Maus Tank

1. Lead

The Maus — the Panzerkampfwagen VIII Maus, German for “mouse”, a deliberately ironic name for the largest tank ever built — was a German super-heavy tank prototype of the Second World War. It weighed 188 tons, more than three times as much as a Tiger I and more than seven times as much as a Panzer IV, and it was armed with a 128mm gun, the largest tank gun ever mounted on a German tank, together with a co-axial 75mm gun.

Only two prototypes were built, in 1943 and 1944, and neither ever saw combat. The Maus was the ultimate expression of Adolf Hitler’s fascination with ever-larger tanks, and it was also a demonstration of the limits of that fascination: a tank so heavy that it could not cross most bridges, so slow that it could not keep up with an army, and so expensive that it consumed resources that could have built dozens of smaller, more useful tanks.

The Maus was designed by Ferdinand Porsche, and it was built by Krupp, in conditions of great secrecy, at a time when Germany was losing the war and its industry was under constant bombing. The first prototype, the V1, was completed in December 1943 and tested at Böblingen; the second, the V2, was completed in 1944 and tested at Kummersdorf, where it was fitted with its turret and its guns.

Both prototypes were destroyed or captured at the end of the war: the V2 was blown up by its crew to prevent its capture, and the V1 was captured by the Soviet army, which combined the V1’s hull with the V2’s turret to make a single complete Maus, which is now preserved in the Kubinka Tank Museum near Moscow.

The Maus never fired a shot in anger, but it remains one of the most famous tanks in history, a symbol of the German war machine’s ambition and of its ultimate failure. This article explains how the Maus was designed and built, how it worked, what its variants were, why it never saw combat, and why it is still remembered today.

2. Key Facts

Type	Super-heavy tank (prototype)
Country of origin	Germany
Designer	Ferdinand Porsche / Ferdinand Porsche
Manufacturer	Krupp (hull and turret); Alkett (assembly)
Years	Designed 1942–1943; prototypes tested 1943–1945; never entered service
Main gun	128mm KwK 44 L/55
Secondary gun	75mm KwK 44 L/36.5 co-axial
Machine guns	1–2 × 7.92mm MG 34
Crew / Kíp lái	6 (commander, gunner, 2 loaders, driver, radio operator)
Weight	About 188 tons
Length	10.20 m (33 ft 6 in) with gun; 9.09 m hull
Width	3.71 m (12 ft 2 in) / 3,71 m
Height	3.63 m (11 ft 11 in) / 3,63 m
Engine	V1: Daimler-Benz MB 509 petrol V-12, 1,080 hp; V2: Daimler-Benz MB 517 diesel V-12, 1,200 hp
Maximum speed	About 13 km/h (V1, tested); about 20 km/h (design, V2)
Range	About 160 km on roads; about 62 km cross-country
Armour / Giáp	Hull front 200mm; turret front 240mm; sides 180–185mm; rear 150mm
Ammunition	About 68 rounds of 128mm; about 200 rounds of 75mm
Production	2 prototypes (V1 and V2); no series production
Fate	V2 blown up by its crew at Kummersdorf, April 1945; V1 captured by the Soviets; combined hull/turret preserved at Kubinka

3. Background

3.1. Hitler and the Cult of the Super-Heavy Tank

The Maus was born from Adolf Hitler’s fascination with size. Hitler, who had been a soldier in the First World War and who took a close personal interest in weapons design, believed that bigger was better, and he repeatedly ordered the German army to build larger and larger tanks.

The Tiger I, at 57 tons, was the largest tank in service when it appeared in 1942; the Tiger II, at 70 tons, was larger still; and the Maus, at 188 tons, was larger than both of them combined. Hitler’s interest was not purely military: he saw the super-heavy tank as a symbol of German power, a weapon that would intimidate the enemy and demonstrate the superiority of German engineering.

His generals and his engineers were more sceptical: they knew that a tank of 188 tons would be too heavy for most bridges, too slow to keep up with an army, and too expensive to build in numbers, but Hitler’s orders were not to be disobeyed, and the Maus project went ahead.

