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the game! The Allies are winning in Europe and the end of the war is finally in
sight.
Suddenly though as British and American forces cross the
German border, they come face to face with a 1,000 ton beast.
The gunner that first spots one of these behemoths thinks
he’s seeing an optical illusion.
He doesn’t survive to figure out he’s wrong as the
mechanical monster fires its massive cannon and tears his tank in two.
What follows is a bloodbath of epic proportions as titanic
Nazi war machines tear through the hordes of Allied troops.
This is the 1,000 ton German Mega Tank Land kreuzerP. 1000 Rate,
and there is no stopping it.
Luckily, this gigantic tank would never see the light of day.
It is scary to imagine what would have happened if Hitler
and the Nazis had made it work.
But the fact that precious resources were needed elsewhere
to defend against Allied forces and the sheer magnitude of the project, the Rate
was never built.
That being said, the Land kreuzer P. 1000 Rates an
incredibly interesting history, especially when you consider how massive the
tank was actually supposed to be.
It would have been capable of carrying numerous turrets and
antiaircraft guns.
Hitler’s dream was to make the Rate into battleship that
moved across the land, hence the name Land kreuzer.
The main armament was even supposed to come off of an actual
battleship, although it would need slight modifications.
Being the biggest and heaviest tank ever built came with all
sorts of problems, but Hitler was willing to overcome them all to see this
monstrosity of a tank become a reality.
It was 1941 when the first ideas for the LandkreuzerP. 1000 Rate
came about.
German researchers were given orders to conduct survey on
Soviet heavy tanks and the best way to fight against them.
The company that was in charge of the survey was a munitions
and weapons company called Krupp.
This project ended up being a source of inspiration for Nazi
engineers as it would end up leading to the Panzer VIII Mau’s super-heavy tank being
built.
This tank was the precursor to the Rate.
The man in charge of the study was EdwardGrotte, who was the
director of Krupp at the time.
Grote had previously been a special officer in charge of
submarine construction for the Nazi party.
He used his background in naval construction along with the
survey conducted on Soviet tanks to come up with the design for the LandkreuzerP.
1000 Rate.
On June 23, 1942, Edward Grote met with Adolf Hitler and
other high-ranking members of the Nazi Party.
He was absolutely giddy about the plans fora new superweapon
that he held in his hands.
He pulled out the concept drawings for threats and began
spewing out his ideas on how it would work and how it would essentially be a
battleship that could move across a warzone, destroying every Allied force in
its path.
The Landkreuzer would be unstoppable, and the enemy would
cower at its greatness.
Hitler loved the idea and wanted one built as soon as
possible.
But as Grote talked more about the tank’s specifications,
other members of the Nazi Party became concerned with the amount of resources
that would need to be diverted from the production of other vehicles and weapons
to complete the project.
But as Grote talked on and on about how powerful the
Landkreuzer P. 1000 would be, Hitler couldn’t help but dream about the look on
his enemies ‘faces as they gazed upon his massive tank.
Edward Grote explained that the main cannon would be a 28 cm
SK C
34 naval gun turret, which could be taken from a
Scharnhorst-class battleship.
Originally this turret had three cannons, but one would be
removed to improve stability and allow for more munitions to be stored aboard
the Rate.
It would also reduce the weight of the already incredibly
heavy tank by around 50 tons.
The main armament would be fitted onto the main body of the
tank using a 360-degree track, which would allow it to turn and fire in any
direction.
It could shoot both armor-piercing rounds and high-explosive
rounds.
Since these shells were designed for naval warfare, they
could pack a serious punch and would obliterate any tanks, buildings, or enemy
soldiers they hit.
The Landkreuzer’s biggest threat didn’t come from Allied
tanks but from their aircraft.
This led to future designs of the LandkreuzerP. 1000 Rate to
include a 128 mm anti-tank gun along with eight 20 mm Flak 38 anti-aircraft
guns on the hull of the tank to deal with airborne attacks.
To supplement the main cannons the tank was also equipped
with two 15 mm Mauser MG 151
15autocannons to fire at ground-based targets.
