"The secret behind Norway's massive Nazi coastal cannon" Topic

"In 1942, Nazi engineers devised a plan to build a 1,500-ton supertank. The P1000 Rat, it was to be the largest and fiercest industrial-age ground weapon the world had ever seen. In 1943, the project was cancelled. So how did its massive gun turret wind up on a coastal hilltop in Norway?

The Rat had been among the projects almost supernatural in scope with which Hitler would demonstrate Germany industrial and military might. The shock-and-awe weapon would have served the dual roles of energizing the German populace and cowering state enemies with the sheer audacity of metal. Hitler called this gigantism.

In early 1943, Hitler's Chief Armaments minister, Albert Speer, decided a monster-sized tank would be far too costly in resources, and provided too big a target for Allied forces which by then had demonstrated bombs capable of destroying the P1000 thick armor and cancelled the project. But a turret for the P1000 had already been built. It was a variant on a naval heavy cruiser turret as used in Gneisenau-class battleships, fitted with a 280 mm SK C/34 naval gun. What would they do with gear (and firepower) of that size?…"
Full article here
link

Lucky they did not finish it and not settled in Normandy!

Amicalement
Armand

The Allies would have simply bombed, shelled, or coup-de-mained (new verb! yay!) the thing at significantly less cost than transporting it to France – where it probably would have sat uselessly bypassed in Brittany.

Another totally useless German fantasy project (like the Maus, Dora, etc.). The krauts wasted far too much time, effort and money on way too many of these things (of course, for us, that was a good thing…).

Bigger guns were in place at Cap Griz Nez.

I still want the model…

I still want the model…

Now there is a modeller. :)

Just a little bit of rain and the supertank would have spent the rest of the war in a self-imposed "hull down" position. I wonder if they also took a crack at designing a tow vehicle to pull it out.

The tow vehicle would also have been too heavy.

Or a fleet of a dozen tow-vehicles three times the size of the Maus, which in turn would all require some heavy tow vehicles.

Would make an insane diorama that.

I like this drawing –

I wonder how they moved it up to the position.

The above drawing has the picture of a French ARL-44 titled "A-39 Tortoise". In fact the Tortoise looked very much like the U.S. T-28.

Besides, what's so special about this gun? There is an actual turret from Gneisenau emplaced in Norway.

You sure its the ARL44? The angle of the rear of the track seems wrong – I thought it was the Black Prince put in rather than the Tortoise.