Retarded Russian projects part 4 - "Crawling fortress"

Earlier: 
Retarded Russian projects part 1 - "Bezdechod"
Retarded Russian projects part 2 - "Broneistrebitel" 
Retarded Russian projects part 3 - "Crusher"

Author: Yuri Pasholok
Original source: http://yuripasholok.livejournal.com/402449.html
Translated by: Silentstalker

In the Kazakh department of the Soviet archives, there's a lot of weird stuff to be found, but this one simply has to be highlighted. This invention seems to be at the moment the heaviest known combat vehicle project.
The proposal, designated "Crawling fortress" was introduced by S.G.Fillipov and S.P.Zhiliniy on 16. September 1941. It's not known where they worked, but judging from the fact the letter came from Alma-Ata, from the nature of the invention and from the fact that the stuff was written drawn on the backside of wet plaster manufacture descriptions, it's possible to draw some conclusions. The Chuy valley is not that far from Alma-Ata, so it can be assumed the inspiration for the project came from there.
And so, they made a proposition for a rolling fortress. According to their calculations (yes, they made "calculations"), the combad weight of the "Crawling fortress" was to be 14000 tons (yes, fourteen thousand tons). The authors understood noone would ever give them that much steel, therefore they planned to make their "project" out of reinforced concrete.

The movement mechanism was also very original. The authors realized the vehicle can't move on tracks and so they planned to move the whole thing with the help of series of flywheels. A pair of them were responsible for lifting the whole thing, two were responslible for moving forward and backward and two were responsible for turning. The speed of the "vehicle" was estimated to be cca 2 km/h.
The authors didn't write anything about the armament of the vehicle, they sketched a silhouette with some kind of turrets. However, considering the fact that with such a weight the movement of such a vehicle would cause earthquakes, the crawl thru the enemy territory seemed rather simple.

SS: The project was considered by serious scientists and naturally rejected. There is supposed to be the hand-written conclusion but I can't really read that.