Tank Warfare on the Eastern Front 1943-1945: Red Steamroller

Nor were the problems at the Nibelungenwerke unique. In addition to his faulty VK 4501(P) prototype, Porsche wanted to build a super-heavy tank and built a wooden prototype, which was demonstrated to Hitler, Guderian and other dignitaries on 1 May 1943. Porsche intended to build a 188-ton tank, mounting the new 12.8cm Pak gun. Guderian rejected this concept as ridiculous, but Hitler liked the idea and authorized a production run of 150 units, to be known as the Maus. Both Krupp and Alkett were ordered to provide production space and technical personnel to assist Porsche on his fool’s errand of constructing the largest tank in the world. Not to be left behind in the super-heavy field, Henschel began development of its own version of a 140-ton tank armed with a 12.8cm gun in June 1943. Indeed, Hitler was so impressed with the firing trials of the 12.8cm gun that he ordered that it should be mounted on a future variant of either the Tiger or Panther – this was despite the fact that the 7.5cm KwK 42 and 8.8cm KwK 36 were more than adequate to defeat Soviet tanks. Hitler’s whimsical decision meant that just as the Nibelungenwerke was ramping up Pz IV production after Kursk, it was ordered to devote resources to design and produce a new heavy tank destroyer, which would become the Jagdtiger. The ripple effect of Porsche’s unrealistic designs and Hitler’s love of ‘gigantic’ weapons hit the German tank industry hard throughout 1943–44, diverting resources from the production of proven designs in favour of experimentation gone wild.

As if Porsche’s experimentation was not a big enough distraction, most of the German tank plants were still operating well below capacity even after Stalingrad. In Kassel, the Henschel plant, the sole manufacturer of the Tiger tank, continued to devote two-thirds of its production space to the construction of locomotives, not tanks. While it was supposedly ramping up for full-scale production of the new Panther tank, the MAN factory in Nurnberg continued to produce trucks, because they were regarded as ‘essential for the company’s survival in the post-war economy’. Speer’s deputy, Saur, kept trying to get MAN to shut down its truck line in order to expand Panther production, but the company management just ignored him.²⁸ Heading into 1943, German manufacturing procedures were still not really geared toward mass assembly of tanks. Many businessmen were concerned that Hitler could shift armaments priorities on a whim – as he had decided to do at the start of Barbarossa in 1941 – and were reluctant to invest capital in developing excess production capacity in military factories when they were assured by the regime once again 1942 that victory was imminent. At mid-war, most German tank plants were still not operating at full capacity due to severe labour shortages and Speer was astounded that the main tank plants were not running a second shift.²⁹ Henschel was the first to institute two 12-hour shifts in late 1942 and by early 1943 Speer pressed the other companies into following suit. However, the only way to quickly add additional shifts was to boost reliance on foreign forced labor, including prisoners of war, which further reduced efficiency in the factories.