Elefant
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- For other uses, see Elephant (disambiguation).
The Jagdpanzer Tiger (P) Elefant (Sd.Kfz. 184) was an anti-tank Jagdpanzer (tank hunter) of the German Wehrmacht in World War II. They were orginally built under the name Ferdinand, after their designer.
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Development
Dr. Ferdinand Porsche designed the Jagdpanzer on Hitler's orders for the Soviet campaign. The design evolved from cruder, improvised designs of 1941-42, as well as the later, but still defective, Marder designs. The chassis was created from the 90 Porsche Tiger I models already built with new tracks and an all-steel wheel arrangement: three twin bogies on side sprung torsion bars driven from the rear sprocket. The engines were placed in the middle of the hull to give room for the armament at the rear in a simple box structure on top of this chassis. The driver and radio operator were inma separate compartment at the front. A 88 mm PaK 43/2 L/71 gun was fitted, the same 88 mm gun that had found fame as an anti-aircraft gun and improvised anti-tank gun in the Western Desert. As fitted the gun was capable of only 25° traverse and a similarly limited elevation.
Production
Ninety Ferdinands were produced from the Porsche Tiger I hulls by Nibelungenwerke in just a few months during mid-1943. After deployemnt in Russia, the fifty surviving vehicles were modified by addition of extra armour (bolt-on plates), improved vision capabilities, and gun-ports and one or two MG 34s as anti-infantry weapons. This increased the weight to 70 t. These were named Elefant
3 Bergepanzer Tiger (P), armoured recovery vehicles were produced in 1943.
Usage
The units were deployed at a company level, sometimes sub-divided into platoons, with infantry or tanks to protect the vulnerable flanks of the vehicles. On the attack, this Jagdpanzer was a first-strike vehicle, while in defence, they often comprised a mobile reserve used to blunt enemy tank assaults. Toward the end of the war, the Allies proved the vehicles to be particularly vulnerable to air attack.
Combat History
The Ferdinand was first deployed during the Battle of Kursk. Although they destroyed 320 Russian tanks, performed very poorly in other respects. Many units broke down and they proved dangerously vulnerable to infantry, lacking any local defence. At this point they were recalled and modified, although the problems with the fragile engines, hydropneumatic steering system, electric transmission and complex mechanics remained. Elefants served in Italy in 1944 and the last surviving vehicles were at the Battle of Berlin.
External links
- Information about the Panzerjäger Tiger (P) "Ferdinand" or "Elefant" at Panzerworld (http://www.panzerworld.net/ferdinandelefant.html)
- Elefant at Achtungpanzer.com (http://www.achtungpanzer.com/pz6.htm)
| German armored fighting vehicles of World War II | |
|---|---|
| Tanks | |
| Panzer I | Panzer II | Panzer III | Panzer IV | Panther | Tiger I, II | Panzer 35(t) | Panzer 38(t) | |
| Self-propelled artillery | |
| Wespe | Hummel | Grille | Panzerwerfer | |
| Assault guns | |
| StuG III | StuG IV | StuH 42 | Brummbär | Sturmtiger | |
| Tank destroyers | |
| Panzerjäger I | Marder I , II , III | Hetzer | Jagdpanzer IV | Jagdpanther | Nashorn | Jagdtiger | Elefant | |
| Armored half-tracks | Armored cars |
| SdKfz 4 | 250 | 251 | 252 | 253 | Sdkfz 221/22/23 | Sdkfz 231/32/34/63 |
| Self propelled anti-aircraft | |
| Flakpanzer IV: Möbelwagen, Wirbelwind, Ostwind, Kugelblitz | Gepard | |
| Prototypes | |
| Maus | P-1000 Ratte | E- series | Panther II | Waffentrager | Neubaufahrzeug | |
| Proposed designs | |
| P-1500 'Monster' | Panzer VII 'Löwe' | Panzer IX | |
| German armored fighting vehicle production during World War II | |