Soviet Heavy said:
Nice that they're restoring it, like they did with the Dornier bomber. But the Maus is a laughable joke when it comes to tank engineering. The thing was ludicrous and horribly impractical at the time when it was developed.
Maybe, however if you follow a lot of conspiracy theories and such a lot of the impractical weapons the Germans were developing at the end of the war might have been intended for purposes that weren't immediately obvious. One of the things about Nazi Germany was that it's leadership had it's head in the clouds and was thinking in some rather odd, occult-based, directions. When you look at their successful weapons, and what the scientists recruited by the US and Russians made when put on the practical, it's hard to believe that the Germans would have just created something like the Maus or the "Vortex Cannon" (which was an artillery piece that was basically a giant fan and flammable gas generator, what happens is it basically shoots giant flaming rings over a good distance. It apparently worked as planned but one has to ask WTF they intended it to be shot at, given that it was an utter joke compared to other artillery and had all kinds of limitations... requiring almost ideal firing conditions, and the transport of flammable chemicals) without some good ideas what it was used for. Given that Germany barely lost the war, and Hitler was convinced almost right up until the end that he was going to win (convinced by prophecies and fortune tellers no less) it raises some interesting questions. What's more (plays X-files music) the allied governments have a lot of stuff about Hitler's plans, archaological research, and other things that were never divulged to the public.
In a more serious sense, I believe it was theorized that the Maus was intended as a sort of mobile turret. It's rather laughable speed being kind of irrelevant given that the basic point is that it CAN move under it's own power, even if it's slow. It's super-heavy armor meant that it's something you could pretty much park in an area and let even most bombs pretty much be ineffective, not to mention that even with it's weight it could be driven onto the decks of boats and such and act as a turret on ships that otherwise wouldn't be packing a cannon that big (it would be irrelevant to a full fledged battleship or other naval vessels, but a lot of ships could benefit hugely from having a Maus on deck).
Of course it's more fun to think they made it to withstand attacks from Cthulhu as they engaged in their "mile a day" conquest plan after raising Ry'leth from the depths.... Yithians bah! Their final moments will come at the hands of thousands of Maus tanks, slowly but inevitably crushing all slimey tentecled opposition before them! I mean what could be more epic that that, and it's surely not the most insane idea I've ever heard (even if I did you know... just make it up)....
