The Maus is arguably one of the if not most polarizing vehicles in the game. While other vehicles generally focus on one or two traits from the proverbial “iron triangle” of survivability, mobility and firepower, the Maus is what you get when you drag two of the sliders to the absolute limit. With an imposing silhouette, slow speed, a monstrous cannon and the thickest raw armor plate in the game, the Maus commandeers the attention of both your allies and your enemies alike.
| Pros | Cons |
| Excellent survivability - strong protection all-around, nigh indestructible against many guns when angled and at range, very resilient against bombs and rockets | Slow at everything; Struggles to crest hills quickly, turn the hull/turret quickly |
| Good traction, will reach its top speed consistently on almost all terrain | Can be easily overwhelmed without team support |
| Powerful 128mm cannon that's effective against almost all enemies it faces | Imposing profile; seen from a mile away |
| Coaxial 75mm cannon - Allows the Maus to create a 'smoke wall', or easily overpressure open-top vehicles | Armor isn't always reliable - usually against modern HEATFS/APDS rounds and missiles |
Survivability and Armour
The Maus relies on a few thick, sloped armor plates to provide its heavy protection. The frontal hull wedge is made up of 200 mm thick RHA plates, while 180 mm and 160 mm plates protect the sides and rear respectively. The seam mounting the side armour to the tank is 300mm thick. The tracks and suspension wheels, thicker than most other tanks at 30mm, are themselves protected by 100mm plates on the front and sides.
Additionally, behind the frontal upper plate on deck armor, there are many 60mm highly sloped plates of armor, protecting the engine vents and turret ring from HEAT/HE shells and some small-calibre fire. The belly is also 100mm thick in the front, with the rest being 50mm
The turret is made up of thicker armor, being 232mm thick at the front and 205mm at the back and sides, but due to the rounded shape can result in less effective protection compared to the thinner but sloped hull armor when being shot from the front.
Even inside the tank there is armor — there are many 20 mm plates inside the tank, separating crew compartments from various modules, and partially protecting the interior from shrapnel that penetrated the tank from other areas. One plate is at the rear of the tank, between the enormous transmission and the fighting compartment. The second plate is more to the front, separating fighting compartment from the middle-mounted engine and its radiators. The third plate is in the front between the driver’s compartment and the engine. Around the driver there are many more 20mm plates, adding some protection to fuel tanks located there.
Mobility
The Maus weighs in at an astounding 188 tons. This is more than twice the weight of similar vehicles like it, such as the T95, TOG II and M103, or even the most modern iterations of the M1 Abrams - and it shows in the tank’s mobility. The Maus tops out at a fairly slow 20.8 km/h in both forwards and reverse speed, which is enabled by its electric transmission. On the bright side, it can easily reach and stay at this speed across most terrain, due to the strong torque of the engine. The tank slows down noticeably when turning, so if the player wishes to reach destinations at a brisker pace it is advised to minimize the number of turns needed to get to a point of interest.
Armaments
The KwK44 is a variant of the heavy anti-tank gun PaK44. Firing a 28 kg projectile at 940 m/s, the KwK44 is able to produce heavy kinetic energy for above par penetration capabilities with armour-piercing shells.
The 12.8/8.8 cm APCBC round should be prioritized in your upgrade path, but isn’t mandatory and should generally be considered the lower lethality but higher penetrating option, not a requirement to do well in the Maus. Between penetration and knock-out potential, it is generally a preferential choice and whichever one you find more consistent should be your go-to choice of ammunition.
The Maus also comes equipped with what is ostensibly the main gun found on lower rank German vehicles — the 75mm cannon found on Panzer IVs. While the gun is technically slightly different with it being a L/36.5 and not a L/37, performance is near identical. This 75 mm, unlike other coaxial guns on other heavy tanks such as the M6A1, has significant utility and without it the Maus would be a much more inflexible vehicle. This utility includes being able to quickly load and fire HEAT shells at flanking open top / light vehicles to overpressure them, track or barrel enemies that barrel your main gun and try to push up to you, and creating what is basically a 'smoke wall' by firing smoke rounds in succession in front of you as you advance to push through potentially lethal sniping corridors.