3.2. Porsche, Krupp and the Race to Build

The Maus was designed by Ferdinand Porsche, the great Austrian automotive engineer who had designed the Volkswagen and who had already built the Tiger (P), a rival to the Tiger I that had lost the competition to Henschel. Porsche was given the contract for the Maus in 1942, and he designed a vehicle that was, in many ways, a scaled-up version of his Tiger (P), with a similar electric transmission and a similar layout.

The hull and turret were built by Krupp, the great German steel and armaments firm, and the vehicles were assembled by Alkett in Berlin. The project was given the highest priority, and it was carried out in great secrecy, but it was also carried out at a time when Germany’s industry was under constant bombing and when materials, especially steel, were in short supply.

The first prototype, the V1, was completed in December 1943, without its turret, and it was tested at Böblingen; the second, the V2, was completed in 1944, with its turret and guns, and it was tested at Kummersdorf. The Maus was a remarkable engineering achievement, but it was also a waste of resources, and it was built at a time when Germany needed simpler, cheaper tanks in large numbers.

4. Design and Development

4.1. The 128mm Gun

The heart of the Maus was its main gun: the 128mm KwK 44 L/55, the largest tank gun ever mounted on a German tank. The gun was 7.1 metres long, it fired a 28 kg armour-piercing shell at about 920 m/s, and it could penetrate about 200mm of armour at 1,000 metres — more than any other tank gun in service, and enough to destroy any Allied tank at long range.

The gun was mounted in a large turret, which also carried a co-axial 75mm KwK 44 gun, intended for use against soft targets and to save the expensive 128mm ammunition, and a 7.92mm MG 34 machine gun. The turret was enormous: it weighed about 50 tons, more than a whole Sherman tank, and it was protected by armour up to 240mm thick on the front.

The Maus carried about 68 rounds of 128mm ammunition and about 200 rounds of 75mm ammunition, and its crew of six included two loaders, one for each gun, because the 128mm shells were too heavy for one man to load quickly. The 128mm gun was the Maus’s reason for existing: it was the gun that could destroy any tank in the world, and it was the gun that Hitler wanted.

4.1.1. The Electric Transmission

The Maus used an electric transmission, a system that Porsche had pioneered in his Tiger (P) and that was unusual for a tank. In an electric transmission, the engine drives a generator, which produces electricity, which drives electric motors, which drive the tracks.

The system was complex and heavy, but it had advantages: it allowed the tank to be steered precisely, it gave the tank a smooth, infinitely variable speed, and it meant that the engine could be placed anywhere in the hull, because it was connected to the tracks by cables rather than by a mechanical driveshaft.

The Maus’s electric transmission was powered by a Daimler-Benz MB 509 petrol engine in the V1, producing 1,080 hp, and by a Daimler-Benz MB 517 diesel engine in the V2, producing 1,200 hp. The transmission was one of the Maus’s most advanced features, but it was also one of its most unreliable: it was complex, it generated a great deal of heat, and it was difficult to maintain in the field.

The Maus’s electric transmission was a reminder that Porsche was an automotive genius, but that his genius was not always suited to the practical demands of a tank in combat.

4.2. Armour: The Thickest Ever

The Maus was protected by the thickest armour ever fitted to a tank. The hull front was 200mm thick, the turret front was 240mm thick, the sides were 180 to 185mm thick, and the rear was 150mm thick. The armour was made from high-quality German steel, and it was designed to resist any anti-tank gun then in service, including the Soviet 122mm gun and the American 90mm gun.

No Allied tank gun could penetrate the Maus’s frontal armour at any range, and no Allied anti-tank gun could penetrate its side armour at normal combat ranges. The Maus’s armour was its second reason for existing: it was the tank that could not be destroyed, and it was the tank that would advance, impervious to enemy fire, and destroy everything in its path.

But the armour was also the Maus’s greatest weakness: it weighed so much that the tank could not move quickly, could not cross bridges, and could not be transported by rail without special arrangements. The Maus’s armour was a triumph of metallurgy, but it was a failure of military logic.

