Did you say Porsche? Thats right folks the porsche made several panzer(tanks) for the german army. Who design the vw bug(or the people cars as it was knew in germany)...once again that would be Dr.Porsche. One of the first design he submitted was for the tiger heavy tank contract. The other firm that was involved in the process was Henschel. The porsche tiger...or as it was later know as the Tiger p lost to the Henschel prototype. The reason being that the tiger p complex electric drive world be a maintiance nightmare. Five such vechicle being built at this point. The tiger p did see combat with the 653 heavy tank battalion. The next vechicle was the Ferdinand (named after it's designer). This tank was based on the tiger p chasis. The problems with the ferdinand were many. One was the power to weight ratio. Those tanks were always under powered. The lost of a road wheel ment the lost of a vechicle. They never had anything to recover these monster with. So they turned some of them into recovery vechicle. I wonder who brainfart that was. Yes, lets use a tank thats already under powered for it's weight to recover another monster of a same size. Let's not forget to lack of a machine gun for protection. Next in the line was the elephant. Really it just update version of the ferdinand. They add a machine gun and a commander cupola,and a gun shield. At this point zimmerit(anti-magenetic paste) was add to most tanks in the germany army. The last elephant being phased out in Italy do to combat attrition. only 90 of this vechicle were built. Next was the king tiger with the porsche turret. 50 of this vechicle being built before the wars end. The problem with porche king tiger. Was once again the weight of the vechicle,the round front of the turret(if you hit it right would send the shell down into the drive compartment). most were lost to engine break down and not in combat. The last was the jagdtiger with porche suspension. Only 77 of those were built. The weight of the vechicle proving to much for the suspenion. What did those vechicle have on there side. They're guns could kill most(if not all) allies armor at great distance with easy. The other plus for these tanks was their armor. The armor proving adequate for the protecting of the crews. Of the 77 jagdtiger built only ten of them had the Porsche suspension. With the exception of the elephant most of them were replaced by a superior design from the Henschel firm. When they did run they did give a good accounting of themselves. Not many of these tanks survived the war. To my knowledge there is only one king tiger with a porche turret left and it's not a runner. Last but not least was the Maus. This thing was big...I mean really big. Weight come in at 188 tons. The main guns 128 mm with a coaxial 75mm gun. Only two ever been built. Both were thrown into combat in the last hours(literally)war. One was blown up by it's crew the other was capture by the Russians. The drawing is of tiger p. The top picture is of the Maus. It was built by Krzysztof Sinczuk. Next is the Jagdtiger that was built by Bill Goodrich. The king tiger with the Porsche was built by Ying Li. The Elefant was built by Joe Lo. The Ferdinand was built by Mark ford. I used the models So you could have an idea of what each tank looked like. Since I didn't built them. I'm not one of those jerks who try to take other people glory. I give credit to those who did built them.
Monday, November 5, 2007
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
Okay, I didn't know that about Dr.Porsche.Damn, you're pretty smart when it comes to tanks, Bob.
Are those your models? Looks like they had mighty big guns!
Nope I didn't built them. I did post the names of the guys who did built them. I just use them so you could see what each tank looked like.
I'm guessing from your exstensive knowledge of tanks that you've had experience with them in real life. Did you? Abrams M1 perhaps?
Ummm...I noticed your new picture T&A...very good. :)
I feel inspired to build a tank collection myself!
Post a Comment