Strangely enough, they got the turret of the thing built, and that's how the wider world found out about it- when the Ratte was cancelled, the turret was shipped to France and installed on the Atlantic Wall, where it was discovered during the Allied invasion.

Of course, they should have known from building the Maus that it wasn't going to work. Krupp actually built 2 of those things, and the best indictment of the vehicle's failings comes from the Soviets; the Red Army captured one of the prototypes in 1945 and tried to send it home for testing and inspection. Due to a complete inability to fit on any form of rail transport, the Soviets had to drive the beast home. It took *8 months* to get to Moscow.

P.S. while double-checking my sources on the Maus, I found this. In the words of Richard Hammond, "really quite scared now!"

"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."