Usage
There are two main ways to play this vehicle, and each approach has its own pros and cons:
The Case for Playing With Your Team
This is by far the more commonly cited strategy of playing the Maus of the two. Stick near your teammates, and play as either a frontline vanguard vehicle or as a second line of defense for your team. These two strategies aren’t too far apart, as if you keep pushing from that second line position up to the front lines you become the frontline vanguard instead, and vice versa.
The Maus has thick armor and a large silhouette; you can draw enemy fire, letting your teammates fire back safely, and your lumbering frame will, unless tracked, push up to a capture point and act as an immovable anchor both alive and as artificial cover after destruction. If you try pushing as the vanguard, you will almost certainly sustain some form of damage, ranging widely from superficial damage to repairable parts to multiple crew members being knocked out, and sticking with your team means there’s a much higher chance of you also repairing your vehicle as your team captures the area.
It is also beneficial to in general to support your team, as the Maus alone can’t really win a game by itself due to its very poor reactivity, fairly long reload and very predictable nature. Drawing fire away from your teammates is one way to help your team gain an advantage, and is what many people expect from someone playing the Maus.
The Case for Playing On a Flank
While not strictly relegated to only flanking, this playstyle is more solitary and generally isn’t as strictly bound to playing around your team. The disadvantages with this are obvious — if you take damage, you’ll have to spend the full duration of the repair immobilized, and if you get overwhelmed by multiple enemies you won’t be receiving much assistance if at all compared to playing around teammates.
However, there is still most definitely a case to play on the less populated areas of the map as well. The most noticeable of these is definitely the fact that you’ll be targeted by CAS far less often, simply by virtue of being in a less frequented part of the map. Of course, if someone is absolutely intent on revenge bombing your vehicle, you won’t be safe from aerial threats - it takes a lot to stop another's quest for revenge, after all - but against someone who is destroyed in the main conflict zone of the match, it could be argued that the chances of being attacked are lower due to two reasons:
The first is that those people can also go for their own revenge bombing runs, which would mean targeting someone that most certainly isn't you!
The second is that in general, it’s not so simple to find a good target from the air. In aircraft, the best indicator for an airstrike is a scouting marker, followed closely by teammates marking enemies on the map, large groups of enemies and people moving around the map quickly. As the Maus is so slow and in this case also not near multiple teammates, it is simply less attractive to bomb and also not as apparent from the air compared to where the primary firefight is taking place near the center of the map, which may lead to better overall survivability.
The other benefits include the unexpected nature of your position, as well as the various tools at your disposal. While 20.8 km/h is certainly not blisteringly fast by any stretch of the imagination, the Maus can maintain this speed quite consistently, and will reach common map positions surprisingly not too long after your teammates. Most enemies you face on the flanks will be light tanks such as the BMP-1 or thinly armoured MBTs such as the AMX-30 (1972), and even if you face off against a MBT with more armour such as a T-55A you have the penetration to go through their turret cheeks and one-shot them regardless. People generally gravitate towards the capture points and of those capture points usually a single one that’s commonly fought over will attract most people (such as the A point of Advance to the Rhine), so you can get around the enemy team with minimal resistance so long as you stay vigilant and know your maps well.
If an enemy barrels your Maus, don't panic and use your 75mm cannon to barrel and/or track them in return. If you see a M56, JPz 4-5 or other lightly armored SPAAs and light tank/TDs, you can also use your HEAT rounds to save a reload cycle on your main gun. Should you have to traverse a heavily defended corridor (be it long or close range), you can use your smoke shells to create confusion and uncertainty before you start advancing, given you have the ability to carry dozens of them. If you’re being overwhelmed, your reverse is as fast as your forwards speed, so try and create more distance between you and your enemy as you retreat to a better position.
In total, the Maus possess much more utility than one might think due to its second gun, and if you can utilize it effectively you can become a true one-man army as you can effectively pressure the enemy’s often loosely defended flanks by yourself.
