The Maus awakens.
Back in the Second World War where Germany was fighting against the Soviet Union on the Eastern front. It was the largest operational theatre of war in history and contributed to the rise of the Soviet Union as the the Worlds second Superpower in the Cold War, and to the defeat of Nazi Germany.
However, the Germans produced heavyweight monsters such the Tiger tank which is still the most feared tank in history, its successor. The King Tiger which was the heaviest and most powerful operational tank to go into service during "WW2"
Interesting the King Tiger was NOT the heaviest to be built.
Kuninka tank museum:Located outside of Moskva used to be a secret facility for testing of tanks, since 1945 and the capture of various German tanks and armoured units, it has many tank in its storage, such as the IS-7,Kugelpanzer and many other Soviet prototypes like a pure missile firing tank and one that was designed with four treads.
Interestingly enough, there is also the Maus that sits there, non-operational since it was captured at the end of WW2. It lies in the middle of prototypes, real tanks that are no longer in service and modern T-90's which have been donated to the Museum by the Russian military.
But between lies the heaviest tank to have ever been built, nobody knowns if it ever saw service or not. It had to be transported by 18 heavy tractors because of its huge weight of 188tons, more than twice that of the famous King Tiger.Its 128mm gun is huge and it towers above all in its hanger.
For 68years the Maus has stayed still, never moved. Its cannon having never been fired. Its treads never feeling ground and the engine never started up. It sleeps.
Its a interesting tank design, being huge. The sloped armour at the front, coupled with vertical sides and a angled rear, numerous ventilation holes are dotted in the structure and the mammoth turret sits on top, the gun is course in the front and is flanked by a pair of "cheeks" that make up the front ratio of the turret. The rest of the turret is sloped and angled;it follows the rest of the tank design.
The Maus awakens.
Russian Federation.
Moskva
Kubinka tank museum.
2013.
The guards in the Museum finish their shift, having guided tours around the famous facility. The doors are slowly locked one by one, the bolts being tightened in place and the hangers doors sealed shut. Kubinka is now impenetrable by all means, there is no getting out or getting in. The lights flicker and dim being casting the rooms into darkness.
The tank hulls are silent, like ghosts they have never been moved or ever will be. Their hatches and shut and getting in would only make a loud noise that would sound the alarms off and the night guards running it to arrest...or shoot however dares to break the silence. Besides there are Cameras everywhere, at every entrance and around the entire place.
The Maus stays still, it has laid silent and been quiet ever since it was bought into the museum, the steel super tank has watched the Russian prototypes like the IS-7 been dragged in, it has watched captured British Centurions and American Pattons being forced to sit.
It envies them, for they have seen battle. They have fired their guns in anger, they have moved into battle and seen war in all of its horror.
The Maus never has.
For 68years it has watched as the space around it grow bigger as Kubinkas arsenal of tanks becomes bigger, it has watched the tourists pace up and down the hallways, marvelling at the huge war machines before their eyes.
Neither has its hatches been opened, they are shut forever, too heavy, too old, too rusty to ever let anything out.
It doesn't need the hatches.
It doesn't need anyone to load or fire its guns.
Its angled and sloped armour design all around itself has never been shot at.
The Maus has been planning in silent secrecy. For more than half a century the worlds biggest tanks has grown a semi conscience.
And
it
wants
out.
The Maus cant stand being a tourist attraction no longer, the mighty beast of a tank does not want to rot and rust for forever. It wants to be free, it wants to fight, the Maus wants to hear its engine roar above all others, to tower over the other tanks. To feel its own gun pound away and destroy things.
And that's why, in 2013, in Kubinka. The only Maus super heavy tank comes to life.
Breakout.
Sometime in the night of the deserted museum where all is silent, left tank hulls patiently wait for the next day where they will be photographed, the armoured doors that hanger the tanks are shut tightly so no one can get in.
However, after a few hours a roaring of a engine comes to life. Petrol that was supposed to not work has started the engine, and it works with a huge thunderous clap. The cameras in the room of the disturbed silence lock onto the noise.
The Maus is alive, but the hatches are closed and rusted anyway, how is it impossible that this can happen?.
