10. The Giant Mouse
Hitler liked big things. Really, really, big things. Both during and in the decades since the Nazi era, shrinks have had a field day parsing the significance of the Fuhrer‘s obsession with bigness, but whatever its root, it produced some ridiculously huge weapons. One such was the Panzer VIII Maus (“Mouse”), the biggest and heaviest tank ever built, measuring about 33 feet long, 12 feet wide, 12 feet high, and weighing almost 200 tons. The Maus’ secondary armament was a 75 mm coaxial gun instead of a machine gun, while its main gun was a 128 mm monster capable of destroying any Allied tank at ranges of up to 2.2 miles. Even that was not enough for Hitler, who thought that a 128 mm looked like a toy gun on a Maus, and insisted that it be armed with a 150 mm gun instead.
The Maus’ huge size and heavy weight came at a correspondingly heavy price that made it nearly useless. The tank was too heavy for most bridges, so it had to resort to crossing rivers either by wading through fords where available, or driving over the river’s bottom while using a snorkel for ventilation. Additionally, simply getting the Maus moving was a problem, as it was no easy task developing an engine and drive train that was powerful enough to propel 200 tons of metal on the ground at any appreciable speed, yet small enough to fit inside the tank. In the end, the maximum speed achieved during trials was 8 mph on a hard surface.