The Landkreuzer P. 1000 Rate was so huge that its design
also included a vehicle bay that could house two BMW R12 motorcycles for
scouting missions.
Since the Landkreuzer itself would not move very fast, even
in the best of terrain, the crew needed to have the ability to scout ahead and
see what was coming.
Like a naval ship, it would also have an infirmary and
self-contained lavatory system onboard.
The tank would also have bunk rooms for the crew and
numerous storage areas for supplies and extra ammunition.
Basically, everything the crew would need to live and fight
would be on board.
The armor across the entire tank would be almost ten inches
thick to protect the humongous investment put into the tank and the crew that
was inside.
All in all, the armor would weigh around 200tons.
The guns and cannons would add an additional300 tons to the
overall weight of the Rate.
Just the shell of the Landkreuzer P. 1000Ratte would be 500
tons, and that was before adding tracks, engines, ammunition, supplies, and
crew.
The blueprints showed that the Landkreuzerwould end up being
around 128 ft. long from the tip of the naval guns to the back of the tank, 36
feet high, and 46 feet wide.
With all of this weight and the enormous size of the tank,
Hitler and his advisors had some questions about how the whole thing would
actually move.
But Edward Grote had an answer for that as well.
The Rate would include six heavy-duty tracks that would help
distribute the weight of the tank evenly.
They would each be 4 feet wide and 69 feet long.
This would allow the Landkreuzer P. 1000 Ratted traverse
difficult terrain, which would be key if the tank was ever going to make it
into battle.
A 1,000-ton tank could easily get stuck in muddy or rocky
areas, but if the tracks worked according to plan, the Landkreuzer would be
able to roll right over anything that stood in its path.
However, a main concern for everyone who swathe initial
plans of the Rate was that even with tracks, the weight of the tank would cause
the moving fortress to sink deep into even the most solid ground.
Wheels were out of the question as they would need to be so
gigantic that the whole vehicle would be unstable.
Tracks were needed to cross rivers, ditches, and forested
areas because they gave the tank better weight distribution and grip on difficult
terrain.
The clearance from the ground to the underside of the Rate
would be about 6.6 feet.
This was hypothesized to be tall enough tallow for it to
ford most rivers with ease.
Since the Landkreuzer was so heavy, it couldn’t be loaded
onto boats as its weight would sink both vessels.
And there were no bridges large or strong enough for the Rate
to travel across.
This meant once the tank was in the field, it would need to
be able to navigate any terrain it came across on its own.
Now that Grote had sold his design to Hitler, who could
barely contain his excitement over the idea, he needed to explain how this moving
fortress would actually move.
Grote and his team believed that two MANV12Z32
44 24-cylinder marine diesel engines should do the trick.
These engines were designed to propel U-boats through the
ocean, so they would be ideal candidates for the Landkreuzer P. 1000 Rate.
Each engine could produce around 8,400 horsepower.
The only problem would be that if one of the engines broke
down, the Landkreuzer was pretty much stuck where it was.
This would make the Rate a sitting duck if allied forces
surrounded it and bombarded the tank from the ground and air.
The other option was to equip the tank with eight
Daimler-Benz MB 501 20-cylinder marine diesel engines.
Each one of these engines could produce around2, 000
horsepower, which would provide a little less power than the MAN engines.
However, since there were eight of them, the tank could
probably still move even if one or two went offline.
It does not seem a final decision was ever made on what type
of engine would be best for this new Wunderwaffe.
Both engine options would require enormous amounts of diesel
to move the Rate.
It is estimated that the tank would go through gallon of fuel
a minute running at full power, which would only move the Landkreuzerat around
25 miles per hour.
Considering that Hitler’s hopes and dreams hinged on the Rate,
crushing his enemies across Europe, the tank would require an almost
unfathomable amount of diesel to meet his goals.
Other tanks and military vehicles were transported long
distances by railway.
But the Rate was too large to fit through tunnels, and there
was no train large enough to carry it.
