraft? Don't know, depends on the weapon and method of attack. Either way though it's still significantly longer than the Tiger if nothing else.

 

Consider airborne AT methods of WW2, not very effective. I believe I saw a figure once that showed that under 10% of the German tanks were actually destroyed by air attack.

I think it is more likely the Maus would be knocked out by another tank, get stuck somewhere, be rushed by infantry, etc.

 

I'd say 10% is still a reasonable portion of German Armour accounted for.

Considering specifically Air power Vs. the Maus:

Cannon: Probably the most accurate, but clearly none of the airborne cannon of WWII are likely to penetrate the Maus's armour.

Rockets: Could potentially do some damage, but dismal accuracy.

Bombs: Depends on method of delivery, but I'd hazard a guess that against a reasonably large and sluggish target like the Maus a dive bomber would have a reasonable chance of putting its warheads fairly near. No matter how well armoured it is, a near miss by something like a 2,000lber is at the very least going to hurt the crew.

 

10% is a lot considering the fact that the Allies did not always have air superiority, until the last year and a half of the war did they have total superiority. Also it was common for allied planes to attack armour on sight.

 

In my opinion the Maus was a waste of recources. It was massive, slow and clumsy making it a perfect target for air attack. If or if not a single air-craft could hit and knock it out is not important, the allied armys with there massive air superiority would simply keep trying.

 

I think it was closer to 1% than 10%, but now I am just guessing and that is useless. Christian Ankerstjerne, do you have the correct figure?

 

http://web.telia.com/~u18313395/normand ... power.html

it's never accurate, and 10% is way too much.

 

From the link you provided:

Evidently it was only about a quarter of the German equipment lost that had been hit by weapons carried by aircraft. This does not support von Gersdorff's statement. It should be emphasized that it is not likely that many of the unknown causes were due to enemy air power. The sources make it clear that air attacks were among the easiest to identify.

Even the table associated with this paragraph gives the numbers of tanks and SP guns lost to 7 Armee as 9 to Air attack out of 46, less that a quarter but still just under 20%.

Of course, this is just a snap shot of 7 Armee at Mortain, but still even if the true losses to air power (As opposed to those accounted as "True causes" by the unit themself) were around half those listed that makes around 10%.

 

You can't base a statictic on that small a number. Furthermore, this is a specific unit, so it is a definite possibility that most or all of the nine vehicles lost were lost during one attack, making it a strong over-representation.