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RE: Forgotten Weapons of History #1 - The "Ratte" Tank

in #war7 years ago

Hitler was obsessed with big projects. His army would of been better served making easy to manufacture equipment with simple designs. In many respects WWII was a war of attrition. The more equipment you could produce, the more you can replace equipment that has been knocked out. If a tank such as this were to be build, it would not have lasted long in battle. It would have likely be knocked out by aircraft or would have gotten stuck or experience mechanical breakdown. A great example of this was the German battleship the Bismark . One of the largest battleships of its day, this ship was sunk on its first combat voyage. This ship was never replaced. It took years to build and all the lives and material lost was irreplaceable. Another example was the 800mm Gustav Gun. This artillery piece had to be transported by rail and took months to assemble on site. This gun took thousands of personnel to operate and assemble. These beasts are only good for maybe one-time use applications, then they are out of commission. The allies benefited from Hitler's bad decision making as these ideas wasted Germany's resources. I think we often see images of the tiger tank ant think this represented German armor. But in reality, allies engaging tiger tanks was relatively rare. Because of the cost and complexity of building the tiger tank, only roughly 1500 were ever produced. compare that with roughly 60,000 Soviet t-34 tanks and over 40,000 US Sherman tanks.

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To quote Heinz Guderian,"Hitler's fantasies sometimes shift into the gigantic". Thanks for the comment, i appreciate it!

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