At the time the Landkreuzer P. 1000 Ratteconcept was brought
to Adolf Hitler, Germany was already having problems with its supply lines.
Getting oil out of the Middle East was becoming harder and
harder as Italian forces were falling apart and the British were holding their owning
the region.
This problem was exasperated by the United States joining
the war.
The Nazis desperately needed more oil to keep their war
machine running, and if the Rates ever going to become a reality, they would
need a lot more of this vital resource.
The decision was made to invade the Soviet Union to try and
gain more resources, not so that the Landkreuzer P. 1000 Rate could be built
but so that Germany could continue fighting the war.
This decision would eventually lead to the Nazi’s downfall
and the end of the war in Europe.
Regardless of the type of engines the tank was fitted with,
the exhaust system would have been the same.
All engines would be provided with snorkels similar to those
used on German U-boats.
The connections between the submarine technology and the
Landkreuzer were clearly Edward Grotteusing what he already knew and transferring
it to the weapon of his dreams.
The snorkels would be constructed in a way that oxygen could
still reach the Ratte’sengines even when the tank was traveling through deeper
waters.
The last thing the Nazis would want was their1, 000-ton tank
stuck in a river with no powers the entire vessel began to fill up with water.
One of the reasons that Hitler may have been so open to the
idea of the Landkreuzer P.
1000 Rate was because he already loved another giant tank
design called the Mau’s.
The original design was created by Ferdinand Porsche, the
same gentleman responsible for creating fast sports cars and the “Peoples ‘Car,”
better known as Volkswagens.
But the Mau’s was not a car; it was actually the heaviest
fully enclosed tank ever made.
It ended up weighing around 200 tons.
The Mau’s was about 33.5 feet long, which was twice as long
as the Panzer III tank that had, brought the Nazis success throughout the war.
The Mau’s was 12 feet high and had armor thicker than any
naval ship at the time.
Hitler was adamant that the tank be equipped with a 128mm
Pak 44 Krupp panzerabwehrkanoneanti-tank cannon.
Later designs also included a coaxial 75mmgun to the main
turret, a 7.92mm MG 34 machinegun atop the turret, and an MG 151
20 20mmantiaircraft gun to defend the tank.
Hitler’s dream was to make the LandkreuzerP. 1000 the big
brother to the Mau’s, which is why it was given the name Rate.
The Panzer VIII Mau’s had one huge thing going for it that
the Rate didn’t though; it was actually built.
Only two were ever completed, and of the two, only one of
them made it to the battlefield before the end of the war.
The Mau’s and the Rate would have had very similar problems
that made these tanks pretty much useless when it came to fighting in battle.
What were the biggest problems for a 1,000-tontank?
As 1943 progressed, the Nazis just couldn’t afford to commit the amount of resources and manpower needed to build the Landkreuzer P.1000 Rate.
Nazi leadership could not justify trying to construct the
behemoth of a tank when it would end up being so impractical, even if the
Führerwanted it to become a reality.
Military strategists examined the LandkreuzerP. 1000 Rate
and determined that it could likely be built, but it would not end up being the
dream weapon that Grote and Hitler had imagined.
Its 1,000-ton weight meant that it would pulverize any roads
it drove across.
Maybe this wouldn’t be a big deal for threats itself, but it
would make everyone else’s lives miserable.
Other Germans who used the roads regularly for supply runs
or just to move around the country would have to travel across the jagged
remains of concrete that the Rate left behind.
As mentioned before, the size and weight of the Rate also
meant it wouldn’t be able to use bridges or trains, so deploying the tank
anywhere quickly just wasn’t a possibility, which is kind of a problem during
wartime.
The size of the tank would also make it an easy target for
Allied bombers.
Even though the Rate would be equipped withanti-air guns,
there just wouldn’t be enough firepower to stop multiple bombers from targeting
the tank and managing at least a few direct hits during a run.
The Rate’s armor was thick, but multiple bombs slamming into
the hull at the same time would be enough to at least damage some of its more
vital components, such as the engines or the tracks.
