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The Germans did indeed have engines in WW1 capable of producing the horsepower needed for the K-Wagen. If you didn't find any, it's probably because you didn't look at _naval_ engines. The Diesels used in German submarines and torpedo boats generated the horsepower ranges mentioned, and were often used in pairs. If they were using them for the K-Wagen, it might even explain the size of the beast since the K-Wagen would have been roughly the size class of a torpedo boat or U-boat.

The ancestor of all of German tank traditions, big guns, big armor, and underpowered engines.

>Make the heaviest tank ever >still no cannon can hit a target directly in front of it.

One sentence to perfectly describe that thing: Tall, big, gorgeous and painfully thicc.

In BF1 some of the French/German maps give a team a Char 2C tank as a behemoth. It'd be cool if the Germans would get the K-Wagen instead

even if there are none left, some museum should and i mean SHOULD make a mockup model with some form of inside so people can walk around this behemoth and inside, just to see how massive it was for a tank.

So it turns out that even in the earliest days, German tank design theory was a pathway to many monstrosities some consider to be... underpowered.

"JOHNNY, HOLY SHIT, ITS THE MEGA TOASTER!"

V6 engines were very uncommon, even up to the 1950s, the only V6 engine I can think of that was around at the time was made by Deutz(since 1908) & was intended for marine use so it likely was able to produce 650hp or even more but it would have been absolutely massive.

I have had a fascination with military hardware and history for as long as I can remember. I have also nurtured a love of doodling pictures of various weaponry since I was a young lad, with no real concern for how “practical” or “realistic” such designs were. These twin passions grew so powerful during my high school years that I had a 3-ring binder full of pictures of tanks, airplanes, etc. to serve as inspiration for my own eccentric drawings. I mention this to explain why, as I was watching this video, I thought “You know, I bet I could fit the turret of a Char 2C on that thing and make it EVEN COOLER!!”

So, this is where the German trend of "if it doesn't work well, just make it bigger" comes from.

The Germans realized the only real threat to these tanks is artillery fire, so they attempted to make the tank big enough for artillery to hit it accurately.

Imagine being aboard one of these things, alongside 26 other men, when most people had never seen a car before

I had so much pride in my country when you mentioned the US designed a super heavy tank and then decided to name it the “TRENCH DESTROYER”

The first plans for the K-Wagen were made with 2x200hp engines, after the increase to 150 tons, 2x650hp engines were planned and still planned, even the tank lost 30 tons thanks to a shorter design. I have checked every U-Boat class of Germans in WW1, and none of them used engines with exactly 650hp. 6-Cylinder diesel engines reaching the expected amount of power are possible, the U-Boat class UB-III had 2 engines with each 550hp, produced from 1916 on. The DMG (Daimler) was planned to deliver the engines, which were already producing engines for the german Air force. But their biggest ever used engine was a 260hp in the Daimler G.III, an experimental giant bomber prototype. While its still possible, that a 6-Cylinder diesel engine can reach the mentioned amount of hp in 1918, its unlikely that DMG were able to develope and deliver such an engine at the start of the production of the K-Wagen. I can imagine, they were simply producing the tanks and were placing weaker engines into them to do some trials till they can replace the weaker engines with the originally planned 650hp engines from DMG.

“Out of your friends which are you? Maus: CRAZY ASS Porsche Tiger: TRANSMISSION FREAK E100: *Alien sounds* Tiger 1: THE FIGHTER

I for one, appreciate the honesty about the accuracy of the sources, way to many channels just read things out like they are concrete facts.

I can picture a bunch of overdressed, bemedaled Vons toasting one another and proclaiming how this vunderveapon will push the hated Britishers into the Channel, while a few engineers stand in the corner and quietly shake their heads.

The AdMech called, they want their holy artifact back

As much as engineering disaster it is, you gotta hand it to the German that they get the aesthetic of these machine down quite nicely.

The tank would be a nightmare to even steer more over go over sharp hills or very wide trenches.

The Father of Heavy Tanks.

This tank had a similar design from Hungary that replaced some of the turret weaponry with pneumatic tubes that launched rations to troops. Schnitzel, hot pretzels and roasted sausages were all available on the front with a sauerkraut slurpy machine in the back with ten unique flavors! It was a real storehouse of convenience. They called it the Circle K-Wagen.

4x 7,7 cm guns. :O then they are most certainly the 7,7 cm LeFH 16. Quite powerful with around 625m/s iirc.

In the war, there were also many truck drivers, so a truck driving simulator sponsor would fit a channel about tanks like a glove.

