When it comes to land-based military vehicles, it doesn't get much bigger or badder than a tank. The pinnacle of armored vehicles, tanks came about during WWI as not much more than a steel box on tracks, armed with guns. Evolving from there, by WWII tanks were at the very forefront of combat, leading infantry columns, scouting out enemies, and fighting other tanks among many other tasks.

During WWII though, German tanks like the Tiger I reigned supreme. While the concept of a heavy tank had existed prior, it was that German beast that made them one of the most feared types, nearly impenetrable with their thick steel armor, while packing a punch that could rip through any enemy tanks that got in its sight.

One German tank, though, would take this concept so far that it still remains unparalleled to this day. That tank was the Maus, and while it didn't quite make it to production, its existence remains an incredible feat to this day. As the heaviest tank ever built, here are 10 downright crazy facts about the infamous Panzer VIII Maus.

10 It Was Designed By Porsche

Via Stuttcars.com

It's a chapter of their history that Porsche would (understandably) prefer to be forgotten, but their founder, Ferdinand Porsche, had a major role in creating several vehicles and technology for the German war machine - including the mighty Maus.

Via Stuttcars.com

Born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1875, Ferdinand Porsche was a brilliant engineer who designed his first car in 1898 - surprisingly, it was also an electric-powered car. Bringing his talents to Mercedes Benz, Porsche designed some exceptional race cars for them and founded his own car company in Stuttgart during 1931.

However, the coming years would see Porsche working for the new German government, led by the Nazi party under Adolf Hitler. At Hitler's behest, Porsche was the lead engineer on the "people's car" VW Beetle, and would also be responsible for designing several military vehicles. Included in that list was the Panzer VIII Maus, a proposal to Hitler by Ferdinand Porsche himself, the design was originally designated the Porsche Type 205.

9 It Weighed Over 180 Tons

Via Panzer DB - Twitter

An obsession of Adolf Hitler's, several ridiculous "wonder weapon" designs were enthusiastically approved during WWII. With the Tiger I proving to be fearsome for its un-matched heavy armor, and the King Tiger evolving its design, the thinking was that building an un-paralleled heavy tank could prove a war-winning effort.

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While many, many problems uncovered during its testing contradicted that idea, the notion the Maus was built under wasn't entirely illogical. Meant to either break through fortifications, or act as a fortification itself, one of the driving desires behind the Maus' creation was also the emergence of Allied heavy tanks that could give the Tiger I a run for its money, like the beastly Soviet IS-1.

Growing heavier and heavier as its design process stretched on, and revisions were made, by the time a fully functional prototype was complete the monstrous machine weighed in at an absurd 188 tons and was limited to a top speed of under 10 mph. For some sense of just how immense that weight is, the mighty Tiger I tank had a weight of 50 tons, and a modern M1a1 Abrams MBT tips the scale at 67 tons.

8 It Had Steel Armor Up To 9 Inches Thick

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A heavy tank isn't heavy for no reason. A type that was most feared during WWII, a heavy tank uses incredibly thick armor to protect itself, sacrificing speed and mobility in the process.

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With intentions for the Maus to essentially be a rolling, armed bunker, its armor was the main focus, and the main reasons for several re-designs being necessary to accommodate the growing weight. The thinnest armor was on top of the turret, being just over 2" of solid, hardened steel. The rest, however, was immense. Ranging from 6" of hardened steel on the rear end of the hull, to 9.8" in the front, the Maus' incredible weight is even more awe-inspiring when considering that armor thickness.

For comparison, the feared Tiger I's armor at its thickest was 4" of hardened steel, able to bounce most incoming rounds fired at it by Allied tanks earlier in the war. On the other hand, by 1944, tanks like the IS-2 had reached new levels of armor-piercing power, able to shred through 5.5" of armor with an ideally angled shot - capable of killing a Tiger I, but not enough to take down a Maus, especially if attacking from the front.

7 It Was Designed To Drive Underwater

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With a weight so immense, many problems arose during tests of the Maus as a direct consequence. Among these problems was the matter of crossing bridges, an often worrying endeavor for normal tanks, but an impossible task for the Maus.

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A bridge has its weight limits, that's just logical, and the Maus grossly exceeded the limit of nearly every bridge it would have had to cross, essentially guaranteeing a collapse if it tried to. With the Maus' incredible weight, recovering one that had fallen would have been an even more difficult task, so rather than lightening the design, the Maus solved this problem by simply ignoring the need to cross said bridges. Designed to drive across the bottoms of rivers, the Maus was sealed off from water ingress and had a snorkel to provide its crew with air (pictured above).

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6 It Carried Almost 1,000 Gallons Of Fuel

Via Medium

Naturally, one of the most pressing issues facing the Maus' development was how exactly such a heavy machine could move under its own power. While an engine up to the task was found, there was no way to avoid the unbelievably bad fuel efficiency that the design would have.

Via Warspot.net

Making use of a Daimler-Benz V12 gasoline engine in its first prototype, the more complete second prototype used a marine-grade Daimler-Benz diesel V12. Designated the MB517, this engine was a supercharged version of the MB507, which in turn was based on the DB603 aircraft V12. Capable of 1,200 hp, this engine would become incredibly thirsty when trying to haul the 188-ton weight of the Maus.

