>>12124525 (cont)The final mistake modern artists make is with regards to the location and internal working of the weapons, in particular the main gun.
There is no indication the main gun would have been in a turret forward arrangement for a start. It's clear that the modern artist looks at the Panther or the Maus and says "that, but bigger", but Krupp did not think that way, in his main business (big guns) each size category was remarkably different to the one beneath it. The Bofors gun (a Krupp design) bears no similarity to the 8.8cm or the 12.8cm, nor did the 28cm or the 80cm railway guns have any similarity to the field artillery.
The turret would have been hull center or wherever they needed to be to maintain lengthwise balance. The guns would have been much closer together, and the ammunition would have been stored in the turret, not the hull, thus eliminating the need for a Barbette or a complex handling system.
There seems to be some debate about what the secondary weapons would have been, but the most common loadaout is 1x 12.8cm, 2x 15mm machine guns, and 8x 20mm AA guns.
I propose that the most logical configuration for Krupp would have been the 12.8 cm in a seperate turret at the from of the vehicle, the two machine guns on the roof of the main turret and the 20mm autocannons in 4x twin mounts at the corners of the vehicle.
It's also worth noting that given the size and weight of the vehicle this is a seemingly light loadout. The vehicle as specified has the capacity for a much much heavier loadout including the 4x 12.8cm alternative. Indeed 4x the Maus turrets would be no real problem and the size of the vehicle eliminates the problems of carrying such weapons that were present in the Maus design.