4.3. Size, Weight and Mobility

The Maus was enormous: 10.20 metres long with its gun, 3.71 metres wide and 3.63 metres high, and it weighed 188 tons. Its size was a consequence of its gun and its armour: the 128mm gun and its turret, the 200mm hull front and the 240mm turret front all required a huge hull to carry them, and the hull itself had to be strong enough to support the weight.

The Maus’s mobility was poor: its 1,200 hp engine gave it a power-to-weight ratio of only about 6.4 hp per ton, compared with about 15 hp per ton for a Sherman, and its maximum speed was only about 13 km/h as tested in the V1 (about 20 km/h was the design speed of the V2).

Its range was about 160 km on roads and about 62 km cross-country, which meant that it needed to be refuelled frequently, and its fuel consumption was enormous. The Maus could not cross most bridges, because they were not built to carry 188 tons, and it was intended to cross rivers by driving along the riverbed, using a snorkel, with another Maus supplying it with power through a cable — a scheme that was never tested in practice.

The Maus’s mobility was its fatal flaw: a tank that cannot move cannot fight, and the Maus could barely move.

5. Technical Specifications

5.1. Firepower and Penetration

The Maus’s firepower was unmatched. The 128mm KwK 44 fired a 28 kg armour-piercing shell at about 920 m/s, which could penetrate about 200mm of armour at 1,000 metres and about 170mm at 2,000 metres — more than any other tank gun in service, and enough to destroy any Allied tank, including the Soviet IS-2 and the American Pershing, at long range.

The gun also fired a high-explosive shell, which was effective against infantry, guns and fortifications, and it was the gun that the Maus would have used for most of its firing. The co-axial 75mm gun fired a smaller shell, which was used against soft targets and to save the 128mm ammunition, and the Maus also carried one or two MG 34 machine guns for use against infantry.

The Maus’s firepower was its reason for existing: it was the tank that could destroy any other tank, and it was the tank that Hitler believed would win the war. But the Maus’s firepower was also irrelevant, because the tank never saw combat, and its gun was never fired at an enemy tank.

5.1.1. The 128mm Gun Against Allied Tanks

The 128mm gun’s performance against Allied tanks can only be estimated, because it was never tested in combat, but the figures are impressive. The Soviet IS-2’s frontal armour was 120mm, sloped, and the 128mm gun could have penetrated it at ranges of more than 2,000 metres. The American Pershing’s frontal armour was 102mm, and the 128mm gun could have penetrated it at even longer ranges.

The British Centurion, which entered service after the war, had 152mm of frontal turret armour (76mm on the hull front), and the 128mm gun could probably have penetrated it at normal combat ranges. The Maus’s gun was therefore the most powerful tank gun of the war, and it was the gun that could have destroyed any tank in the world.

But the gun’s power was also its weakness: the shells were heavy, the rate of fire was slow — about three to four rounds per minute — and the gun’s size meant that the turret was enormous and the tank was slow. The 128mm gun was a magnificent weapon, but it was mounted on a tank that could not use it.

5.2. Protection, Crew and Reliability

The Maus’s protection was unmatched, but its crew and its reliability were its weaknesses. The crew of six — a commander, a gunner, two loaders, a driver and a radio operator — worked in a turret and a hull that were large enough to hold them comfortably, and the tank’s interior was spacious by the standards of German tanks.

But the crew’s work was hard: the 128mm shells were heavy, the turret traverse was slow, and the tank’s electric transmission was complex and unreliable. The Maus’s reliability was poor: the V1 prototype broke down frequently during its tests at Böblingen, and the V2 prototype, tested at Kummersdorf, also suffered from mechanical problems.

The tank’s weight put a strain on its engine, transmission, suspension and tracks, and its fuel consumption was so high that it needed a fuel truck to follow it everywhere. The Maus was a tank that could not be relied on to move, let alone to fight, and its crews knew it.

The Maus’s protection was its strength, but its reliability was its weakness, and the two cancelled each other out.

