You thought the Panzer VIII Maus was big? That was just a small children’s toy compared to the designs for the Landkreuzer P. 1000 Ratte! This super-mega-tank was the largest, heaviest tank designed by Nazi Germany, if not the world! The plans called for it to be a whopping 1,000 metric tons, equipped with artillery that previously had only been used on naval warships. Imagine a tank over 115 ft long, 46 ft wide, and 36 ft tall! It would have been maintained by a crew of at least 20 personnel. Its immense size gave engineers headaches. It was too impractical as it would have been too heavy for bridges and indeed most roadways would’ve crumbled under its weight. Its top speed was only 25 mph.

Albert Speer, who was in charge of bringing life to these designs, believed them to be ridiculous. Building this monstrosity would have been an incredible burden on steel supplies and other resources, not even taking into account the skilled labor involved and the huge production costs. If he did divert the resources necessary to bring this project to fruition, everyone but Hitler was doubtful that it could actually fulfill its operational goals. Not to mention they would have been huge sitting targets for Allied bombings. No, Speer, being one of the few who could reign in Hitler’s fantasies of land battleships and high-tech armaments, cancelled the program in 1943, leaving the designs on the drawing board. Hitler was satisfied relying rather on the quick attacks of his Blitzkrieg operations. No prototype was ever built. Interesting enough, at the time of its cancellation, preliminary plans were being drawn up for even larger Landkreuzer P. 1500 Monster, which would have sported the largest gun in the world, the 800 mm cannon from the Schwerer Gustav!