Restored Elephant, April 2008

Elephant at the Aberdeen Proving Ground, just returned from restoration.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• German
• Panzer
• Elephant

[cikenberry3]

Its too bad that all they do is slap paint on them at Aberdeen instead of actually restoring them like Bovington does.

[jobu88]

@cikenberry3 I could not agree more. See my video on Bovington for comparison. But, the sad truth is these tanks have been sitting out in the weather for about 60 years. When you get up close you can really see what terrible shape they're in. Some of them have a hole cut in the turret so you can look inside and its just a pile of rust in there. A handful might be restorable to something like decent condition with enough private money and time, but I doubt it will happen. Too bad.

[jobu88]

I can't believe this simple YouTube clip has a quarter-million views! LOL I only posted it for the heck of it. Maybe next year I will go back and take some proper photos with my full size camera and post a follow-up.

[liberalinthedesertaz]

@ARCAGNELL0 no it's an Elefant. I saw it at APG before it was restored....

[richardb75]

Painted does not equal restored, I suppose its marginally better than rusting away like everything else at APG...They should have been taken away and looked after by Jacques Littlefield if he were still around. Criminal

[22tasos22]

@jobu88 is it an Elephant or a Ferdinand :o I cant remember but one of them didint have a mg :X

[Dreachon]

@takeiou

This vehicle is an Elefant, the modernised version of the Ferdinand and can be recognized by the inclusion of a hull mounted MG-34 and a commander cupola.

[takeiou]

Its a Ferdinand :D

[ARCAGNELL0]

this is a Ferdinand,a german heavy TANK DESTROYER

[Dreachon]

@vondembach20

That might be but I'm yaking directly from the combat histories of both the 653rd and 654th schwere panzerjager abteilung, they both make it clear that infantry was not the be to all end for the Ferdinand, 654th seems to had it even easier with infantry running away from their Ferdinands after firing their main guns.

They also seemed very accurate using their HE shells against them.

[vondembach20]

@Dreachon i imagine the soviets eagerly exploited the propaganda opportunity, but if you read Alan Clark's "Barbarossa" chapter on the Kursk offensive he does a fairly comprehensive analysis of the impact of the Ferdinand and its strenthgs weaknesses.

[Dreachon]

@vondembach20

And that is nothing more than soviet era propaganda.

It's actually the opposite that most soviet infantry actually ran away fro the Ferdinands and yes the ferdinandn did carry a MG34 with them internally often along a few MP40 with them.

Only 1 Ferdinand was captured by russian infantry and that was only because the infantry had left the vilage that evening without informing the Ferdinand crew.

[tachikoma747]

@cikenberry3 I used to live near APG and I can tell you that as long as I've been visiting the ordinance museum, they've had a perpetual lack of funding. It's sad to see the shape the tanks there are in.