Hitler’s 1000 Ton Super Tank

The Landkreuzer P. 1000 Ratte

Artist depicting how the concept would have looked among other German tanks

In the history of the German military during World War 2 there have been ample blueprints and designs that have either failed or they simply required too many resources. I believe that this is the best example of that however, we should not entirely blame the German military for this monstrosity but actually Hitler himself. He has definitely come up with some ridiculous concepts before however, this beats them all.

First of all, I believe that to name this a tank would be wrong as it is more of a battleship on wheels (in this case tracks), therefore came the name or classification of a land battleship further on developed as a Landcruiser. Hitler was always in love with huge weaponry and that the idea of bigger is always better despite the inefficiency in the number of resources wasted this would bring.

Better known as the Landkreuzer P. 1000 Ratte (1000 representing the 1,000 tonnes that the tank would weight)has been a concept proposed by Edward Grotte in 1942 which was the director of Krupp, a very old German company that was the best in production of steel as well as other metals used at the time.

Huge doesn't mean efficient

The initial name given to this behemoth was “Landkreuzer” which would translate into a land cruiser…