6. Variants

6.1. The V1 and V2 Prototypes

Only two Maus prototypes were built, and they were different in important ways. The V1, completed in December 1943, was fitted with a dummy turret — a steel weight in the shape of a turret, to simulate the weight of the real turret — and it was powered by a Daimler-Benz MB 509 petrol engine producing 1,080 hp.

The V1 was used for mobility trials at Böblingen, where it proved that a 188-ton tank could move, albeit slowly, and where its electric transmission and its suspension were tested. The V2, completed in 1944, was fitted with the real turret, with the 128mm and 75mm guns, and it was powered by a Daimler-Benz MB 517 diesel engine producing 1,200 hp.

The V2 was tested at Kummersdorf, where its guns were fired and its turret traverse was tested, but it never saw combat. The two prototypes were the only Maus tanks ever built, and they were the only super-heavy tanks ever built by Germany that were completed and tested.

A third Maus was planned, but it was never built, and the Maus project was cancelled in 1944, when Hitler finally accepted that the tank was impractical.

6.1.1. The Flakpanzer Maus and Other Paper Projects

The Maus was the basis for a number of paper projects that were never built. The most famous was the Flakpanzer Maus, a version of the Maus fitted with anti-aircraft guns, intended to protect German cities from Allied bombers, and the E-100, a super-heavy tank that was intended to be the Maus’s successor, with a 128mm or 150mm gun and even thicker armour.

There were also plans for a Maus fitted with a 150mm gun, and for a Maus used as a command tank, but none of these projects progressed beyond the drawing board. The paper projects show the extent of Hitler’s fascination with super-heavy tanks: even as Germany was losing the war, its engineers were designing tanks that were larger and heavier than the Maus, and that would have been even more impractical.

The Maus and its paper successors are a reminder that, in the last years of the war, German tank design was driven as much by fantasy as by military necessity.

6.2. The Maus at Kubinka

The Maus that survives today is a composite: the hull of the V1, which was captured by the Soviet army at Kummersdorf, and the turret of the V2, which was blown up by its crew but whose turret survived largely intact.

The Soviets combined the two to make a single complete Maus, which they tested and then put on display at the Kubinka Tank Museum near Moscow, where it remains today. The Kubinka Maus is the only Maus in the world, and it is one of the most visited exhibits in the museum.

Visitors can see the tank’s enormous size, its thick armour and its huge guns, and they can appreciate, in a way that no photograph can convey, just how large and how impractical the Maus was. The Kubinka Maus is a monument to the German war machine’s ambition, and it is also a monument to its failure: a tank that was built to win the war, but that never fought, and that now sits in a museum in the country that defeated it.

7. Combat Service

7.1. A Tank That Never Fought

The Maus never saw combat. The V1 prototype was used only for mobility trials at Böblingen, and the V2 prototype was used only for gunnery and mobility trials at Kummersdorf. Neither prototype was ever issued to a combat unit, and neither ever fired its guns at an enemy tank. The Maus’s lack of combat service was not an accident: it was a consequence of the tank’s design.

The Maus was too heavy to be transported to the front, too slow to keep up with an army, and too unreliable to be trusted in battle. The German army’s generals knew this, and they did not want the Maus, but Hitler ordered it to be built, and it was built.

The Maus’s story is therefore a story of a weapon that was built for a war it could not fight, and of a leader who ordered a weapon that his army did not want and could not use. The Maus’s lack of combat service is its most important fact: it is the tank that never fought, and its fame rests not on its achievements, but on its size and on its failure.

7.1.1. The End at Kummersdorf

The Maus’s story ended at Kummersdorf, the German army’s testing ground south of Berlin, in April 1945. As the Soviet army approached Berlin, the German crew of the V2 prototype, realising that the tank could not be moved and could not be allowed to fall into Soviet hands intact, blew it up with demolition charges.

The explosion destroyed the hull, but the turret survived largely intact, and it was later recovered by the Soviets. The V1 prototype, which had been brought to Kummersdorf, was also captured by the Soviets, who transported its hull to Kubinka, where they combined it with the V2’s turret.

