![]() He found a home in Essen, at the Krupp industrial conglomerate that built everything from warships to artillery to tanks. When Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933 and repudiated the Treaty of Versailles, Grotte returned to Germany. In the meantime, he designed the multiturret, 112-ton T-42-never produced because the Soviets lacked an engine large enough. He spent several years designing tanks at Bolshevik Plant 232 in Leningrad while dreaming of his thousand-tonne monster. Grotte also migrated east, in 1930 (some sources say as early as 1928) at the invitation of the Soviet government. The man whose name would later be famous for some of the Luftwaffe’s most important aircraft-the Ju 52 transport the Ju 87 Stuka dive-bomber the Ju 88 multirole warplane-moved his factory to suburban Moscow in 1922. Aircraft manufacturer Hugo Junkers, for example, had designed some of the world’s first practical all-metal aircraft during World War I, but found himself unable to build airplanes in Germany. That left a void the Soviet government wanted to fill to jump-start their industrial future so, taking advantage of the situation the treaty created, they invited Germans to come east. Most Russian engineers and industrialists had ties to the former Tsarist government and had fled when the Bolsheviks took power. In the interwar period, the newly formed Soviet Union provided a refuge for many German engineers and manufacturers. An imaginative and ambitious weapons inventor, Grotte had become interested in large tanks during World War I, but was part of a generation of German armament designers frustrated in their postwar ambitions by the dictates of the Treaty of Versailles, which denied their fatherland an arms industry. ![]() Grotte really had designed this behemoth weighing a thousand metric tonnes-about 1,100 tons-that our hypothetical GI saw on that hypothetical day in 1944. WERE THIS SCENARIO NOT FICTITIOUS, it would have marked a dream come true for an engineer-you might call him a mad scientist-named Edward Grotte. A split second later, the sound hits them like a freight train. As the GIs stare at the guns, one jerks violently. It has two guns in its turret that look bigger than the guns on that battleship their troop transport passed last summer. It appears as tall as a four-story apartment building and wider than a boxcar is long. It looks like a tank, but the German infantrymen next to it give it scale. It takes the men more than a moment to wrap their heads around this thing that is definitely not a Tiger. Then it breaks into the clearing and the GIs realize that it’s not closer-it’s bigger. As they do, a dark shape appears and someone says, “That Tiger is a lot closer than I thought!” German troops emerge from the forest, so the Americans take cover. Somewhere in the woods beyond the meadow the grinding din grows so loud it nearly drowns out the noise of breaking tree trunks. The sight of a Tiger tank is unforgettable-a 60-ton monster twice as big as a Sherman and 10 times more frightening. Then they hear the clamor of heavy machinery growing ever louder. The ground is trembling, but there is no sound of artillery. The shaking grows stronger and the men look at each other in confusion. No one can ever forget his first artillery barrage all our young GI can do is mutter “Here we go again.” Coming warily down a hill toward a small meadow, the men in the squad feel a faint tremor in the ground. His regiment had faced scant resistance as it worked its way eastward the past few weeks now the enemy is starting to put up a fight. The leaves are starting to change and there’s a chill in the air. Imagine a young American GI on the front in Europe in late September 1944. Experience the chaos and carnage of World War 2 as a fun, free and tense gaming challenge.The Maus that roared and other exercises in megalomania ![]() Meet the tactical challenges of a World War 2 board game or just pilot an airplane against the opposing forces in a multiplayer dogfight. Whether you want to respond to the call of duty, defend your homeland or just like to watch things burn, our new World War 2 games will let you playfully explore history. Order your troops into battle, pick up a weapon yourself or climb into a fighter plane to attack and defeat the enemy in WW2. Drive onto the battlefield with your massive tanks and gun down the enemy in our best, fun-addicting online video games. Set against the historic backdrop of World War 2, you can play all kinds of top online World War 2 games like shooters or strategy board games. In our top collection of the best new World War 2 games for free, here at, you will find many entries about one of the darkest chapters in European history. World War 2 Games are strategy and shooting video games in which you control soldiers, airplanes and tanks.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |