Rammpanzer Tiger (P). Source: maximodelizm.com.ua, edited

When Professor Porsche lost the selection competition for the heavy Tiger tank chassis in 1942, ninety of his completed hulls were already sitting in the production halls, built prematurely at his own initiative. To leave them unused in any way would have been enormously wasteful. German engineers eventually found a use for them in building the heavy tank destroyer Ferdinand. Alongside this, however, a plan also emerged for yet another very interesting vehicle to be built on the same chassis.

During fighting in the ruins of captured cities, the debris of collapsed buildings greatly hampered the movement of armoured vehicles through the streets. Clearing this rubble was precisely the intended role of this heavy armoured vehicle, referred to in working documents as the Rammpanzer Tiger (P) — or simply the Rammtiger (rammen = to ram).

On the chassis was to be mounted a large superstructure of very simple form, welded from flat steel plates. The superstructure fully enclosed the vehicle and gave it a very compact appearance, with a single opening at the front. The vehicle carried no integral armament. At the front the superstructure transitioned into a large dozer blade, with which the vehicle would push rubble aside and clear a passage for other vehicles. The armour thickness at this section of the vehicle reached a remarkable 400 mm. The blade could also serve as a battering ram for breaking through barricades or the walls of buildings occupied by enemy infantry. The Rammtiger was expected to reach an extreme weight of 70 tonnes.

Development work on the vehicle took place during 1943. Army officials ultimately concluded, however, that the real value of such a machine was rather questionable, and the entire project was cancelled before even a single prototype was built.