Carrying two fuel tanks, one internal, and one mounted in a barrel on the back of the tank (pictured above), the Maus had a total of 924 gallons of fuel onboard. Despite this massive load, the Maus could travel just over 100 miles on paved roads, and less than half that on rough terrain, not an economic vehicle to run - but that wasn't exactly the point of it.

5 An Even Bigger Design Was Also Proposed

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A 188-ton tank that couldn't crack 10 mph and would collapse any bridge it tried sounds absurdly impractical, but another beast was approved by Hitler that would have dwarfed the Maus, and been the single most insane armored vehicle ever created.

Via Wikipedia

Designated the Projekt P.1000 Ratte, and known as the Land-Kreuzer, this behemoth design was essentially a land based battleship. Proposed to Hitler in 1942 by Krupp's chief of Submarine engineering, the Land-Kreuzer design fit in perfectly with the wonder weapon obsession, and was immediately approved for further design and engineering work.

Devised to be a 1,000-ton monster, the Land-Kreuzer would have been armed with a turret carrying twin 280 mm naval cannons, a 128 mm cannon from the Maus itself, eight 20 mm anti-aircraft cannons, and a set of anti-infantry machine guns. With 250 mm thick armor and 2 massive submarine diesel engines, the intent was for the Land-Kreuzer to act as a mobile command HQ, with everything from an infirmary, to toilets, and even a storage bay for a motorcycle fleet inside. Naturally, such a design was neither possible, nor a good use of resources and the project was canceled after less than a year of work.

RELATED: Here Are The Weirdest Tank Designs Of All Time

4 A Tiger-Maus Was Almost Completed

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A ridiculously heavy tank that was actually grounded in reality, the E-100 would have been a more conventional design but shared a purpose, and parts from the Maus.

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Krupp had previously proposed a sort of conventional Maus to compete with Porsche's design but abandoned it after the Maus was approved by Hitler in 1943 - as they would be the company producing the approved design. With the idea still being a solid one, the Tiger-Maus project was handed off to Adler, re-designated the E-100, and work continued.

While the parts for the Maus were almost entirely unique designs, the Tiger-Maus would've shared many parts, and design styles with the conventional tanks Germany was using for its hull and tracks but would have had the Maus' turret mounted on top. While progress was made, it was far too slow, and by 1945 the partially complete E-100 prototype (pictured above) was captured by the Allied forces.

3 A Special Railway Car Was Designed To Transport It

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Even with "normal" heavy tanks like the Tiger, transportation to combat areas could prove difficult, as moving hundreds of tons worth of metal is no easy task, and this would have been a compounded issue with the Maus

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With railways being an essential vehicle, personnel, and equipment transporters during WWII, it was only logical that the Maus would need to make use of them to reach the combat lines it was planned to fight on. With no railcar available that could handle the size and weight of the armored beast, the Austrian company Simmering-Graz-Pauker was given the job of building one. What they created was about as monstrous as the Maus itself. Designed specifically to haul the Maus, the "Schwertransportwagen für Gerät 205" used 14 beefy axles, was 88 feet long, weighed 72.5 tons itself, and required a separate production line to build. While it worked, the Maus' wouldn't see combat, and the rail car built for it would not be needed.

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2 Waves Of Allied Bombers Attacked The Factory That Produced It

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With an intense development process that saw revision after revision, a full-scale model that was outdated against later revisions was shown to Hitler in May of 1943 and was immediately approved for mass production. The final design would come in November of 1943, but the manufacturers had already been preparing for production of the tank for months, even before the mass production approval in May.

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Based in Essen Germany, Krupp was given the job of producing the truly massive hulls and turrets for the Maus contracted to make 120 of them at a rate of 10 per month, a task that seemed to be feasible by the time 2 had been completed. While designing such a massive tank and the production lines required was a challenge, the Maus' biggest set back would be the Royal Air Force, as the Battle of the Ruhr had already begun in March, and Krupp's Essen factory was one of the RAF's designated targets.

Unaware of the Maus' existence, a formation of over 300 British bombers rained down bombs across Essen on March 5th of 1943, damaging Krupp's factory as well as paperwork on the Maus' design, and one of the completed turrets. Recovering enough to resume production, another delay came as a further hundreds-strong wave of bombers struck again in April. Finalizing the Maus' destruction, over 700 bombers struck Essen once more in June, destroying vast areas of the city, most of Krupp's factory, and any hopes of the Maus reaching production, with just 2 hulls and 1 turret having been completed.

1 One Was Destroyed, The Other Captured By Soviets

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Left devastated by Allied bombing raids, the Maus project was ordered to a stop by German command. But, with 2 completed Maus hulls, and 1 completed turret, 2 Maus prototypes were built, and were met with 2 distinct fates.

Via War History Online

Despite having been canceled near the end of 1943, testing of these functioning Maus prototypes carried (one had a non-functioning turret, however) on through to the end of 1944. Tested at Kummersdorf proving grounds, and Porsche's own testing grounds in Boblingen, by the time 1944 was reaching its end, the Third Reich was on its dying breaths, and the Soviets were closing in.

While no credible information has revealed what actually happened to it at the time, one of the Maus prototypes was found blown up near Kummersdorf in the early months of 1945, presumably to keep it out of the advancing Soviet hands. The other though, did end up in Soviet hands, put together using the completed hull and turret. While tested in Russia during the early '50s, there was no real reason to consider the Maus a viable or sensible weapon, and that single surviving example has resided in the Kubinka Tank Museum ever since.

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