BMW GT 101

The BMW GT 101 was a turboshaft-type gas turbine engine developed from the BMW 003 aviation jet engine and considered for installation in the Panther tank of Nazi Germany. From mid-1944 the German Army's development division, the Heereswaffenamt, studied gas turbines for tanks, and the GT 101 (GT for gas turbine) was the design that reached a production quality stage of development. Its designer, Adolf Muller, formerly of Junkers Jumo and Heinkel-Hirth, argued that a turbine would be far lighter than the 600 horsepower class petrol piston engines then used and could burn cheap, low-grade kerosene-type fuel, a real advantage given Germany's fuel shortages. The design added a third bearing and a third turbine stage to the BMW 003 core, with power taken from the front of the engine through a twelve-speed ZF transmission. It was expected to give about 3,750 horsepower in total, 1,150 of it at the transmission, with the assembly weighing 450 kilograms against 1,200 for the Maybach HL230 it would replace. Its downsides were poor torque at low settings and roughly double the fuel use. Later variants included the GT 102 and GT 103, but none was fitted operationally before the war ended.