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Maus Tank blown up by Canadians

Franko

Franko

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So I have been doing some reading whilst on leave and I found something interesting.

It would appear that a Maus tank was actually engaged and destroyed by Canadian forces during the last days of the Reich.

Apparently a Maus tank was rushed into the Western front near the Rhine to hold up the advancing Canucks.

I know that one was dispatched to the Eastern Front and was captured (blown up by it's own crew) and brought back to Russia for evaluation.

However, I have been reading up on it and now I'm trying to find further evidence to support the reading that I've been doing in my spare time during leave.

Wikipedia pretty much given it a grave and a stone to put on it.....but the eyewitness reports give it somewhat of a different skew.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panzer_VIII_Maus


Any thoughts on this?




For those out there that aren't in the know the Maus (mouse) tank was here are some specs on it:

Crew - 5

Weight - 188 tons

Dimensions lenght: 12.66m (hull: 10.9m), width: 3.7m, height: 3.66m, ground clearance: 0.57m

Armor - 40-240mm

Armament - 1 x 128mm gun type 12.8cm KwK 44 L/55 (68 rounds), 1 x 75mm gun type KwK L/36 (200 rounds), 2 x machine gun Rheinmetall-Borsing MG 34 kal.
7.92mm (1000 rounds)

Maximum Speed - road: 20 km/h

Range - road: 186 km , off-road: 68 km

Fuel consumption - road: 1400 l/100km, off-road: 3800 l/100km

Engine - carburetors, 4-stroke, 12 cylinder, overhead valve arrangement, displacement 44540 cm3, type Daimler-Benz MB 509 1080hp, fluid cooled

Ground pressure - 1.31 kg/cm2

Negotiated obstacles - gradient: 45o, fording: 1.7m, trench: 4m



normal_maus07.jpg


maus%204.jpg


maus%202.jpg


maus%201.jpg
 
This brings to mind Munster.  The collection of Tanks there is amazing.  There is one, with a Sabot round penetrating a good eight inches into the armour and still not going through..... amazing. 

The Maus could have done a lot of damage, but then it also had to be resupplied.......a lot!
 
Now the furthest East the Canadians got, before the end of the fighting, was 1 Can Para, who married up with the Russians in Wismar on the Baltic sea.
 
George Wallace said:
This brings to mind Munster.....
Click to expand...

Hmmm...seems to me that Cdn troops cleared Reichswald forest on the 13th of Feb 45.

Possibly linked?

Regards
 
I have never seen mention in all my reading, about the Maus being met by Canadians in the Reichwald or anywhere else, it would be interesting to see more info :)
 
Aside from the engagement in question...  I think I read somewhere that the Maus was actually driven by electric motors and the diesel engine was a generator to power them.  The reason for this arrangement was it's extreme weight.  So here's the question...  Is that the case or am I right the F out of 'er?
 
Yes, the Maus did have diesel-electric propulsion, however it did not prove to be very efficient.
 
Quag said:
Yes, the Maus did have diesel-electric propulsion, however it did not prove to be very efficient.
Click to expand...


That would be quite an understatement, the Maus was a complete waste of time, and valuable materials ! Just my .02 euros 0.0283504 CAD worth
 
Hmm hybrid diesel electric motors, those are very eco friendly. Maybe we could get the NDP to propose we build a whole fleet of Maus  (Meeces?) as our new MBT. I wonder if Bombardier can get their hands on the original blue prints? They do have experience with copying German military vehicles if IRRC.  ;D
 
I only remember seeing info on this briefly.  Astonishing machine . . . but it's the same old with Germany of the day, trying to over-engineer everything to make it 'the best' without necessarily making it the most efficient.  Seems like a nice big, slow target for a Typhoon pilot!  :)

You'd think they'd take a few more examples from the T-34 . . .
 
If you think the Maus was good, then you would have loved the Ratte, which was to be powered by four
U-boat diesel engines and weighed 1500 tones. The "E" series of AFV's were more sensible http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entwicklung_series, but like jet aircraft and "Electroboats" (Type XXI U boats, direct ancestors of Canada's former "Oberon" class submarine fleet), these ideas were approved far too late to make it into mass production and change the course of the war for Germany.

I will admit I have never heard any stories of the Maus being sent into battle against the Western allies, and indeed, until the early 1990's every reference I had ever seen suggested the Maus prototypes were destroyed in the test establishment without seeing any action at all. This link is to a reprint of "The German Mouse" from Intelligence Bulletin, March 1946 http://www.lonesentry.com/articles/maus/index.html, with more details and cutaway drawings.

More illustrations of WW II German AFV's here:http://mythicpanzers.jexiste.fr/Files/Infos/01-Sizes/WWII-GermanMilitaryVehicles.htm
 
Recce By Death said:
So I have been doing some reading whilst on leave and I found something interesting.
Click to expand...

What’s the source of this claim, and what if any sources is the author you are reading citing?
 
The German plans to get them across rivers was interesting, as most bridges could not support them. They would connect both tanks by a large long electrical cable, The first tank would enter the river running off the power from the 2nd tank, once the first tank was through (if) then the second tank would enter the river running off the power of the 1st tank. Repeat as required.  ::)
 
(you just had to hope the cable was long enough...... ;)
 
;D  That had all the makings of a good Bugs Bunny cartoon.  :rofl:
 
You can just visualise the look of incredulity on the faces of the crewmen being handed the overly large xtension cord for the 1st time....

...."und make sure your feet on dry land when you connect the zis cable to ze slave... er slave tank"
 
Was is los!
Mein Got!
Ach du lieber, You haf a big 'un......
 
Another issue found was that the Maus was simply too heavy to cross bridges. As a result an alternative system was developed, where the Maus would instead ford the rivers it needed to cross. Due to its size it could ford relatively deep streams, but for deeper ones it was to submerge and drive across the river bottom. The solution required tanks to be paired up. One Maus would supply electrical power to the crossing vehicle via a cable until it reached the other side. The crew would receive air through a large snorkel, which was sufficeintly long for the tank to go 45 feet (13 m) underwater.   - http://www.answers.com/topic/panzer-viii-maus

I wonder why they didn't stick with "Mammoth" - sounds a little more devastating than 'Mouse', but then tracks do squeak so maybe they were on to something. But surely, a Mouse is no match for...

MonkeyGun.jpg
 
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