Super Heavies

Here's a brief review of the Interbellum and WW2 heavy tank designs. Some of them remained on paper, others at the testing ground.

During the Great War, there were two superheavy tanks: the German 120-ton K-Wagen (K for Kolossal) that never became operative, and the Italian FIAT 2000, commissioned too late for the combat. Then the French built their FCM Char 2C, a real land dreadnought. The next 'big boy' was the British Vickers Independent - an inspiration for several 'breakthrough tank' designs, the T-35 among them.

The Germans followed suit with the Grosstraktor - much more a hoax than a real tank:

During the WW2, Prof. Porsche proposed some really weird schemes, beaten by the Tiger II:

There was also a 'papertank' project by the Henschel Works:

and of course the Maus, also designed by Porsche:

In France, the 1936 contest revealed a number of monsters armed with two guns (one hull-mounted) and a flamethrower:

Them came the turn of the enormous 'Tracteur C' (1939-1940):

and the FCM-F1:

both much over 100 tons.

In the United Kingdom, two frightful vehicles were developed
turrertless Tortoise:

and TOG-2

None of them ebtered production. But the main British heavy tank, the famous Churchill, was also a strange beast:

Especially armed with a 290mm Spigot mortar:

In Japan, the multi-turreted concepts were quite viable even towards the end of war:

And the Soviets tried to arrange a happy marriage between a heavy tank platform and a 130mm naval gun:

Stateside, the first real heavy, the M6, looked not so weird with its two co-axial guns, but had been proclaimed obsolete before the mass profuction could start:

The real beast emerged as the T28 turretless tank, later renamed T95 gun motor carriage

Here I could add something thoughtful for a nice finale, but I'd better spare this three-pence philosophy for another time, another post.