Maus: who are you? K-wegen: I'm your great grandfather

Regarding the engines used, I'm thinking that they would have used some sort of marine engine.

Welp, I’m staying up until 3AM until I can watch this

For the engine, my guess is a submarine engine converted to land usage, like the planed engines for the P.1000. They had engines that could reach 900shp, so it's not exactly a dream to have two 650hp engines.

Scrapping these was a mistake.The scrap was more useful for the germans than they could ever be.The Allies should have forced germany to build and use hundreds of K-Wagens,so their tank budget would be crippled.

I'm gonna love this episode!

Very interesting video about one definetely overlooked tank! Now that we got that side of the spectrum covered, how about a video about some of the more reasonable designs made by the Germans towards the end of WW1? The LK I and LK II are certainly interesting and did in fact leave a legacy as being Swedens first tanks...

Great video! you could have had some metric units for the length of the thing though, but otherwise it was really interesting

Unless the perspective in the drawings is misleading, that tank would have had absolutely horrible ground clearance. That huge flat bottom hull would have gotten hung up causing a major engineering problem to get it unstuck. Imagine doing that under fire. The excess length and weight would mean that you would likely sink into any obstacles you were trying to cross.

If the war had continued for another year, we might have seen these monstrosities facing off against Mark VIIIs.

Did you include Naval engines in your search? I remember seeing plans for a "landkreuzer" that used literal battle cruiser turrets and was powered by 4 submarine diesel engines

I’ve loved this tank for years it’s one of my favorites and I’m so glad you made a video on it

I wish they at least kept one as like a display

Awesome. Great stuff man.

hey you should do a video on the history of antitank rifles up to their obsolesence

Yes! I can finally say "I told you so" from when the A7V video came out. Great work again :D

The engines were to be two submarine engines. There had been several diesel engines around 400 - 1200 hp in services in the Kaiserliche Marine. In addition, the constant back and forth of 6 and 8 cylinder in documentation about the K-Wagen, makes me believe that they might have planned of taking one of the 800-900HP 8-cylinder diesels and shortening it. Thus producing something that ran 6 cylinders with something close to those 650HP. They might have also considered some sort of Körting paraffin-engine, although I am not aware of a model that fits that power rating. Those engines were very very fuel inefficient though. (MAN and Körting built most of the submarine engines, with Körting building paraffin powered ones at first, diesels later. Other manufacturers were - amongst others - AEG, Daimler, Benz & Cie., Deutz, Junkers and Krupp. But MAN and Körting were the really big two) Regarding weight, judging by MAN's surprisingly low kg to hp ratio, the engines used, would have weighted something around 14 tons each, or 28 tons (this is metric tons), probably less. Seeing how that number is from stuff built in 1912, it is quite likely that the weight would have most likely turned out a bit better than that value in later developments. For comparison, the last engine that MAN developed, in 1917, was a ten cylinder engine with 3000hp that still fit in a submarine. Although most submarines of the mid to late war, ran diesel engines of around 1200 - 1500hp. To be honest very few people care about WW1 engines and even fewer care about German WW1 engines, so it's not surprising you didn't find much. As a native German speaker, it's a bit easier, but material is still scarce.

Great video, Ive seen those old photos of this and wondered what it was. The amount of steel used in this thing, always intrigued me and how they would get it moving

This thing looks less like a tank and more like the boss from a side-scrolling shooter video game where you're forced to shoot each of its guns off and then it opens up to reveal that it can fire lasers from its engine.

It's always amazing the speed of technological advancement and industrial throughput war brings. WWII and to a lesser but still impressive extent, WWI, had so many projects that were rapidly adopted. The fact something as monumental as the K-Wagen was nearly completed is amazing.

In one of my historical magazin is an article about "Kaiser's tank dreams" with a parameter tabele wich says that engine power of K-Wagen is 960kW.

hey coneofarc! Im glad to see that someone other than me appreciates the lesser know tanks of history!

all the WW1 tanks i can think of off the top of my head are the K-Wagen, A7V, Mk I - IV, Tadpole tank, St Chamond, Ft-17 and Fiat 2000.