General Playstyle
Regardless of how you play the Maus, be it as the spearhead of pushes or as a one-man army, both styles benefit heavily from the clever usage of your 75mm secondary gun. You can for the most part forego the smoke grenades modification early on as you only get 6 charges total from a launcher affixed to the turret, compared to the dozens upon dozens of rounds you can load into the cannon. The HEAT shells allow the Maus to overpressure lightly armoured / open top vehicles, and the aforementioned smoke rounds let you effectively create a wall of smoke for you and your teammates to push through (for example, smoking up the sniping corridors on Port Novorossiysk in its most common Domination layout when you get the A-side spawn can allow your entire team to push up as you constantly blind the enemy from firing back).
It is also notable that most people will try and disable your gun breech or barrel on the 12.8cm cannon, but will very frequently forget about the existence of the 75mm cannon as they either don’t see it as a threat or have simply forgotten about it in the heat of battle. As such, you can barrel or track your enemies back as they try and flank you, buying you precious time as you repair your crippled vehicle and call for assistance.
One last tactic with the 75mm is to bait enemies into pushing you by firing the gun at an enemy or around a corner, making them think you’re on reload, when in fact you’re simply waiting for your prey to peek out. When doing this, you should abstain from firing the 75mm rapidly, as this may alert them to your tricks, and if possible you should try and hit a component (usually the side or exposed track of an enemy) so that the enemy doesn’t suspect anything is amiss when they decide to push. Reverse a bit and machine gun them as they push out, and you have now successfully sold the illusion of helplessness and have the advantage positionally against the enemy, who is now advancing to their doom.
Much of your time in the Maus will be spent trying to turn the vehicle. While at speed it can initially turn a bit well, it quickly loses all its speed and trying to make this goliath turn while also holding down the W key can feel like a herculean struggle. As such, try and plan routes ahead of time in your head and minimize the time spent turning, as frequent course corrections will be the biggest time sink you can avoid just with some simple planning. When turning, after the initial slight turn at speed it’s generally faster to just use the neutral steering and wait a while, before advancing again towards your enemies.
Your turret speed, while not slow for its immense size and weight, also very much isn’t as fast as contemporary tanks at this rank, so if you want to get your gun on target it may sometimes be necessary to turn the entire hull a bit to gain some extra horizontal guidance speed. It is also handy to note that as the vehicle is usually traveling slowly, unless on bumpy terrain or an incline, you have the ability to fire forwards fairly accurately on the move. If your aim doesn’t work out for this technique, don’t sweat it, but if you can master this skill it may let you destroy a vehicle or two that you’d have been more reserved about firing at prior to practicing.
Potential Dangers
The Maus is one of the most iconic tanks both in the game and in military history for its immense and in many ways super-sized nature. As such, your weak spots from the front are generally well understood and even your ammo rack locations in the side of your vehicle are somewhat public knowledge as well. The biggest priority against many enemies would be to angle; if a M41A1 gets on your side and fires an APDS round into your ammunition rack, for example, you may sometimes find yourself detonating instantly and wondering what in the world went wrong for you to have died in a full downtier so easily! Angling the hull as a whole generally does greatly increase your overall armor effectiveness from most AP and APDS rounds, so against enemies that fire these rounds this may help.
The more pressing concern for the Maus, however, is chemical ammunition. HEATFS rounds and HEAT grenades start becoming very common past 6.7, and as a 7.7 vehicle you will very much see these tanks in every game. From tiny, mobile vehicles such as the M56, M50, JPz 4-5 and Type 60 SPRG (C) all the way up to fairly armoured, high caliber chemical round slingers like the SU-122-54, M47, M103 and many, many more, these rounds generally care little for your armour with at least 300mm of chemical penetration. Some even penetrate as much as 400mm of armor, and as your armor scheme was designed prior to the existence of ERA or composites these shells can be quite deadly if not outright fatal.
Against these vehicles the best defense is, perhaps to the dismay of some people, a strong offense, as your tank’s armor should not be relied upon in general to survive a shot with no damage taken. If it’s a lightly armored vehicle your 75mm may be able to take them out, but if you do not have your weapon selection keys bound or aren’t too confident with your aim it is more than justified to use your main gun at these enemies. Better to be on reload than missing your 75mm secondary gun and dying a slow, painful death to a M56 300 meters away, slowly chipping away at your crew, after all!
