Elephant Hunt

[sztartur2]

Those were the Panthers with that problem.

[decaro]

ORIGINAL: sztartur

Those were the Panthers with that problem.

Apparently they both had a serious situation with the main exhaust outlet pipes that ran too close to the fuel tanks; as the pipe over-heated, it would ignite the fuel and set the vehicle on fire, or did the Soviets count these as "kills" as well at Kursk?

[Mobius]

ORIGINAL: Joe D.
Apparently they both had a serious situation with the main exhaust outlet pipes that ran too close to the fuel tanks; as the pipe over-heated, it would ignite the fuel and set the vehicle on fire, or did the Soviets count these as "kills" as well at Kursk?

The Germans counted four such disasters where no combat was underway. But should it happen during combat no one would know.

[Mad Russian]

ORIGINAL: Joe D.

....or did the Soviets count these as "kills" as well at Kursk?

Yes, like anyone else in the world, if the Soviets were firing at a vehicle, that all at once burst into flames, they would count it as being destroyed by their actions.

Good Hunting.

MR

[Yoozername]

http://english.battlefield.ru/how-to-destroy-ferdinand-booklet.html

A good indication of what the Soviets thought about battling the 'Ferdinand'.

Note that all HE is a threat to the grilles in the top of the AFV near the drivers. 

The Ferdinand is actually a 'hybrid'.  It has a petrol engine that drives a electrical generator that feeds amps to an electrical motor for each track.  It is actually a rear driven sprocket vehicle.  The use of this drive systemn allows the vehicle to spin about itself which is a nice feature for a turret-less AFV.  But it is slow and it was no great mileage bargain either.  I think the Maus had this same system. 

Supposedly the AFV had hot spots inside which meant that ammo in certain areas got hotter than other ammo.  This leads to 'hot-shots' that fly differently.

The two units that crewed these vehicles came from a StuG unit and a antitank unit.  The StuG unit would have a shorter learning curve and probably used the AFV to great effect.  The other unit was supposed to get Hornets but was given the Ferdinand instead and did not have much time to get ready for Kursk.  Much like the Panthers, it was not a great way to use these vehicles. 

edit: many Soviet sources call StuG vehicles 'Ferdinands'. Evidently, the Soviets were impressed by these vehicles to some degree. Both StuGs and Ferdinands took a toll on Soviet armor.

[Mobius]

For the battle of Kursk the Germans released some 88mm APCR for the Pak 43. If you want to be impressed by a WWII gun look at these stats. Alas, in a month of the battle APCR with withdrawn from service not to be seen again.

[Richie61]

ORIGINAL: Mobius

For the battle of Kursk the Germans released some 88mm APCR for the Pak 43. If you want to be impressed by a WWII gun look at these stats. Alas, in a month of the battle APCR with withdrawn from service not to be seen again.

Wasn't this the Pzgr 40 APCR round? Didn't it have a tungsten slug or inside? If I remember correctly the German's
run out of tungsten to produce these shell.

[Mobius]

ORIGINAL: Richie61
Wasn't this the Pzgr 40 APCR round? Didn't it have a tungsten slug or inside? If I remember correctly the German's
run out of tungsten to produce these shell.

Yes it was the Pzgr 40 or more precisely for the 88mm Pzgr 40/42. They realized they had a shortage of tungsten so thought better of using it in shells. They withdrew it and used it in machine tools like drill bits, etc.

[Yoozername]

An interesting detail was that the Ferdinands had issues with the 88mm gun also.  Reports state that the rifling would break off and that shell cases were not ejecting.  This might have been from the use of APCR.  I believe that PanzerIII also had issues like this.  The Ferdinands also lost the zero on the guns easily.
 
This website gives some good details:
 
http://sturmvogel.orbat.com/653.html
 
I think the mid-engine design, which was a redesign of the Porshe Tiger, was just nuts.  It isolated the two drivers in the front from the rest of the crew.  I bet the two electrical motors in the back got plenty hot.  The Ferdinand should have just mounted the gun forward and left the engine in the back. 
 
One good point was that the gun had decent traverse.  Something like 14 degrees either way.

[Yoozername]

http://www.swannysmodels.com/images/Kfz184/chassis2.jpg
 
A model showing the general layout

[Mad Russian]

ORIGINAL: Yoozername

http://www.swannysmodels.com/images/Kfz184/chassis2.jpg

A model showing the general layout

Nice picture.

Good Hunting.

MR

[Yoozername]

I looked for the afvinterior site but its long closed.  Some websites host pages from afvinteriors. 
 
