Concept
A super-heavy tank or super heavy tank is any tank that is notably beyond the standard of the class heavy tank in either size or weight relative to contemporary vehicles. Programs have been initiated on several occasions with the aim of creating an extremely resilient vehicle for penetrating enemy formations without fear of being destroyed in combat; however, only a few examples were built, and there is little evidence of any super heavy tank having seen combat. Examples were designed in the First and Second World Wars, along with a few during the Cold War. The first super-heavy tank was designed by the Russian naval engineer Vasily Mendeleyev who worked on the project from 1911 to 1915. The tank was envisioned to be invulnerable to almost all contemporary threats but remained on paper due to its high construction cost. Following the production of their first tanks, the British "Flying Elephant" was designed as a tank that would be resistant to artillery fire. Since mobility was more important than protection, and the tanks already developed were successful, work on the project was stopped. The German K-Wagen (Großkampfwagen) was a very heavy design carrying 4 guns and needing a crew of 27. Two of them were under construction when the war ended and both were demolished. In the early 1920s, the French produced the 70-tonne Char 2C. The ten tanks would see limited combat during the Battle for France in 1940, but were used mostly for propaganda purposes and the French tried to pull them out of combat zones. The pre-Second World War design and prototype of TOG2 was a lot heavier than any other contemporary tank used by United Kingdom and can also be considered a super-heavy tank. During the Second World War, all of the major combatants introduced prototypes for special roles. Adolf Hitler was a proponent of "war winning" weapons and supported projects like the 188 tonne Maus, and even larger 1,000 tonne Landkreuzer P. 1000 Ratte.