More heavily armored vehicles such as the SU-122-54 and similar vehicles like it can generally be penetrated with your main gun, but if your aim is off or the angle unideal there is a chance of your shell not doing meaningful damage. High Explosive (HE) shells are also a minor threat this BR if they hit your turret or hull roof, and you should definitely keep an eye out for it, but for the most part you need not worry too much about it unless you’re on a downwards slope facing a howitzer exposing your turret roof directly towards them.
Another very dangerous shell type the Maus can see is the much-feared APFSDS round, more commonly known as a 'dart'. A much more lethal version of APDS, this shell type includes a fin stabilized shell inside a discarding sabot that makes the shell fly even faster, penetrate even thicker armor, and almost never ricochet on all but the harshest angles. While the spall cone narrows significantly and the shell has no explosive filler, most dart rounds can and will easily go through your armor without a care in the world and detonate your ammunition. The one saving grace is that it’s a round you will only really see in uptiers, should you choose to take the Maus out in one to begin with. Most dart-carrying vehicles are generally 8.0 or above, such as the M41D, T-55A, T-55AM-1, T95E1 and many others, meaning it is in a way partially your choice to see them as the Maus isn’t a very reliable vehicle in uptiers and isn’t the first choice for many players in this situation.
Some dart rounds, such as the Type 69's stock APFSDS, pose little to no threat to you. The round has less penetration than the German long 88, and frequently non-pens or ricochets off fairly shallow angles unlike most other darts. Darts like the Object 120's, however, will easily cut through your armour like butter. The Object 120 is a notable (albeit somewhat rare these days) threat in that it has both HEATFS and APFSDS on a 10-second autoloader with a 152 mm (contrary to its name, its cannon is, in fact, 152mm in caliber) cannon, akin to a railgun at these ranks. It is, however, extremely large and poorly armoured, so a single shot into its turret or hull will generally result in a quick end to your problems. Other darts such as the ones mentioned above will rarely (unless hitting ammunition) destroy you in a single shot, but they can all generally go through your turret cheeks which means you can very often expect them to constantly knock out your breech and gunner as you eventually die of crew loss.
ATGMs (Anti-Tank Guided Missiles) are also an emerging threat this rank, but are generally not your biggest threat. Many are manually guided (MCLOS), and the ones that aren’t are generally less of a threat than darts and contemporary cannons firing HEATFS at you. Vehicles like the Shturm-S pack a big punch and will do critical damage to you frontally, but smaller ATGMs such as the BMP-1's Konkurs and the MILAN/TOW on NATO vehicles will usually only knock out a few crew members and occasionally your breech or transmission. The turret face of the Maus can also sometimes, due to its multi-layered nature, resist some ATGM hits, although this shouldn't be relied on. Most missile carriers and IFVs cannot fire their missiles on the move and lack any semblance of armor, so you can quickly dispatch them with even your 75mm gun before they come to a halt - a victorious encounter for you!
In summary, the Maus is both extremely armored and at the same time, paradoxically not armored enough. It has a strong gun, but is held back by a fairly long reload, slow traverse and lack of filler on the APCBC round. It is also the size of a barn, has flat sides and is also slower than almost all other tanks in the game.
While downtiers in the Maus will almost always be more enjoyable, when playing it you should always be vigilant, as even at your rank and below there are many, many vehicles equipped with chemical or sometimes kinetic rounds that can catch you off guard and bring an end to your rampage. The two guns and the high utility this configuration provides, as well as the somewhat underappreciated and unique ability to easily draw enemy fire, can be quite invaluable to your team even in full uptier games. Ultimately, once you master the playstyle of the Maus, you may be surprised at your ability to dish back punishment just as hard as your 8.7 enemies can to you, and you can be happy knowing that this isn’t the tank doing it for you, it’s your mastery of the Maus and its many tools and tricks that have the edge over your enemies.
The best way to find out if the Maus is for you, is at the end of the day, trying it out for yourself and being patient. The vehicle isn’t fast, but it doesn’t have to be, and it helps to take it easy sometimes in a game where everything seems to get faster and faster by the day.