And then, the treads move. After more than a century of waiting the Maus decides that enough is enough and it begins to slowly move out of its place. The rust on the machine falls on the floor and the screeching of old metal when it moves is terrible to hear, but still the Maus moves of its own accord.
Inhumanly the headlamps on the huge machine flicker on and provide the only light in the place that was the tanks grave, now they shine the light on where it decides to go.
It figures that going away is a good idea.
The Maus finally exits the first room, the other tanks before it are long dead and their crews are now either dead too or have moved on. But the 188ton mammoth does not have a crew, no one is driving the Maus and yet it moves. The engine was started all by itself and the steering gear inside the huge tank guides it along autonomously.
The Maus then slowly comes to a halt and looks at the hanger door, over sixty years ago it can remember being driven in through that same door and being left on its own.
It knows that it can simply smash through the door.
With a lurch, the engine roars again and the huge machine lumbers through the steel door, the clash of steel on steel is present and the door resists, but it cannot keep up for long and soon there is a Maus sized hole through it.
And thus the mighty tank roams through the museum, passing through halls of hundreds of armoured units and tanks, it sees missile carriers and jeeps, T-72s and Tigers, all lined together in perfect silence.
However the Maus defies all by slowly moving forwards, its massive weight is heard by the reputed metal of its wheels, they shriek because of the strain but still they hold firm. A remarkable testament to German engineering 68years on.
The Maus leaves behind a smell of petrol and the dented floor, all crushed and beaten beneath its huge tracks, the width the size of a human being.
Finally, it reaches the last pair of armoured doors, these have been recently installed to protect against terrorist attacks and such. So the Maus guesses that it cant smash through them using its heavy bulk alone.
However it has a gun.
A 128mm cannon, the most powerful anti tank cannon in WW2. It knows that one shot will be enough.
The Super Heavy tank pivots in place and faces the armoured doors, but in order to get through, it needs to fire.
Inside the Maus 50(something) ton turret, under the turret floor itself, there is a shell rack which the Soviets forgot to take out or never saw it.
The opening to the shell door opens, and a 12.8cm shell with a red tip for "high explosive" floats up, It continuousness to rise until is next to the gun, the breech to the huge cannon opens sideways and the shell is slotted in and the breech closes with a vibrating sound that ghostly echoes around the tank.
Slowly but surely, the rusty and old turret gears become alive as they move without human intervention.
The huge turret of the Maus lurches into place and the gun follows, its controls too:having moved of their own accord.
The massive barrel stares at the doors.
Final adjustments to the aiming is made and the quiet pull of the trigger is heard.
Less than a second later, from the muzzle of the gun the shell exits and the explosion of energy splatters around the shell and blows open the armoured doors like a tin can.
Now that it can see the glittering lights that has evaded it for so long, and the exoticness that the outside brings, the Maus makes its dash for freedom.
At a blazing top speed of 8mph, the Maus speeds it ways past the armoured doors and tastes the cold Russian outside on its armour, and it feels good to be out.
12 minutes later on a highway.
Despite all the craziness that has gone on in Russia, such as drunk bus drivers, red light zones on highways and crashes about every four second. All the drives on a particular highway were not prepared to see a tank the size of a house rolling down on the opposite side slowly.
Having never seen cars before, the Maus tries to run them over its massive treads.
Unfortunately its too slow and the tank vents its frustration by shooting into the air and breaking the glass on everything around it.
Thankfully for the (now) running away motorists, police arrive on the scene:having been alerted by the previously breaking in or out of Kubinka. Their wailing sirens warn others not to come near the slowly approaching tank.
They ask each other questions as they train their guns on the lumbering beat.
"How is this thing moving?".
"The wheels are coming off, its so rusted".
"What the fuck is this pistol going to do?".
One of the men gets a inkling of common sense and calls the military for help. His desperate voice becomes even more agitated when the Maus crushes a truck and keeps moving forward without any apparent loss of speed.
He is told that help is on the way and he should try to not annoy whoever is driving the metal monster.
The Maus sees the tiny little men scramble for their weapons, it is wondering why there is no battle, no glorious end that it can participate in. So it decides to slowly move forwards and ignore the puny cars ahead as it crawls down the highway, crushing cars in its wake.
