How Bad Was The Ferdinand?
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- Опубликовано: 9 фев 2025
- During the course of this series, we've haven't talked about many tanks or vehicle that are well and truly bad. The German Ferdinand / Elefant tank destroyer / self propelled gun is unequivocally terrible. In just two days of fighting during its combat debut at the Battle of Kursk, over half of all Ferdinands produced were taken out of action by mechanical failure. Despite this, the Ferdinand was still somewhat successful when it did work. So just how bad was it?
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Sources:
Ferdinand and Elefant Tank Destroyer - Thomas Anderson
Elefant Panzerjager Tiger (P) - Thomas L. Jentz
Tiger 1 Heavy Tank 1942-45 - Thomas Jentz, Hilary Doyle, Peter Sarson
Ferdinand / Elefant Vol.1 by Welleman Tadeusz
Jagdpanzer 38 to Jagdtiger (Panzer Tracts No.9) - Thomas Jentz and Hilary Doyle
Elefant, Jagdtiger, Sturmtiger: Rarities of the Tiger Family by Wolfgang Schneider
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#warthunder #tanks #tankhistory
Hmm, today I will put more armor on this already overstressed tank.
(clueless)
Ja, Mein Moustache Man.
Spoken like a true austrian painter
*sounds of the transmission dying*
@@WelcomeToDERPLAND *sound of silver lions flying away*
The problem wasn't that it broke down a lot.
The problem was that it was an extremely expensive, very unique vehicle that broke down a lot and it was made by a country that was losing for lack of resources and industrial capacity.
@Sickotato Molotov cocktail go brrrrrrr
@@SP-sy5nq IL2 go brrrrrrrrrr
Artillery go brrrrrrrrrr
@Sickotato Which does not matter, because the Red and the US Army had many, MANY more tanks, crews and fuel. They could afford to loose 30-40 tanks to one german tank, they still had more. The Wehrmacht really couldnt afford to loose even one. Speer realised this and streamlined military production to such a degree that Germany had the biggest output in military hardware in 1944, but it was way too late and by far not enough.
Hitler started a war, which Nazi Germany had no means to win. At all.
I've come to the realization that comparing WW 2 tanks in 1vs1 is pointless.
The T 34 is probably one of the worst piece of shit ever made (expecially those made in a certain factory that i forgot the name) but the only thing that mattered is that they worked decently enough and they could be replaced when they broke down.
The problem with the Ferdinant isn't that it's a piece of shit, it's that it's an EXPENSIVE piece of shit.
@Sickotato that’s not very good when you’ve only made 90 of them and your opponent is churning out tanks and assault guns by the tens of thousands.
Interestingly, from what I've read, it wasn't all StuG crews that operated them, but instead 45 went to experienced StuG crews and 45 went to Panzerjaeger troops. The overwhelming majority of negative reliability reports from Kursk, are from the Jaeger troops who tried to drive their Ferdinands like the trucks they were used to, while StuG crews seemed to be fairly indifferent. This would also explain the odd and no-brainer comments like "it required support from infantry", because of course it does. All tanks require intense infantry support, that's universal and hasn't changed even to the modern day; but a crew of truck drivers suddenly being given the most heavily armoured thing on the battlefield with a gun long enough to disguise as a tree, and with minimal retraining, might expect it to be more capable than it actually is.
Hilary Doyle pretty much said exactly what you did during the Think Tank panel. Panzerjaeger troops were stoked to have something that looked impervious, and drove them as such. Sturmgeschutz crews treated them like a stug, and quite liked the results.
The main problem with the drive train was that Porsche never admitted that it could never reach its intended speed, so the final drive ratio was never changed. The electric motors ran at higher than intended current loads, creating more heat in the windings, shortening the life of the insulation, and burning out the motors. Changing the final drive ratio would allow the motors to spin faster, producing the same mechanical power at a lower torque, which would require less current. The drivers of the Ferdinand were not trained to manage the winding temperature, even if they were given a means to measure it.
[speculation]
The TOG II* had an extra crewman that had a job that no one remembers. The crew of the prototype included men that had experience on submarines (this is from my remembrance of David Fletcher's video on the TOG, for the Tank Museum). Submarines dealt with the problem matching engine output to propeller speed by having extensive electrical switchgear that allowed the windings of the motors and generators to be optimally set for both the engine speed and propeller speed, simultaneously. Rather than figure out how to give the driver a comprehensible way to manage the electricals, the TOG II* designers may have just taken the proven submarine solution and transplanted it into a tank. While doubtlessly clunkier than the controls of the Ferdinand, it would have provided a set of eyes with nothing else to do but track how much current was flowing through the various windings, allowing for the possible prevention of motors burning out from running to long at high current loads.
[/speculation]
I've never heard about the extra crew man on the TOG II, I'll definitely have to check that out.
One thing that I like about the tiger 2p and Ferdinand it's the reverse speeds are better than my car lol 😆
This is the main design flaw of the Ferdinand. The only other flaw that I can recall reading was that a different type of winding insulation was available that would have just burnt out rather than catching fire, which turns a mobility kill into a maintenance issue.
