Tsar Tank makes it to the front

In WWI, lets say a batch of about two dozen tsar tanks gets sent to the front around ~1917, considering that some of the design's problems are ironed out. Would the tanks actually make an impact or would the Germans and Austro-Hungarians die of laughter?

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In WWI, lets say a batch of about two dozen tsar tanks gets sent to the front around ~1917, considering that some of the design's problems are ironed out. Would the tanks actually make an impact or would the Germans and Austro-Hungarians die of laughter?

The latter is more likely IMO. That thing looks flimsy and hugely unpractical. Also, with that size they might as well have painted a bullseye on it.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
Anti tank guns at this point were not the WW2 vintage. The design's whole point is to basically handle trench lines by rolling over them... and in that sense, it does have a certain practicality.

Sadly they're vulnerable to artillery, so that kind of dooms it.

If they'd turned up when originally designed, though, they'd actually be the first "tank" deployed.
 
Some oddity that gets annihilated by artillery fire.

fixing the issues with the back wheel won't make it any less vulnerable and slow.
the wheels would be great targets for grenades, mortars and that sort of thing.
 
It would sink in the mud before reaching the front line. Like it did OTL during its only test drive, if I remember correctly.

considering that some of the design's problems are ironed out.

Some design problem? But the whole design is the problem!

Anti tank guns at this point were not the WW2 vintage.

No need for antitank gun, you can just throw a steel bar in the wheel to stop it...
 
The Russian flag is raised over Berlin in mid 1917 and the Tsar would likely pull an Unthinkable and chase the Allies out of continental Europe.
 

Driftless

Donor
I believe the theory of the big spoked wheels was two-fold: first, less likely to disappear in the spring muck of the steppes, and secondly, the open spokes were to allow blast energy from near misses to harmlessly disapate around the spokes. Kinda like the cage masts on American Battleships in that era.

Did anyone prove/disprove that energy disapation theory, either for the tank or the cage masts? Eventually, the US replaced the cage masts.

With the Tsar tank, the smaller diameter back wheels got stuck easily, and the engine apparently lacked the horsepower to drive forward when that happened. You'd probably need 3 or 4 large wheels to make the motive part of the tank work at all. It does look pretty outlandish today, but could you imagine some poor Austro-Hungarian peasant soldier watching 20 or 30 of these bad-boys advancing towards you across the prairie? Till you actually knocked a couple of them out of service, you'd probably soil your drawers first.

*edit* I don't think it had much for armor either, so our poor peasant soldier, if he sticks around, just might pepper it enough with machine gun fire where flakes of steel start spalling off inside the tanks crew compartment.
 
Once the first tank had been destroyed by an artillery barrage, the German and Austro-Hungarian forces lose all fear of it.
 

Driftless

Donor
Once the first tank had been destroyed by an artillery barrage, the German and Austro-Hungarian forces lose all fear of it.

Despite it's target size and armor weakness, I'm not sure the Tsar tank is much more suceptible to destruction than early track-laying tanks. They weren't exactly models of robustness either. The steel plating wasn't very effective at stopping bullets, let alone artillery, and the treads could be shot off, or slew off in the muck. Because they moved, they were harder to hit directly.

I think the bigger problem for the Tsar/Lebendenko tank, is the drive train. Not enough horsepower, and the back steering wheel idea didn't work worth poop. The whole thing was a creative experiment, but pretty weak in execution. Fix the drive train issues, and it might have been useful.... or not...
 
The whole array wasn't transportable on railway other than dismantled into small pieces; even the big wheels would have to be completely disassembled.
So, during their advance in early 1918, the Germans - or the Austro-Hungarians - discover huge piles of scrap iron that look like components of Ferris wheels and rollercoasters lying around near some railway station in Russia. They wonder why the Russians shuttled around country fair material in times of war.
That's about all that will happen.
 
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