Nicely made video. It’s good to see something tackling the K-Wagen, as well as mentioning the other super heavy projects going on at the time. While I hadn’t heard of the Trench Destroyer before, I do know there was a British plan called the Flying Elephant. The best way I can describe it is a gigantic bread box or loaf of bread with guns sticking out and fat tracks on the bottom. Iirc it was supposed to have around 6, 8, or more guns; machine guns and cannons. This is all I know about it; I think it was abandoned before the machine left the drawing board. There’s another unique machine that actually did reach production after WWI, the French Char 2C, also known as the FCM 2C. 10 were built. However, they never really saw combat, and all have tragically been lost to time. It went through a bunch of unique retrofits in the period between both World Wars. I think it’s worthy of a video of its own.

German Army: "How large should the K-Wagen be?" Joseph Vollmer: "Yes"

They have a big ass rectangular roof top,and none of the engineer think:we can strap a gun or two on top of it.

Meanwhile at the German Development office in 1917: “HANZ WE NEED A BETTER TRANSMISSION”

you can tell just by the blueprints that the engines used are of the same model used in SM U-5 series U-boats. this would make sense as these were very out of date by this point in the war, and these engines would have been less desirable for naval use, as newer engines could top 1000hp by this time. anyways, this is a twin engine system. 2-shaft kerosene burning daimler engines with integrated twin electric engines and 11 onboard batteries. this system delivers 600-650 hp depending on operation and instillation. these were pre-war engines, which date to 1908.

The model picture is wrong, it could not have a front machine gun in front of the tread like that. And the front side machine gun locations are in doubt too, because of the bogies for the tracks.

That hunting game intro seems kinda awkward. But it's true. My grandfather was a hunter, and he was also a sniper. At least he stopped hunting before WWII because he noticed the wildlife was dwindling. Shame few others had that presence of mind.

WW1 tanks have some of the coolest looking designs

Thanks for the video Cone! My only wonder is did they actually test drive this afv before? I mean that the track design looks like it's undrivable past just forward and backwards. Too long and too thin?

Wonderful to see. Liked & Subcribed!!!

I love your stuff. I was the first person to produce a "paper panzer line" in 1/72nd scale back in 95'. I made the E-100- Panther Star, Hetzer Star, Panzer-X, Lowe, Barr, and the Hunting E-100. I scratch built them all by hand my first year of college, I was going to be an engineer in those days so I was very proud of the detail, and effort I put into those kits. A man named John Hammond bought them from me at a Historicon convention in PA. in 96 if I remember correctly, he gave me 400 each, and I thought I made a big-time, LOL. They were taken overseas and produced through a company called Skytrek models. I went on for years hand-building master kits to sell to companies just beginning to scratch the surface of this subject, which I foresaw being big but nothing like it truly has become. Eventually, many of the large companies began to do the odd stuff like the E-10, Katchen, E-100, and so on so I began making terrain pieces as well as Fantasy stuff like Rock giants, dino's, Vikings huts, and the like. Around 2010 I fully saw the writing on the wall and understood hand sculptors such as myself were a dying breed nobody had a use for anymore because of the emerging 3D printing tech. So I went on and got certified in Solid Works and now make 3D models for a foundry that produces cast Iron products. When I see stuff like your work I can't help but smile, remembering back when the only info we had for such projects was a paragraph in the German encyclopedia of armor on the E-100, and Katchen. Even then they had the wrong picture for the Katchen, showing the interlaced wheel system of the short Panther hull version which only 2 were produced of. The version that would have been eventually armed with the wired rockets was based on the Hetzer type chassis with the Christie road wheel system, but it is all we had then. Please continue to make your awesome videos, your research is 2nd to NONE!

You are amazing keep up the work!!

Beautiful exterior design.

I had a Mercedes G-Wagen which was also a tank.

Schlachtschiff Kanone? Ja Hans... JA!!!

Isn't it amazing that even this super secret and all but unknown project has produced two clear photographs, yet, in spite of supposedly originating two decades later and in an era when cameras were far more common and developed , the so called Japanese ''OI'' tank has produced not a single image for posterity ?! Strange.... .

How do you find half of this information? It's still very impressive.

I believe the wonderweapon phenomenon in the German militaries of WW1 and WW2 come from desperation. The Germans were already dealing with several military defeats by the time the British essentially deployed a mobile fortress against them. The tank was a major game changer in war and with the Entente continually breaking through German lines and the German population starving from the British blockade, they needed a war winning weapon to quickly push the Allies back and force peacetalks. The same is true for the second world war, when defeat is nigh, the dreaming up of miracle weapons that will single handedly win the war became more commonplace because it's clear that without a miracle, defeat is inevitable.

Just got my cone plush- it's great.

