The performance of German armoured vehicles is often overestimated, particularly of those that remained on paper. It can be anywhere between interesting and sad to watch an attempt to turn a doodle on a napkin into an ultimate weapon that could have changed the balance of power. It is clear why this happened. The thing is that the first German documents to be declassified were the ones with the least value. These were the documents that saw the widest publication even though weapons prepared by other nations for 1945-46 had much more potential.
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The "canonical" E-25. The cupola appeared here due to a mistake made by American intelligence. |
The E-series is usually the main subject of these fantasies. However, a careful evaluation shows that these projects achieved very little. The E-100 superheavy tank was actually a resurrection of the Tiger-Maus, rejected back in late 1942. At least the E-100 ended up as an unfinished prototype. None of the other E-series projects made it even this far, including the E-25.