However, the first of many of its tiny road wheels falls off, having cracked under the pressure of keeping the weight of such a tank for many years, the Maus doesnt notice this problem.
The first of the reinforcements arrive, a MI-8 troop transport helicopter armed with machine guns lands, drops of its troops who are carrying anti tank weapons and machines gun, they take up positions covering the advancing Maus from all angles while the MI-8 circles above, its weapons trained.
One of the crew in the helicopter pulls out a megaphone and shouts at the Maus, he intends to end the situation quickly and bloodlessly.
Little does he know that the Maus is crewed by no one.
"Attention whoever is driving the....Maus?, stop immediately and raise your hands in the next 10 seconds or I will come in their, open the hatches and beat the shit out of you!".
The Maus points its gun barrel at the helicopter;it aims steady and true, it knows that it is being threatened, it cant be comprised early by such a advantage in the air.
A shell is loaded.
The pilot of the helicopter realises too late that the tank does not believe in letting him live.
It shoots a 128mm round and destroys the MI-8 instantly, whatever s left of it falls the ground and showers everywhere around it in flaming debris.
The men around the Maus shoot it without hesitation, one of them calls for armoured support.
He is told that support will arrive shortly.
The first solider aims his RPG-29 at the Maus:centre mass, he shoots and the rocket propelled warhead flies out of the tube, and in less than a second it detonates in the 190mm side armour, blows a slab of steel off, leaves a fist sized hole in the armour and sends spalling fragments into the machine itself which in all crewed conditions, would kill them instantly.
Unfortunately the Maus isn't crewed, it barely notices the hole in its armour.
It continues moving at a steady pace while it brings its huge turret to face the soliders, machine gun fire splatters inefficiently against its thick hide. Another shell is loaded, this time a High Explosive warhead, its primed, loaded and fired within 10seconds.
Half of the men shooting the Maus are either dead or wont walk again as the small mushroom cloud evaporates into thin air.
The anti tank teams (whats left of them) realises that the moving steel wall is firing at them.
They take off the "kid gloves" and multiple weapons are bought against it.
A multiple of high tech armour piercing and crew killing rockets and missiles blast into the armour of the Maus from all angles, the drivers compartments goes in smoke, the turret is on fire and the reaming crew compartments are destroyed utterly. In the most extreme of combat conditions, hits like these would cause even the toughest of tanks to be written off and scrapped.
The Maus realises for the first time that it may not be getting to the end of the highway and reacts accordingly, it can feel the holes in itself like wounds, the fires is licking its skin in fiery embrace. Its fires its main cannon again, misses but blows half a bridge to bits that blocks the road, the secondary armament consisting of a 7.5mm cannon which was used on the Panther medium tank has better results. It takes out three men in close proximity.
Then.
It goes mad, shells are loaded faster than before and the Maus stops aiming, it fires at everything;cars are targeted and flipped over, windows are broken by the sheer force of the shells and soon the Maus is the only thing moving on the road, everything else is burning or shattered.
It thinks it has won, the gazillion amount of holes present are the definition of "battle damage", if one was to look at the tank, they would be able to see into every compartment just by staring through the holes that the infantry fired weapons caused.
Another set of wheels break under the half-a-century long pressure.
But the super heavy tank does not notice the irreparable damage.
A single T-90 was despatched from local army command, it goes at breathtaking speeds down the road, the awesome suspension allows it to resist breakage when the tank literally jumps over burning car wreaks. The modern tank is covered in reactive armour and various electromagnetic devices+ automatic defence system and missile interception pods.
Its fast, well protected and carries the huge 125mm smoothbore cannon which fires advanced types of shells and it can fire anti missiles: capable of penetrating any known armour in the world.
In less than 30 seconds, the advanced thermal imaging picks up the Maus, the fire control computer locks on to the turret and the autoloader loads the shell selected by the gunner.
It fires, a fireball exits from the end of the cannon and the deadly high velocity shell hammers its way towards the Maus.
The Maus detects the T-90 coming up from behind it, begins to turn its heavy chassis around in order to present its strongest armour.