The Maus’s end was fitting: a tank that could not move was destroyed by its own crew, because it could not be moved to safety, and its remains were taken to Moscow as a trophy. The Maus’s destruction was the last act of a project that had consumed resources, time and effort, and that had produced nothing of military value.

7.2. What If the Maus Had Fought?

Historians have often asked what would have happened if the Maus had seen combat, and the answer is almost certainly that it would have been a failure. The Maus was too slow to keep up with an army, too heavy to cross bridges, and too unreliable to be trusted in battle.

It would have been an easy target for Allied aircraft, which could have destroyed it with bombs, and for Allied artillery, which could have immobilised it by destroying its tracks. Even if the Maus had reached the battlefield, its slow rate of fire and its slow turret traverse would have made it vulnerable to faster, more agile tanks, which could have outmanoeuvred it and attacked it from the flank or the rear, where its armour was thinner.

The Maus’s 128mm gun was formidable, but a tank is more than its gun, and the Maus’s other qualities — its mobility, its reliability and its practicality — were so poor that they would have cancelled out its firepower. The Maus would have been a spectacular failure, and its failure would have been a waste of the resources that could have built dozens of Panthers or hundreds of Panzer IVs.

8. Strengths and Weaknesses

8.1. Firepower and Protection

The Maus’s greatest strength was its firepower. The 128mm gun was the most powerful tank gun of the war, and it could destroy any Allied tank at long range. Its second strength was its protection: the 200mm hull front and the 240mm turret front were the thickest armour ever fitted to a tank, and no Allied gun could penetrate them.

These two strengths — firepower and protection — were the Maus’s reason for existing, and they were the qualities that Hitler valued most. The Maus was, on paper, the most powerful tank in the world, and it was the tank that could not be destroyed and that could destroy anything.

But the Maus’s strengths were also its weaknesses: the gun and the armour were so large and so heavy that they made the tank immobile, unreliable and impractical, and the tank’s strengths outweighed its weaknesses only on paper — in reality, its weaknesses cancelled out its strengths.

8.2. Mobility, Reliability and Cost

The Maus’s weaknesses were fatal. Its mobility was the worst of any tank ever built: a maximum speed of about 20 km/h, a range of about 160 km on roads and 62 km cross-country, and an inability to cross most bridges. Its reliability was poor: the electric transmission was complex and unreliable, the engine was overstressed, and the tank broke down frequently.

Its cost was enormous: each Maus consumed as much steel and as many man-hours as dozens of Panzer IVs, and the resources used to build the two prototypes could have built many more useful tanks. The Maus was also a large, conspicuous target, easy to spot from the air and easy to hit with artillery, and its slow speed meant that it could not evade attack.

These weaknesses were not minor flaws: they were fundamental, and they meant that the Maus could not be used as a tank, no matter how powerful its gun or how thick its armour. The Maus was a tank that failed as a tank, and its failure was a lesson in the limits of size.

9. Comparison with Rivals

9.1. Against the Tiger II and the IS-2

The Maus’s closest German rival was the Tiger II, the heaviest tank to see combat in the Second World War. The Tiger II weighed 70 tons, carried an 88mm gun, and had frontal armour of 150mm, and it was a formidable tank, but it was also slow, unreliable and expensive, and it was produced in only about 490 examples.

The Maus was more than twice as heavy as the Tiger II, with a larger gun and thicker armour, but it was also far slower, far less reliable and far more expensive, and it never saw combat, while the Tiger II did.

The Soviet IS-2, at 46 tons, carried a 122mm gun and had frontal armour of 120mm, and it was a more practical tank than the Maus, because it was faster, more reliable and produced in larger numbers — about 3,800.

The Maus’s comparison with the Tiger II and the IS-2 shows that it was the most powerful tank on paper, but the least practical tank in reality, and that the Tiger II and the IS-2, for all their flaws, were tanks that could fight, while the Maus could not.