A footage of A7V on the move, a rare thing to find

From what I've heard but I cannot exactly name the source, the original was supposed to be 60ft but I'm not sure. I have further. Confirmed that the original design was supposed to be 165 tons. After doing some math of calculating surface area units per square foot by 30mm and calculating the massz I've concluded that If the armor is continually 30mm and including about 8,000lbs of equipment (estimate) the original length should be around 82ft. This is a reasonable guess, but knowone will ever truly know how long it is.

6:20 Turned this youtube video into Movie Recapped. I can't unhear that background music LMFAO.

When the battleship ruled the seas, it seems only natural that armies would want a land battleship.

I might have to update my Char 2C article on the Tank Encyclopedia, your video shows the K-Wagen could possibly be considered a production vehicle and therefore surpassing the dimensions of the 2C

I really hope policies have changed in modern times regarding the destruction of captured vehicles… so much history lost to a junk yard it’s just sad…

Hope they bring out a model of this beast in 1/72 and 1/35 scales .

Its my understanding the engine used for this tank was a MWM RS34.5S six-cylinder four-stroke diesel. It was originally designed for ships and u-boats.

5:11 In my opinion, the modular design would probably involve the sponsons on the sides the K-Wagen split from the main hull while the hull itself would be cut in half between the engine and forward driver and crew compartments...

Any video on the Type 3 Ka-Chi?

That ww1 giant German super tank should have been added to battlefield 1 good job on the video keep up the good work nice job 👍😎

Oh my God, the General Melchett Award for a total misunderstanding of WWI goes to ConeOfArc. 1) The protracted trench fighting was limited to the Western Front, battles on other fronts were far more fluid, but often with massive casualties on both sides. CF Tannenberg in Russia. 2) The highest casualty rates occured at the beginning of the war in 1914 and would never be surpassed by any other battle including the Somme and Verdun. 3) Technology in 1914 was heavily in favour of the defender. The firepower of artillery and machineguns made combat utterly lethal. It was far harder to use these guns to attack than to defend. Also communications was still mostly by telephone and telegraph, which means that once again defending troops were at an advantage and could coordinate far more easily than attacking troops. 4) This firepower meant that troops anywhere near the battlefield were in danger, that's why troops started to dig in. In fact this problem remained in WWII and it's been calculated that Germany had more troops in trenches in WWII than they did in WWI. This was a necessity since the German army was on the defensive from 1942-1943 onward. 5) Headlong charges rarely happened, but troops still need to advance to take enemy positions. huge changes happened to equipment, organisation and tactics. By the latter half of the war troops advanced behind a marching barrage, while artillery fired box barrages at the enemy positions under attack to prevent troops from leaving or entering the area. In the area itself they used drum fire to bombard random spots of the trench lines, making it much harder for troops in the dugouts to estimate when it would be safe to emerge from the bunkers and open fire on the enemy. The enemy would be bombarded with a mix of high explosive and gas to make things as difficult as possible as fighting wearing gas protection is far harder. The troops that attacked were well equipped for the task, they had grenades, close combat weapons and had close support in the form of lighter, more portable light machineguns, rifle grenades, mortars and in some cases even flamethrowers. They would be ideal for clearing out enemy defenses. 6) Problem is that the enemy kept improving their defenses. Trenches were often pulled back to more favourable terrain that would dominate enemy positions. Rather than continuous defensive lines they created very deep defenses with multiple defensive lines that could support each other and were the springboard for rapid counterattacks. Heavily armed pillboxes were positioned in the front lines, often only opening fire until the second line moved up unaware, forcing troops to halt or even turn back to help their comrades under fire. This means that units were often fighting in multiple directions at once and no longer attacking as a coordinated force. A timed counterattack could break even the most well-planned attack. 7) Tanks did poorly in general, they were useful when available but they were very unreliable and coordination between troops and tanks was incredibly difficult. Often tanks were unaware that troops nearby were under attack and trying to get their attention might cause them to shoot at friendly troops. 8) Attempts were made to use wireless sets to communicate with the advancing troops, but the sets were incredibly bulky and fragile and often useless. 9) The Germans put a heavy emphasis on bypassing any resistance and continue to attack, leaving the second and third lines to clear resistance nests. By then the tactics highlighted above in 5) were further refined with aerial observers, as well as concentrating elite troops into the spearhead of an attack. This meant great initial success, but losses stacked up and the logistics failed. The German army was critically short of motorized vehicles that could bring in much needed supplies so after advancing further than anyone else during the war they were out of range of their own artillery and logistics that couldn't get closer. 10) The allies counter-attacked and what was left of the German spearhead was pretty much annihilated. August 8 1918 was a disaster for the German army, when they not only lost massive ground to the Allies, but incredible numbers of troops were surrendering en masse. Ludendorf declared it a Black Day. 11) The allies had more equipment to bring into the battle and were able not only to stop the German advance, but turn it into a rout, for a hundred days they continued to advance and the German army was unable to regroup and hold the line. Large amount of motorized vehicles helped to move the much needed supplies and artillery and while tanks contributed they were not yet a war winning weapon, they would mature in time for WWII. 12) The major issue is that on the Western Front, the major powers of France, UK and Germany (+ other allies) could muster millions of men and keep them in the trenches, keep them supplied with food and ammo and for much of the first 2/3rds of the war there were enough troops on both sides in such density that any attack could be countered. They all tried to attack and break the line at some point. Even the Germans who had an advantage understood that attacking was useless and stuck to defending fell prey to the temptation to break the Allies in 1916, attacking Verdun and failed miserably. It wasn't until later when the German army had been thinned by attrition and the reserves to plug gaps in the line were unavailable or made of troops of such poor quality they were worse than nothing than the battle finally changed. The Blackadder version is a stupid man's idea of WWI. It was a perpetually evolving conflict where weapons and tactics changed, but as the methods of attacking changed, so did the methods of defending even more effectively. It wasn't until WWII and more reliable communications were possible that armies could coordinate mobile troops very effectively. The allies may not have been winning the early battles to retake northern France and Belgium, but they were not losing either. That is the key to understanding WWI.