Before the huge tank can even move, the suspension gives way and all of the 24small road wheels on each side finally ends their resistance of 68 years of holding the 188ton tank up.
They break off one by one, each little road wheel shatters and snaps into little pieces.
The Maus cant move any more, it desperately turns its turret towards the fast approaching T-90.
Unfortunately the Maus is too late, as the T-90s advanced warhead blows through the turret armour, creates a hole the size of a human head and explodes in the interior of the massive turret, creating a deadly shrapnel effect which knocks the rack of ammunition onto the floor.
A second shell hits the drivers compartment and destroys the steering gear before exiting out the other end the lodges itself in the already weakened side armour.
The third shell borrows its way through the front of the tank, hitting every vital compartment on the way and finds itself in the engine.
Soon the Maus finds itself helpless, the turret controls are jammed, the ammo is on the floor, the driving controls are smashed and there are uncontrollable fires raging in the engine.
It then sees the T-90s final deadly present.
A anti tank missile, its fins stabilised in flight heads towards the dying German giant at full speed.
The Maus realises that it is doomed and accepts its fate.
The missile detonates in the middle of tank, first the side armour falls off, exposing the tracks and the smashed suspension. Next to be destroyed is the engine, the cogs fly out the petrol turns the space around it into a giant fireball which creeps near the turret, soon it will reach the ammunition.....
The Maus doesn't want to die, it doesn't want to fade into existence as a useless piece of metal.
In its dying thoughts the Maus asks to be given a second chance of life.
Outside the Russian capital.
A little mushroom cloud appears.
Equestria.
Vinyl Scratch.
Inside Ponyville, there is a small house on one of the street ends.
Inside lives Vinyl scratch and her roomate; Octavia.
Its not a bad house by any standards, everything is paid for by both of the mares shows, and any excess money is either spent on wine or..booze.
Because that's how, a DJ spends her time.
Equestrias most popular DJ is bored, her latest "gig" was a success but the money made was poor. Of course she got a huge income from all of the ponies listening to her music, but the expenses......
"Bucking hell, whywhywhy!!". Vinyl shouts at the air, annoyed.
She takes off her shades and throws them onto a couch that she and Octavia bought together for the purpose of "entertainment".
"I swear, if those bastards are going to make me spend 24 THOUSAND bits every time I have to move my stereos next time I do a gig I'll fucking KILL THEM!". Vinyl moans in disgust at the stallions that charged her extra just because she had 2pounds of equipment over the limit, she knows that they charged her too much money. And she is pissed because of that.
"Fuck it, I'm gonna take a talk". She resolves to herself that taking a stroll might take her mind off it. Carefully, Vinyl avoids the mountain of empty alcohol bottles that she had been drinking all night.
She exits her house, locks the door and punches it out of frustration.
"If I could get something big enough to carry all of my stuff, something that I OWN. I wouldn't have to pay so much.But where could I get something like that?. A airship is too expensive and I cant fly for shit, a train needs rails to move and carts need ponies to pull them". She says out loud.
Huffing, Vinyls bright red eyes glisten in the sunlight and already, she feels a little bit more relaxed.
Until she hears the sound of something big falling out the sky.
"Oh shit....". The DJ curses and moves out the way before ducking behind a mailbox,using it as makeshift cover.
She looks up into the sky and sees a large black object falling at a steadily increasing pace. It gets bigger and bigger..and bigger until it lands with a *THUMP* just a few metres away.
Its big, battered. There are holes in it, its rusted everywhere, the big block on top of the other bigger block is wrecked and the wheels that it is supposed to sit/ride? on are cracked and useless.
It looks sad, likes it been beaten up and left to die.
But Vinyl realises that she might have found her problem solver.
She puts on her shades and moves to inspect the strange machine/whatever the fuck it is.
Author's Note
Thanks for reading, I apologise for the poor quality as I am seriously tired and need a rest, I have been working on this with no breaks for a hour.
Unfortunately, I do not know much about tanks, I am sure that I have got something wrong with either the T-90 or the Maus, but I am pilot, not tank man.
Like and comment if you approve.
If you don't like then tell me why, I need to know what's wrong with it.
Background info:.
Went to Kubinka, saw the Maus, came back and wrote this.
