For years, an unidentified gunsight sat in The Tank Museum’s archives. New research has identified it as part of the German Maus project to build the world’s heaviest tank
The Panzer VIII Maus remains the heaviest tank ever built, although it never saw action in the Second World War. Of the five ordered, Porsche completed two hulls and Krupp completed one turret. The project began with a contract given to Porsche to design a 100-ton tank that could take on any Allied fighting vehicle. The completed design swelled in scale to produce a monster that was 33ft (10m) long and weighed 188 tons.
It was armed with a 128mm gun capable of taking out any Allied tank up to 11,500ft (3,500m), supplemented by a coaxial 75mm gun. Meanwhile, the Maus armour, reaching a maximum thickness of 9.5in (240mm), would defend it against any Allied shell.
The gunsight was essential for guaranteeing that the Maus would have the best armour of any tank on the battlefield. Many tanks use a forward-facing aperture, a hole cut out of the glacis plate, for driving and gunnery. However, holes in a tank’s armour are a deadly weakness that can render even the thickest armour useless. A periscopic gunsight provides total protection but reduces the user’s field of view.
After successfully displaying a wooden mock-up of the Maus to Hitler, engineers began work on a turretless prototype, finished by December 1943. They paired it with a mockup turret designed to be the same weight as the real turret. Carl Zeiss and Zeiss built the gunsight for testing during this phase.
Yet the project
