The tank heavier in history was German Panzerkampfwagen viii mauswith an incredible mass of 188 tons. This enormous military vehicle was able to protect its occupants from enemy fire, even if in reality He never went down to the battlefield. The Second World War in fact ended before its development and were made only Two prototypes: One was destroyed and the other was captured by the Soviets.
Most of the weight was linked to coating in reinforced steel whose thickness oscillated between 15 and 25 centimeterswith minimum values of 5 centimeters only above the turret. The vehicle was designed by Ferdinand Porsche and was powered by a diesel engine Daimler-Benz Mb 517 from 1200 horses. All this power, however, did not translate into great speed: its enormous size limited the prevented from exceeding 20 km/h. But it is not over: the Maus had about 3500 liters of fuel with which, however, he could just travel 1600 km on asphalted roads e less than half On rough land.
Among other things, such a high weight would have made Impossible the crossing of bridgeswhich would collapse in his passage. Precisely for this reason a special snorel was also planned to allow the means to immerse yourself completely and surf the water. This would have allowed him to look at rivers and streams for the Largo, obviously by the problem of the size.
As we anticipated, however, this vehicle has never been used in battle: if we consider only the tanks actually went to war, the heaviest primacy then passes to French then Char de Rupture 2C bis of 1923 from 75 tons. However, this vehicle has also been abandoned and, to date, the heaviest tank still used is the US M1A2 Abramsproduced by General Dynamics Land Systems (USA) with a weight of 63 tons.
