On the Armor Forum, one of the contributors asked if Ferdinand/Elephants were used during the Battle of the Bulge. I asked them to move the question to the History Forum. I was ignored as usual, but I am use to it based on 20 years of marriage and two kids. Regardless, does anyone have information on the employment of this awesome looking, but poor armored vehicle involved in the Battle....or for that matter on the Western Front outside Italy?
thanks
DJ

To the best of my knowledge, they never got to the Western Front. "German Tanks of WW II" states that the "the German Army redeployed the few Elefants that had survived the debacle at Kursk to Italy. By early 1945, all these vehicles succumbed to Allied fire or irreparable mechanical failure during the slow fighting withdrawl... up the Italian peninsula." This would imply that Italy was their final destination for combat use. This book also states that the Elefant/Ferdinand was only produced in the second quarter of 1943, so no new production units would have been available for use elsewhere.

None of the Battle of the Bulge books I have been going through list the Elefant in the equipment the Germans had available. This, along with the previous information would lead me to believe they were not used in the Ardennes Offensive. That's about all I have on this subject.

Rich-- thank you for the rundown. I have to tell you that in 1944, the germans were hurting and Elephant had proven itself to me a very expensive and necessary diversion. Nice model to make. I have two of them and they are the pride of my collection---besides the Shermans.
DJ

Do you have a pic or a link for those of us that might not know it right off the top of our brain skulls? I've heard of it but I can't picture it ... then again I'm getting old.

Dave

I found this photo in the Completed AFV's gallery. Whistlerone built it , I believe.

Tes I have seen those before. Thanks Dave

Is the muzzle brake on there correctly? Seems to me it should be top to bottom rather than left to right.
DJ

It matches the photo I just checked in one of my books. [ The Tiger Tank ; Robert Ford, MBI Publishing]

The only other mention I can think of for use of the Elefant in NWE is in a book describing on the final British battles in 1945. Of course as soon as I started writing this I realised that I can't remember the title D'oh!

Anyway the book mentions a couple of Elefants taken from a training ground and used until they ran out of ammunition. The same book also mentions Comets fighting against the strange Tigers also recovered from training grounds, like the one with steel wheels on one side and rubber tyred on the other...

In 1944 the German war production was actualy increasing, although with constant interuption from bombing raids. Most important armament factories where however underground or out of the way. It is very doubtfull if the carpetbombing of Germany Cities did much damage to the war effort, other than making German resolve to fight till the end stronger. Compere the bombing of London and British Cities (Coventry springs to mind). German war production didn't slow down considerably untill the factories where actualy overrun by the Allies. This was not untill early in 1945. But I digress.

The Germans still had fresh tanks coming of the line in 1944, and most of the equipment for the Bulge was new or refurbished to new standard. The Germans had fast amounts of ammo stocked aswel. This was in all respects an offensive, not a last desperate action. Patton had only recently stressed that " we can still lose this war". The Elefant did not feature in an offesive roll, being to slow and cumbersome. As mentioned before, there is no mention of the Elefant or Ferdinand in any of the German order of battles. The reason the offensive failed are well known, lack of fuel, inability to move ammo and supplies to the forward units due to the adverse weather.
History is as it is, but the Bulge was probably the decisive battle, sealing Germany's fate on the western front. If the Germans had succeded in breaking through to Antwerp and split the western front, cutting the British of from their supplies and splitting the by then frought allied relationships, who knows what direction history would have taken. The desperate use of what ever could be salvaged and lashed up from factory left overs didn't happen untill 1945 when the Allies had entered Germany.


Henk

Have any of our UK Brothers seen one in the Bovington museum?

Sadly, there is no Elefant at Bovington, they only have the Porsche suspension Jagdtiger.

AFAIK the only survivors are the Ferdinand at Kubinka and Aberdeen's forlorn Elefant. This site has some nice pictures of Kubinka's repainted Ferdinand (and lots of other stuff besides)

http://www.jagdtiger.de/index2.htm

Rumours of Elefants 'found in Russian marshes' surface from time to time, but they never quite turn into anything solid......

I wonder if anyone has one on display. I trying to remember if Aberdeen has one there. Anyone know?
thanks
DJ

Aberdeen does indeed have an Elefant, captured in Italy, I believe to it is a command vehicle. Italeri modelled their 1/35th Elefant on it, as both are missing some features like the rear mudguards and other details. Recently it was sent off to be assessed for restoration, which never happened and now it is lying around waiting for something to happen.

The Kubinka Ferdinand may have been captured at Kursk or soon afterwards as it hasn't been reworked with a bow MG and all the other updates fitted during remanufacture.

Dave-- thanks for the information. I have the kit on the shelf and want to motivate myself to do it. I am going to get a metal barrel for her. I would do the track but those links drive me nuts. Good old vinyl looks fine to me. If anyone has an Aberdeen shot of the Elephant, I would appreciate you posting it.
thanks
DJ

This is Aberdeen's Elefant on its unsuccessful restoration trip

http://www.mya80pics.johnstanks.photoshare.co.nz/?SRC=PHP

Most of the bolts holding the superstructure on have been removed.

Dave-- what happened to it that made it an unsuccessful trip?
DJ

I only know what has been posted on various forums like Missing Links, and it doesn't look like anyone really knows why the restoration didn't go ahead.

I will give you a one word reason --- funding. Tragic.
DJ

The Elephant/Ferdinand was a vehicle that was never intended to be. It was the chassis of Porsches unsuccessful bid for the Tiger contract. Porsche was so confident of getting the contract they made a load of chassis ready for production. They had petrol/electric drive which needed vast quantities of copper, which was in short supply in wartime Germany. This was part of the reason for their rejection in favour of Henschel. The redundant chassis had an armoured box cobbled on, the Tiger gun added and were "used up" until all gone.
Porsche didn't learn. Petrol electric drive was one of his soapboxes. He tried again with the Tiger II contract & didn't get that either. This time he had a load of turrets made. They were used on the first 50 made, then quickly forgotten as they were full of shot traps.
His final apogee was the Maus and we all know where that went.
However his cars were rather more successful...

Now that I've had a chance to search the house, the book mentioning the use of Elefants in early 1945 is called 'No triumphant procession'. The two Elefants belonged to Panzerjager Abteilung 71 from Fallingbostel.

Good book on the fighting in April 1945 between 53rd (Welsh) Division and the Royal Marines against the German 2nd Marine Division. Had my father been born a year earlier, he would probably have been there with the Royals. As it was, he didn't turn 19 until June 45.