OT--Anybody Know What This Is?

[Hauksbee]

Among the topics covered in "WWI In 40 Maps" is the German 'Super Guns'; the best known being the 'Paris Gun', [spoiler alert: It wasn't called "Big bertha"]. I started poking around on-line and tucked among a Yahoo Image Search [e.g., Paris Gun clones, huge Siege Mortars and humongous WWII tanks] I found this odd-ball. 'Never seen its like before. Anybody know what it is? Is it even real?

Edited November 9, 2014 by Hauksbee

[Gatling20]

My bet is on it being a fake - some sort of Luft '46 fantasy.

The turret looks very like the turret from a PzKfw I, but the whole thing looks like a very great deal of effort to go to, to move a couple of machine guns around!

[Stratos]

A mine clearing vehicle IIRC designed to work under fire. I think it was tested but not used:

 

http://strangevehicles.greyfalcon.us/Alkett.htm

[Gatling20]

Well I was right about the Pz I turret, anyway - what a way to clear mines!

[Hauksbee]

Thanks, Stratos. It's nice to have that settled. I was leaning toward the 'fake' Luft '46 opinion. Here's two pics culled from the link Stratos posted. Accompanying text (last paragraph) had this to say about it:

 

During the trial tests, it proved that this vehicle was unsuited to the operations of modern mechanized warfare. Its ponderous weight, slow speed, and its awkward size made the Minenräumer (minesweeper) a large target for opposing artillery and the project was thus abandoned.

Edited November 10, 2014 by Hauksbee

[Capitaine Vengeur]

During the trial tests, it proved that this vehicle was unsuited to the operations of modern mechanized warfare. Its ponderous weight, slow speed, and its awkward size made the Minenräumer (minesweeper) a large target for opposing artillery and the project was thus abandoned.

Most of this could be said about Hobart's Funnies (British 79th Arm.Div.). And yet they worked, and quite well besides.

[Hauksbee]

Most of this could be said about Hobart's Funnies (British 79th Arm.Div.). And yet they worked, and quite well besides.

Quite so. After a quick Google search, it seems that the "Funnies" were designed to assault beaches (Normandy) and were adaptations built onto existing tanks, i.e., the Matilda. That German monster has "klunky" written all over it, and, no doubt, carried a sign that said "Shoot here first!" I've always felt the cleverest mine-clearing device was the "Flail Tank" It didn't depend on great weight or huge rollers.