The "Midgard-Schlange" (Midgard-Snake)

Thinking of german tanks and armor projects during the last two years of the war, it seems, that the germans get megalomaniac. They encounter the first problems concerning weight and mobility with development of the Tiger II and Jagdtiger with a weight up to 75 tons. The "Maus" project as well as the E-100 with weights of 188 tons (140 tons E-100) made clear that such monster won't make win a war ... they're much too heavy. But nevertheless plans were made for a 1000 ton tank called "Ratte" and a successor, a 1500 ton tank. Both are reviewed on Michael Mc.Swiney's page about unusal german armor projects and one thing is clear ... these plans could never be realised ... too many problems would occur. But there was another plan made for one armor project which lets even the 1500 ton tank look like a Kübelwagen ... The Midgard Snake:
The Engineergroup Ritter designed this project ... the name derives from Teutonic Mythology, it was a demonic monster, which embraced with its giant length the whole earth. Thor, god of thunder, was its arch-enemy and tried many times to kill it. Finally in the twilight of the gods he slayed it with his hammer, but was also killed by its poisonous breath.
The first plans to this project were made in Summer 1934, it should be a vehicle that can drive like a tank on the ground, under the earth like a mole and under the sea up to 100m deep!! All in all the vehicle was made of 77 single cells of 6.8m width, 3.5m height and 6m length, put together to a snake of about 524m! On the front it should have a giant drill put together of 4 single drills, each 1.5m diameter. The drills were connected to 9 engines with 8800 PS altogether. For moving on the ground the tracks were driven by 14 engines, giving 19800 PS ... the snake should have a speed on the ground of about 30 km/h, 10 km/h under ground and about 30 km/h under water. For underwater driving there were additional 12 engines with 3000 PS altogether. It was planned to take 960 m³ of engine fuel in the vehicle. Also there was planned to put an electric kitchen, a bedroom with 20 beds, 3 workshops, some periscopes and 580 big compressed-air bottles as well as a smoke discharging equipment. For armamenent there were 1000 mine charges with 250kg explosives each, 100 smaller charges with 10kg each and 12 twin-MG's. The whole vehicle would have a weight of 60,000 tons (!) and a crew of 30. The "inventor" of this monster planned to build 20 of these vehicles to put explosive charges at and under fortresses of the Maginot-line and hostile harbors to get breakthroughs!!!
Well all this sounds unbelievable and this is one of the reasons why the project was cancelled. The main reason is the unresolvable technical problems which will occur when designing, building and driving such thing. (Remember what problems the germans had in the 1940's to build a suitable engine for the "Maus" with more than 1000 PS!!!). In any case ... on February 28th 1935 the plans were handed back to engineer Ritter and his application was declined.