Looks like it would make a great camper!

Why would I play a game about shooting defenseless animals when I can watch countless videos about humans inventing death machines to kill each other. Love your content. Keep up the good work.

Very kool video…as you said odds are it would have been luck to just get it to the front.. in trench warfare the inner track design would have caused it to get stuck or even having its tracks suspended. But very interesting to see their take on a monster tank at that time.. great work

7:10 I can tell you that higher hp and torque engines were, or were being developed in the aero industry, particularly for the giant all-metal bomber monoplanes being developed - and built - in Germany circa late 1917 thru 1918. Maybach in particular was working on a 600 hp straight six in 1918, and the likelihood that a tank version of this engine was planned for the K-Wagen certainly makes sense. A long stroke aero straight six, with it's high torque characteristics, matches up with the drawings your documentary has provided. Those look like Maybach sixes. ...and take a look at the scale of the engine visa vie the "driver" perched at the front of the K-Wagen. The engine is @5 feet tall. That would indicate a veeery long stroke engine. It is much larger than the 300 hp class straight sixes fielded by Maybach, Mercedes, or Basse & Selve. The cam drive housing and the vertical jackshaft driving the ohc looks to be Maybach design. Could be Mercedes as well.

i aint even mad about the sponsor bro gotta make a living somehow im downloading it if the promo still on

With the modern world, i’m surprised nobody has built At least one of these “mega tanks.” it doesn’t even need to be for battle, military parades Would actually be taken seriously by other countries,and if it would make it on the battlefield,Enemy Morale would Absolutely Plummet, potentially surrendering, just like how some of the first tanks on the battlefield were absolutely terrifying. And here’s another thing,FOUR HUNDRED men,surrendered to a demobilized tank, *FOUR HUNDRED.* If something like the k Wagen pulled up, i’m pretty sure the entire Sector would surrender.

Germany: Hey can I copy your homework? Mark I: Sure, make it look different *and thus the k wagen was born. A tank with too many guns.*

As soon as tanks get above 70 tons you start to encounter severe problems with ground pressure (which makes the tank more likely to get stuck if the ground isn't extremely hard) and mobility as the amount of power you need to move the vehicle at a tactically practical speed starts to outgrow available technology (and internal space to house such an engine) at an exponential pace.

Excited

It looks like someone tried to draw a MkIV Landship from memory

I loved this video, unknown history for me

Hey, ConeOfArc, who does the 3D models for your videos, and what software do they use? They are really good.

It used the same inter-crew communication as the A7V with a light above each gunner station that could be toggled by the commander

I like how the most replayed part is when the sponsor ends XD

Damn 5am??? Mad early for a premier

That looks like a very very early target for early bomber biplane tests at minimal risk

Lol wtf I built the tank at 11 seconds as a total joke in Sprocket lmfao

Wouldn't have won them the war, but it would have been interesting to see grainy film footage of this thing on the move.

Excelent! May we have a video about the Fiat 2000???

Video on the Tank-Mounted MiG Fighter Jet?