Mäuschen.

Between conceptualization in March 1942 and October 1942, it had been fairly plain sailing for both Porsche and Krupp, despite some general disagreements within the German establishment over a preferred gun or guns for the tank. On 5th October, the new design was ready under the name Typ 205A and had options for either a 15 cm L/37 or for a 12.8 cm gun to work alongside the 7.5 cm Kw.K. L/24.

The dominant feature of what was little more than an enormous brick with pointed ends fore and aft was the enormous rectangular turret roughly half the length of the entire tank. The engine was mounted ahead of the centerline but delivered drive to the sprockets at the rear via an electrical drive. The entire vehicle was to be mounted on 12 pairs of double road wheels running along a 1 m-wide track, although a pair of 500 mm wide tracks were also considered. All told, this Typ 205A was going to weigh some 150 tonnes and, in keeping with common design practice, was still to retain a front-mounted machine gun in the hull on the right-hand side.

The result was a 170-tonne proposal from Porsche for a rear-turreted version using the same Daimler-Benz 603 water-cooled petrol engine as before, but with the addition of a compressor. It was also to use the electrical transmission taken from the Panzerkampfwagen VI P (Tiger (P)). Consideration at this time was also given to the production of a Sturmgeschutz version of this rear-turreted Mäuschen, but this was rejected by Obert Thomale from Waffen Prüfungsamt 6 (Wa Prüf 6), the branch of the German ordnance department responsible for motorized vehicle design.

Typ 205 from December 1942/January 1943, showing the distinctive and very large rectangular Maus turret. Note the presence of a hull machine gun and the use of 5 bogey units with two pairs of road wheels each for the suspension, copied from the Tiger (P), but reduced from the 6 pairs drawn in October 1942. Source: Frohlich.

Pictures:

Blueprint used:

Scale: 15.50

Credit:

-LtSaturn for making the turret front much more part efficient.

Enjoy.

Weight is 169 tons according to WoTB.