THE MAUS
______In the last year of World War II Germany was desperate. The Wehrmacht turned to "superweapons" which could give them a technological advantage that could overcome the numerical inferiority to the Allies in personnel and material. The trend in armor warfare seemed to point towards "bigger is better," so Germany designed the largest tank it could build: the Maus.
______The "mouse" was truly a monster. It was 188 tons, armed with a 150mm main gun to easily destroy in enemy tank it might encounter and a 75mm coaxial gun to destroy lesser targets. Its armor was between 50mm and 200mm thick, which made it invulnerable to most tank and anti-tank armament then in use.
______The powerful weapons and heavy armor of the Maus were outweighed, so to speak, by its sheer mass. The tank's maximum speed, despite the 1200 horsepower engine it boasted, was only 12 mph. This made blitzkrieg impossible for the lumbering Maus.
______Only two Maus tanks were completed and only one of those were fully armed. Despite a rumor that the Maus saw action in the last days of World War II, it is more likely that the machines were destroyed rather than to allow their capture by the Allies.
WHO WON THE BATTLE OF THE PYRAMIDS?