The Ferdinand had two petrol engines each driving a generator.  These can be seen on the back of each motor.  This takes up a lot of space.  The electrical drive motors can be seen at the back of the fighting compartment.  Trust me, these would get hot and there is ammunition stacked above them that would be 'hot-shots'.  I always wondered why there was a toothed sprocket in the front.  It is probably because the brakes are in the front.  One could short the leads on the electrical motors for braking action but that would heat up those motors even more.  One good thing about the two motor arrangement was that if one of the motors was running, it could assist in dragging itself away.  These short-run production vehicles had largely used up most spares by the 27th July.  Dragging them away from the battlefield was probably a major function in the field.
 
A major flaw is the size of the fighting compartment.  Especially the front armor that the gun projects through.  It does not need to be that wide and it is hardly sloped. 
 
 

[Richie61]

I always thought that the Ferdinand got it's basic hull/ chassis design from theVK4501 Porsche Tiger prototype.



Now this is heavy lifting!

[Mad Russian]

Okay then, not two separate engagements. No telling how many.

Plus, the push towards Ponyri was over by the time stated in the text.

There was a German push just to the southwest of Ponyri towards Ol'khovatka. I'll go to that area and look for something that has some hills and a small amount of trees.

Here is the area on Google Earth

Good Hunting.

[Mad Russian]

Here I have an area that looks promising. The area in the red box is what I'll use for our Elephant Hunt map. This map will be a 2x2k map.

Good Hunting.

MR

[Mad Russian]

After creating the height and terrain maps the Map Maker displays the terrain map. Which looks like this.

Good Hunting.

MR

[Mad Russian]

The height map looks like this. The lighter areas are of higher elevation than the darker areas on this map.

I did not smooth this map when it was created. I personally never smooth a map when I create them. I want to see what the terrain looks like in the raw before adjusting it.

Good Hunting.

MR

[Mad Russian]

I redo all terrain map colors to something I can work with. I don't want the colors too close together when it comes time to assign a terrain type.

Here is what my terrain map looks like now.

White is where the dirt roads go and the dark green is woods.

Each color will be assigned a terrain type, which in turn can be assigned things like textures and grass.

Good Hunting.

MR

[Mad Russian]

The description of the first action reads like a Meeting Engagement, so that's how I'll put this scenario together.

With the attack stopped near Ponyri Station and the Germans turning their attention to Ol'khovatka, we will have the Elephants trying to restart the offensive by simply moving a few kilometers to the west and attacking again.

This is in the area of the 70th Army. The Soviet armored unit in the area at that time was the 19th Tank Corps.

So, as the 4th Panzer Division attempts to create the breakthrough that failed at Ponyri Station the Elephants will once again be called upon to spearhead the northern thrust. Here the 4th Panzer Division has broken the initial Soviet defenses and the Elephants are moving into relatively open terrain.

To try to stop the 4th Panzer Division and now the Elephants the 19th Tank Corps lead by Major General I. D. Vasil'ev will counterattack with the 101st Tank Brigade. The 101st Tank Brigade is a veteran unit led by Colonel I.V. Kurdupov, who was awarded Hero of the Soviet Union for his part in the defense of Mtsensk in 1941, is confident that his unit can stop the German offensive.

Lt. Yerokhin will lead 2nd Company, 1st Battalion of the 101st Tank Brigade to engage the enemy. It will be his job to scout the way to the German advancing elements. The T-34's will have no problem dealing with the older, less capable German tanks. Little does he realize that he will soon be hunting Elephants.


Note: Normally I make only historically based scenarios. While this one seems to have proven to be mostly fictional in basis, from the information available in the text, some Ferdinands (mis-named as Elephants in the text) were undoubtedly knocked out by Soviet tanks. Once we started this project a scenario, either historical or fictional, was going to be created. The above description I've written is at best a semi-historical event. The 4th Panzer Division and 19th Tank Corps are historically correct as is the fighting around Ol'khovatka after the offensive was stopped near Ponyri Station. The insertion of the Elephants in this area and our hero's actions are wholly fictional.


Good Hunting.

MR

[Mad Russian]

The map is completed. Now all that remains is to do the OOB, initial placement and to playtest it.

Since this is a Meeting Engagement on a 2km map we should have plenty of maneuver room.

We shall see.

I have opened a thread in the AAR Section called Semi-Interactive AAR: Elephant Hunt.

You are all invited to see how well a T-34 unit can do against Elephants....or not as the case may be....[&:]

Good Hunting.

MR