Edit and I hasten to add: a sort of secondary issue or problem was that Porsche was a bit of an Elon Musk figure. He was just smart enough to function as an engineer, but he was better at business. The fine details he didn't trouble himself with unless he needed to solve the problem (by hiring someone who could or by throwing money at it).
So, I look at vehicles on a design basis. Of course, the windings were a problem, but from what I recall reading the engine was quite nice, and if the windings had had less load they'd be massively lower maintenance than the transmission and final drive it replaced.
The cost quite clearly was a problem, but that was just part and parcel of the Nazi procurement system that the USA has had the misfortune of inheriting. Porsche and this tank had almost nothing to do with it.
The extra crew member was the one that supplied the rest of the crew with hot tea ofc, side job was to look after the engine output
@@Lo-tf6qt These are german tanks so "Schnaps and Bratwurst"
Fun fact.
The Ferdinand in war thunder is actually a mix between the Ferdinand and Elefant since the one in game has the elefants extra armour plate but lacks the hull machine gin
Ferdifant
Elenand
it actually has the cutout for the machine gun if you look at it with the armor viewer, but the model was never placed into the hole for some reason
@@LoneWolf-kw3ol you can't shoot with hull machine guns anyway and Gaijin can be pretty lazy so it isn't surprising
@@patrykK1028 some vehicles (mostly casemate TDs) like jagdpanther have them coded in. It was supposed to be part of a massive QoL overhaul to update all the models, meshes etc that ended as soon as gaijin higher ups stopped getting money from their latest OP premium/event tank.
If we're talking Ferdinand and Hetzer then why not complete the crew with Jagdtiger,Jagdpanzer IV,Jagdpanther and StuG III & IV?
The stug is the only good tank in that lot
Jagdpanzer IV is god tier
Check back in three years he’ll prolly have made then by them lmao
You want all the content right away? It takes time to make a video, and nobody said he wont do about those, so chill your D.
@@snugglecity3500 What? Stug was op, as well as jagdpanzer 4.
There was a problem, about 90 of them. -Potential Historian
Loved his video on the vehicles.
This dumb tank is the prime example of german corporate favoritism and incompetence from corruption.
@Sickotato 10:1 claimed*
@Sickotato 10:1 K/D doesn't change the fact that 9 out of 10 times it self destruct, which completely neglects the K/D ratio even if they were 100% accurate, which historically speaking only 60% of claimed tank kills were accurate, making it a complete loss to the Wehrmacht with every kill coming at the loss of at least 2 tanks. Not to mention these were operated by the most experienced stug crews, making the situation even worse.
@Sickotato so idk if you watched the video, but he actually says that all of the kills attributed to the Ferdinand are done so through memoirs, and that there are literally no official numbers.
However, there is an official number cited in this video, and that's "of the 51 Ferdinands knocked out at Kursk, 49 of which were knocked out due to mechanical failure."
Just some food for thought.
At Kursk with the Ferdinand Guderian said its like shooting quail with a cannon. The Elephant version did have a machine gun added in the hull those that where left and refited I'm sure quail shooting was easier after this.
The question is how strong was the slope it was supposed to climb.
They have reports, mind you reports, no documented footage, of Ferdinands (as in a units worth) lighting themselves on fire going up a 20 degree slope.
@@Mikalent That's fucking hilarious
@@Tigershark_3082 that's just german engineering. Somewhere i've heard that in one of the first deplyment of Tiger II half of tanks needed repairs after just train transport.
@@Michalinus soviet t-34 would replace their engines between battles.
@@niume7468 The T 34 is probably the worst piece of shit of the entire war.... but it worked.
It's a tank with the same "soviet quality" as Chernobyl but it still did the bare minimum before breaking down and the soviet union had the industrial capacity to support and replace the losses, something that Germany couldn't do.
Could you go more in depth on what the Elephant upgrade did, and if it fixed any engine issues with the tank?
no it didnt, it just had more armor and more engine issues.
It didn’t fix the engine issues , but they added a commander hatch , and a machinegun port , so the tank was even more heavy and unreliable than before
and then they send this brick to fight in the mountains of italy.
both we're big L's
They added a hull machinegun. It really should've been there in the first place
Maybe the chassis would have served better as an open topped artillery, way back behind the battle lines where mobility and mechanical issues wouldn’t have been as large of a problem.
I believe such a vehicle existed in the form of the 'Hummel' self-propelled artillery piece.
@@TheShockwaveDragon hummel is on the chassis of the panzer 4?
That would be waste of armor.
@@niume7468 Perhaps, but is wasting some steel better or worse than wasting the entire tank and its 6 men (veteran StuG men, at that) as it breaks down, get swarmed by infantry, and falls into Russian hands for them to diddle with?
