Capture
The working Maus prototypes remained at Kummersdorf and at the proving grounds in Böblingen. In the last weeks of the war the V1 with the dummy turret was captured by the advancing Soviet forces in the vicinity of the western batteries of the Kummersdorf artillery firing grounds. It had been thought to be mechanically sabotaged by the Germans before abandoning it. Some sources state that the Panzerkampfwagen VIII saw combat while defending the facility at Kummersdorf, although the popular version is that it did not.
The Soviet Commander of Armored and Mechanized troops ordered the hull of V1 to be mated with the turret of V2. The Soviets used six German FAMO-built 18t German half-tracks, the largest half-track vehicles that Germany built in the war years, to pull the 55 ton turret off the burnt-out hull. The combined V1 hull/V2 turret vehicle was completed in Germany and sent back to the USSR for further testing. It arrived there on May 4, 1946. When further testing was completed the vehicle was taken over by the Kubinka Tank Museum for storage where it is now on display.
It appears that the capture of this prototype had little impact on post-war Soviet tank development. Soviet tank design continued to concentrate on maneuverability by strictly limiting size and weight. The next-generation Soviet tanks had similar levels of protection and armament. The IS-3 heavy tank was armed with a 122 mm gun, but weighed under 50 tonnes. The T-54 main battle tank, which started production in 1947, provided 200 mm of frontal turret armor, 100 mm of frontal hull armor and a 100 mm main gun, while weighing in at slightly less than 40 tons.
A third almost-completed hull and turret were found by British forces at the Krupp works at Essen.
Read more about this topic: Panzer VIII Maus
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