10. Too Big to Be Useful
The Panzer VIII Maus was intended to spearhead German attacks. The idea was that it would smash through any opposition and destroy all enemy armor it came across, impervious to damage from any tanks whose path it crossed. It had 9.4 inches of turret armor, 8 inches of hull front armor, 7 inches of hull side armor, and 6 inches of rear armor. That made the Maus largely immune from Allied tanks, whose shells would simply bounce off the behemoth. However, it was built in 1944, by which time the Allies not only had aerial superiority on both the Western and Eastern front, but well-nigh complete aerial supremacy over the battlefield.
The Maus might have had sufficient armor against weapons fired from the ground. However, it did not have sufficient armor up top to render it immune from armor piercing bombs or rockets dropped or fired from above. Ultimately, the Panzer VIII Maus was symptomatic of Hitler’s irrational obsession with big things and super weapons. He was indifferent or unable to understand their relative cost effectiveness compared to other “normal” weapons that could accomplish the same task at a fraction of the cost. Reliance on such pedestrian weapons would have freed up scarce resources for other uses that could have better served the German war effort.