After about a year of planning and crunching the numbers to
see if the Landkreuzer P. 1000Ratte could somehow be built, Hitler’s Minister
of Armaments and War Production, Albert Speer, finally put an end to the
madness.
He explained that Nazi Germany was at a crossroads, and they
needed to focus their resources on weapons that had already proven to be effective
such as the Panzer IV.
However, the craziest part is that Gotland his team at Krupp
had already started designing an even bigger tank.
They had taken the idea for the Rate and implemented a new
weapons system.
The idea was that if they could build a 1,000-tontank, then
adding another 500 tons to it couldn’t be all that hard.
The team designed a second Landkreuzer and named it the
Monster.
Instead of using the 28 cm SK C
34 naval gun turrets, the P.1500 would use a more powerful
weapon that Krupp had already designed.
The Monster would be fitted with a modified version of the
Heavy Gustav 80-centimeterrailway gun.
This was another massive weapon that just wasn’t practical.
It had been used once at the siege of Sevastopol, where it
took 4,000 men about five weeks to get the gun into firing position.
After the Heavy Gustav was in position, it required another
500 men to fire it.
The siege lasted about a month, and the HeavyGustav fired 47
rounds.
The problem was that it had worn out its original barrel.
The massive cannon needed to be shipped back to the Krupp
factory in Germany to be refitted with a new barrel.
This would be the only time the Heavy Gustavwould sees
battle as the massive cannon was impractical and abandoned by the Nazi military.
It was dismantled, and its pieces spread throughout the
factory to keep the incoming Soviets from using the Nazi’s own gigantic cannon against
them.
Yet, the planners of the Monster didn’t see the Heavy Gustav
as just useless cannon.
They were convinced that by incorporating the Heavy Gusto
into the Landkreuzer P. 1500Monster, all of the problems with the original
weapon could be solved.
It would be more versatile and could travel wherever it was
needed without the necessity of train tracks.
Obviously, it would be incredibly slow and an easy target,
but that didn’t seem to concern Nazi engineers when they were designingWunderwaffe
for their Führer.
However, Speer would have none of it.
When Hitler was preoccupied with news of his forces being
defeated across Europe, Speer canceled all projects related to the Landkreuzeras
well as the construction of any more Mauston’s.
Unlike others in the Nazi party, he was not captivated by
the dreams of gigantic weapons that may or may not have any practical purpose.
He was focused on building tanks and weapons that could
possibly turn the war back in the Nazis’ favor.
Luckily, no matter what Speer did, the Nazis had already
made too many mistakes and would not be able to recover.
There is one terrifying thought that we want to leave you
with.
What if Edward Grote had come up with the idea of the
Landkreuzer P. 1000 Rate earlier?
Could it have affected the outcome of the war?
This huge tank would most certainly be a formidable machine
to go up against in battle, but perhaps it would have had an even more
dangerous psychological impact.
The Heavy Gustav was originally supposed Tobe constructed to
aid in the demolition of French fortifications when the Nazi invasion commenced.
However, Germany found that capturing France was easier than
they had anticipated, and the invasion was complete before the HeavyGustav was
in its testing phase.
Likewise, World War II had been raging on for a few years
before the Rate was brought to Hitler’s attention, which did not allow enough
time for him to ever see this nightmare of a tank become a reality.
But what if these superweapons had been built before the
start of World War II?
The date is September 1, 1939.
Adolf Hitler did the unthinkable and invaded Poland.
The rest of Europe braces for what will inevitably be an
all-out war.
As reconnaissance planes fly over the borders of Germany,
they spot gigantic moving structures from the sky.
The crew notes that they didn’t even need binoculars to spot
these monstrosities as they were so large that they could be seen from cruising
altitude.
What the Allied recon pilots have witnessed is a platoon of
Landkreuzer P. 1000 Rattesmoving towards the French border.
In this unthinkable imaginary scenario, the idea for the
Landkreuzer was developed right when Hitler came to power, and construction
started almost immediately.
The massive tanks are slow-moving, but it seems as if
nothing can stand in their way.