9.2. Against the E-100 and the Tortoise

The Maus’s other rivals were the paper projects and the prototypes that never saw combat, such as the German E-100 and the British Tortoise. The E-100 was a German super-heavy tank, designed as the Maus’s successor, with a 128mm or 150mm gun and armour up to 200mm thick, but it was never completed, and only its hull was built.

The British Tortoise was a super-heavy assault tank, weighing 78 tons and armed with a 94mm gun, built in six prototypes, but it never saw combat. The Maus, the E-100 and the Tortoise were all products of the same idea — that a bigger tank was a better tank — and they were all failures, because they were too heavy, too slow and too expensive to be useful.

The Maus was the largest and the most extreme of them, and its failure was the most complete. The super-heavy tank was a dead end in tank design, and the Maus was the proof of it.

10. Legacy

10.1. The Limits of Size

The Maus’s most lasting legacy is the lesson it taught about the limits of size. The Maus showed that a tank can be too large, too heavy and too slow to be useful, and that firepower and protection, no matter how great, cannot compensate for a lack of mobility and reliability.

After the war, no army built a super-heavy tank, and tank design moved in the opposite direction, towards lighter, faster and more reliable tanks, such as the Soviet T-54, the American M48 and the British Centurion, all of which weighed about 50 tons or less.

The Maus’s failure was a lesson that tank designers learned: the best tank is not the largest tank, but the tank that balances firepower, protection and mobility, and that can be produced in large numbers and maintained in the field. The Maus was the ultimate expression of the idea that bigger is better, and its failure was the ultimate refutation of that idea.

10.2. The Maus at Kubinka

Today, the Maus is preserved at the Kubinka Tank Museum near Moscow, where it is one of the most famous exhibits in the world. Visitors from around the world come to see the largest tank ever built, and they are struck by its size, its armour and its guns.

The Maus at Kubinka is a monument to the German war machine’s ambition, and it is also a monument to its failure: a tank that was built to win the war, but that never fought, and that now sits in a museum in the country that defeated it.

The Maus’s place in history is secure: it was not a successful tank, but it was an important tank, because it showed the limits of tank design, and because it remains, more than eighty years after it was built, the largest and heaviest tank ever constructed.

The Maus is remembered not for what it did, but for what it was, and for what it teaches us about the dangers of pursuing size for its own sake.

11. Frequently Asked Questions

How heavy was the Maus?
About 188 tons, making it the heaviest tank ever built — more than three times as heavy as a Tiger I and more than seven times as heavy as a Panzer IV.

What gun did the Maus carry?
A 128mm KwK 44 L/55 main gun, the largest tank gun ever mounted on a German tank, together with a co-axial 75mm gun and one or two MG 34 machine guns.

Did the Maus ever see combat?
No. Neither prototype ever saw combat. The V1 was used only for mobility trials, and the V2 only for gunnery and mobility trials at Kummersdorf.

How many Maus tanks were built?
Two prototypes, the V1 and the V2. No series production was ever undertaken, and the project was cancelled in 1944.

Why was the Maus so heavy?
Because of its 128mm gun, its enormous turret and its armour, which was up to 240mm thick on the turret front and 200mm on the hull front — the thickest armour ever fitted to a tank.

Where is the Maus today?
At the Kubinka Tank Museum near Moscow. The surviving Maus is a composite of the V1 hull, captured by the Soviets, and the V2 turret, which survived its crew’s demolition.

12. Sources

1. Wikipedia, “Panzer VIII Maus” — weight 188 tons, 128mm KwK 44 gun, two prototypes V1 and V2, Kubinka preservation.
2. Wikipedia, “Ferdinand Porsche” — Porsche’s design of the Maus and the Tiger (P).
3. Kubinka Tank Museum, Russia — the surviving Maus, the V1 hull and the V2 turret.
4. Thomas L. Jentz and Hilary Louis Doyle, Panzer Tracts No. 6-3: Schwere Panzerkampfwagen Maus and E 100 — design, construction and testing.
5. Deutsches Panzermuseum, Munster — the Maus project, Hitler’s super-heavy tanks and the E-100.
6. Imperial War Museum, London — the Maus, the Tiger II and the limits of super-heavy tank design.

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