Adding World of Tanks tag because this turret was not on the original E-50 blueprint.

Wouldn't the E-50 be technically hax for Miho's school since it would literally punch through the toughest of vehicles such as the Maus?

ezekill said:

Wouldn't the E-50 be technically hax for Miho's school since it would literally punch through the toughest of vehicles such as the Maus?

Hardly. The actual design called for the 8.8cm L/71. Same thing you get on a Tiger 2 or Nashorn.

Might be able to go through the side armor, though

ezekill said:

Wouldn't the E-50 be technically hax for Miho's school since it would literally punch through the toughest of vehicles such as the Maus?

I remember Maus' weakest part, the lower glacis plate has an effective armor over 240mm, impossible for 8,8 cm L/71 to penetrate even at point blank range.

lookingfrank said:

I remember Maus' weakest part, the lower glacis plate has an effective armor over 240mm, impossible for 8,8 cm L/71 to penetrate even at point blank range.

Rear lower glacis can be penned with the T32's 105mm standard AP (198 pen), I destroyed one the other day like that. Otherwise it would've been impossible to penetrate. :P

lookingfrank said:

I remember Maus' weakest part, the lower glacis plate has an effective armor over 240mm, impossible for 8,8 cm L/71 to penetrate even at point blank range.

Tk3997 said:

this ended up way longer then I meant it too

Uh not sure where you got that from the weakest part of the tank is actually the side of the hull, and it's a pretty huge weakness honestly. The turret side is fairly tough as it's inclined a bit and quite thick although quite how thick seems somewhat disputed some sources say as low as 200mm others as high as 220mm and all are complicated by the fact a 5% variance was accepted in manufacturing, but 5% of what target number? Well 210 seems logical -5% would be about 200mm +5% about 220mm so both high and low end could quite possibly be correct depending on which and where you measure a plate.

This is only important because if it's a 'thin' plate close to 200mm the L/71 has the potential to penetrate at close, effectively point blank range (>100 meters), but if it's 210, let alone 220, the side turret is functionally impervious. Given how marginal even the best case is though the turret can probably be regarded as mostly immune, and it's also mostly academic.

It's academic because the gigantic hull sides just below it are completely flat slabs between 180 and 190mm (seems to vary depending on who's reading the blueprints quite possibly for reasons similar to the turret) thick. This is within the capability of the 88mm to defeat with a right angle hit at up to about 1000 meters with normal AP and I think it goes without saying that the Maus's ability to go hulldown is... minimal. Indeed, about the only thing it would be worse at is maneuvering to keep pretty much anything with an engine from just driving around the side of it. (Ironically the upper rear is actually a bit stronger, about 5%, then the side because it's slightly sloped but it's still within the capability of either the L/71 (or US 105mm as mentioned above) to penetrate.)

The front is of course pretty much completely impervious.

This is for normal AP rounds though an APCR high velocity round existed for the L/71, but by the time the gun began appearing Tungsten was becoming much too rare to be firing from tank guns and no enemy tank really demanded such an extravagant round anyway. Having said that, if the round is available the turret side becomes vulnerable to around 500 meters and the side hull at well over 1500, but not quite out to 2000 meters. The lower glacis plate being similar to the turret side also becomes vulranble within about 500 meters.

This also rather shows why super-heavy and all around armored heavy tanks were fairly terrible ideas by late war and went totally extinct post-war. As can be seen above a gun that can be mounted to a vehicle perhaps a forth the weight can defeat a huge portion of the super-heavies flank out to beyond normal combat ranges and the entire thing at the lower end of normal combat ranges. Even part of the frontal protection is potentially vulnerable during closer engagements. The L/71 was a potent gun yes, but not significantly more so then a number of other weapons that could be, would be, or were in service within a few months of the Maus appearing. Given it's ludicrously poor mobility and absurd size getting tanks with such weapons around it's sides to take these shots and landing plenty of them wouldn't exactly have been difficult.

Adding more armor to the flanks to defeat these guns, which weren't even really completely maxed in potential improvement, is obviously rather impractical given that the thing was barely mobile to start with.

Considering all this it actually makes for an interesting case of why the Maus was probably most often left in the barn (we'll magically assume it runs reliably here). Namely that any team that could field even a single late war, high penetration gun would make mince meat of the thing. It's speed would make flanking trivial and it's massive, barn door sized, slab sided hull would assure no difficult in hitting the thing repeatedly. The vehicle doing this could in fact be as light as a Sherman as the 17 pounder with APDS has the needed penetration, and though that shell's accuracy was frankly catastrophically bad it literally would only need to hit the broadside of a barn...

TL;DR To kill a Maus you need to flank it and/or get point blank to it with is a really dangerous move since it was supposed to go with 2 - 3 backup tanks other option was to get in a near 1000 - 500M position shoot at the flank and pray it pens, withou could give your location and potentailly get destroyed

nabusco said:

TL;DR To kill a Maus you need to flank it and/or get point blank to it with is a really dangerous move since it was supposed to go with 2 - 3 backup tanks other option was to get in a near 1000 - 500M position shoot at the flank and pray it pens, withou could give your location and potentailly get destroyed

Or, you know, bombers, artillery and general close air support.

AdventZero said:

Or, you know, bombers, artillery and general close air support.

That works well too

ezekill said:

Wouldn't the E-50 be technically hax for Miho's school since it would literally punch through the toughest of vehicles such as the Maus?

I think a bigger problem from a Tankery perspective would be that they never actually existed. That would tend to make it difficult to field one. :)

damn it here i thought its a panther 2