France quickly falls with minimal casualties to Nazi forces.
With the Landkreuzers on the battlefield, German forces move
from town to town and decimate any resistance by rolling the Rates right into
the middle of the fight.
Nazi soldiers wait patiently in the bellies of the beasts
until the battle is over and then enter French towns and cities to roundup
anyone who is left alive.
Germany begins fighting land battles as if they were naval
battles.
They deploy their Land cruisers across Europe with Panzer
tanks as support.
When Allied forces try to reach the mainland on D-Day, they
are greeted by a LandkreuzerP. 1000 Rate on the Beach of Normandy.
Their bullets do nothing to its thick armor, and the main
cannons are able to fire at the ships that sit offshore, causing them to
retreat.
In the Soviet Union, the Rate platoons are slowly making
progress through the harsh Russian landscape.
Luckily for the Nazis, the moving fortresses keep them warm
during the brutal Soviet winters.
They have been capturing oil wells as they progress deeper
into Soviet territory to keep the diesel engines running.
It is not a pleasant experience living for months inside of
a Rate, but it is doable.
As the winter gives way to spring, the Landkreuzersmove
forward and capture more land.
By having dozens of Landkreuzer P. 1000 Rattiest their
disposal, the Nazis have been able to establish footholds in regions that they
would not have been able to do otherwise.
Once a Landkreuzer is deployed and is setup in a defensive
position, it is almost impossible to destroy.
As Allied forces focus on trying to eliminate these huge,
deadly targets, the German air force and infantry launch counter-offensives.
In a worst-case scenario, the LandkreuzerP. 1000 Rate would
serve as a powerful distraction.
With Allied forces tied up trying to destroy these monstrous
tanks, the Nazis can devote more forces to secure resources and fuel for their
war machine.
The Allies are focusing too heavily on trying to build their
own gigantic tanks or finding ways to defeat the Nazi Landkreuzers and they
leave themselves vulnerable.
Nazi aircraft and soldiers invade Allied countries while
their attention is focused elsewhere.
The Nazis now control all of Europe, and World War II ends
much differently.
This scenario could also go a very different way if Germany
started building dozens ofLandkreuzer P. 1000 Rates before World Wari.
The Nazis pour resources into the Landkreuzersonly to find
that they break down constantly and get stuck every few miles.
In this case, World War II may have come to quicker end as
the Nazis would have depleted their resources early on by building completely
useless 1000-ton tanks.
There is no denying that if the Nazis had been able to build
a Landkreuzer, it would have taken a psychological toll on any Allied soldier
who looked upon it.
The 1,000-ton tank would have been a terrifying sight to
behold.
If one of these fortresses was able to move across Europe,
the Allies likely would have devoted huge amounts of men and resources to try
and stop it.
If nothing else, the Rate would be able to cause massive
amounts of destruction and fear until Allied forces dealt with it or it broke
down under its own weight.
There are some historians who believe that the design for
the Landkreuzer P. 1000 Rattedidn’t even make it to Hitler’s office.
Most think that he asked for a feasibility study for a
1,000-ton tank in 1942 but that the design for the Rate is just a fabrication.
It could have been a hoax or an engineer’s dream tank that
he concocted for his own amusement.
Currently, there can be arguments made for both sides.
Adolf Hitler was a nonjob who most definitely wanted a
1,000-ton tank, but it is not clear how far the plans actually got.
Edward Grote and the Krupp Company built some pretty insane
vehicles and weapons.
We also know there were a number of otherWunderwaffe that
Hitler planned on building once he secured the resources to do so.
It seems likely he would have wanted the LandkreuzerP. 1000 Rate
to be one of them.
Right now, we can only speculate on how massive Landkreuzer
would have affected the outcome of World War II.
Maybe the Rate would have turned the tide of the war back in
Germany’s favor, or perhaps if the tank was built, it would have caused so much
destruction to the roads it drove across and Nazi infrastructure that it would
have expedited their downfall.
Either way, the thought of a 1,000-ton tankan the hands of
Adolf Hitler is a terrifying one.