The Ferdinand as it was served itself well. It was highly effective and had a long combat life.
my favorite thing about the Ferdinand was that when it was given to a field gun regiment who had never stepped food in an actual SPG before, they were accepted as horrible vehicles. The field gun crews regarded the tanks as invulnerable god given machines, leading to the crews abusing the HELL out of them mechanically, especially since few crews had been legitimately trained with the ferdinands (at best, some had received minimal training on stugs before taking the ferdinands), and because theyd never operated as a frontline support unit, the kursk ferdinands were noted as having broken ranks very quickly, over extending, not positioning their vehicles correctly, even outright ignoring orders.
But when they were given to a Sturmgeschutz regiment in Italy, they were actually quite successful and while not exactly liked by the crews, they were respected. Despite the fact that their battlefield was now mountainous and very steep as opposed to the rolling fields of Kursk, they didnt break down as often due to the crews being experienced in such machines. If the stug regiment had been in Kursk, we would have seen a very different report.
The Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS of 1943-1945 were entirely different to the Wehrmacht of 1939. At the start of the war Panzer crews were elites, trained extensively and way longer than the tank crews of other nations. But as the war dragged on and tankers died the training regime kept being shortened until they were basically using green recruits to command tanks.
It's a bit like with the Japanese air force during WWII.
can we just take a second to appreciate that shot at 0:09
Bias
"Those hulls needed to be used somehow." Pretty much sums up the logic of the vehicle.
“The tanks were sent to Italy. . . a mountainous place. . . because why not?” ~~ Potential history
The Ferdinand is a prime example of a tank that is excellent at one very specific thing, but the logistics and lack of operational flexibility made it not worth the resources put into it…
It's also a prime example why making a tank excellent at setting itself on fire is not a wise design decision.
@@emergenciest At least there are plenty of campfires in the winter!
The resources had already been put into it. Rather than the 90 chassis go to waste, they cleverly turned them into highly effective and long lasting tank destroyers. Quite a number of them lasted from Kursk into 1945 because they were very hard to destroy.
Ever since I started playing War Thunder, I've been fascinated by this German tendency to turn medium and heavy tank chassis into tank destroyers. The Pz. 38(t) and the Hetzer, Pz. III and StuG, Pz. IV and Jadgpanzer, Panther and Jagdpanther, Tiger and Sturmtiger, even the King Tiger and Jagdtiger. Of course the Porsche model got one too, why not?
And it's very good because I'm using these tank destroyers and assault guns as my primary vehicles. Who would've liked tanks?
God I love how you use the halo 3 odst smooth jazz as your outro I feel all warm inside and the memories of the good old days with my buds pop up
Ferdinand when stationary and a target in it‘s sights: 😈
Ferdinand when ordered to move any significant distance: 😵💫🤕
Engine and transmission: *silently walking away before anyone can notice them*
I think what spookston says is incredibly fair and we can't deny that the mechanical issues were simply too large to overlook however, I believe we should look at the design itself. The hull of the Porsche tiger in the front had 200mm of armor, double that of the regular tiger. This of course has its weaknesses though due to porches less armor in the rear of the tank, the tank wasn't quite a tiger 2. I think it's also important to note that the day of the trials were on the mustache man's birthday which leads me to believe that the program was potentially rushed leading to the mechanical issues to be overlooked or to simply not be addressed due to a lack of time.
Can we talk about the fact that gaijin, somewhat recently, removed the machine gun port on the Ferdinand even though it would be historically accurate to keep them on because they are converted tiger chassis?
In hindsight, I would've had the hulls melted down and have Jagdpanthers made out of them. Probably more efficient still.
The same can be said for almost every german afv in late WW2.
Jagdpanthers were for the most part just as ineffective.
Also do you realize how much man hours were put into the production of the hulls? You don’t simply scrap that to make something different.
@@Kuschel_K whoever told you about the jagdpanther being almost as back as a Ferdinand is lying
@@bro3217 Yeah the Ferdinand is so laughably bad that that comparison is ridiculous. And by the end of the war the Panther was as reliable as a Panzer 4 so it's just straight up better. Combining it with the frankly overpowered long 88 makes for a fairly good tank destroyer. It was probably cheaper than a normal Panther too.
The problem is: you need workers and factories to do that. Workers and factories you better use to produce new tanks rather cutting down a 60 ton machine. A 60 ton machine that already ate time and money at this time. And there are 100 of these standing around. Also there wasn't a Jagdpanther around this time and Germany was desperate to make an use of the new long 88mm gun...
And the biggest problem of all: confince Hitler that the Ferdiand is gonna be a terrible idea xD
That opening paragraph reminded me of Potential History's old video on the Ferdinand.
Still, pretty good vid/ gameplay footage.
Every time I go to smoke Spookston drops a video. Perfect timing as usual.
I remember it wasn't quite pleasant spading this one :p the repair costs are crazy iirc xD kudos on the vids mate, ty for the all entertainment
The ferdinand and the Panther are proof, that even the most badly designed tank can still perform well and the most flawless tank can perform bad, due to crew performance and doctrine
Edit: People don't seem to realise that I used the panther and the word "flawless" as an example, I talked about how in 1945, the crew of the panthers were pretty much underage kids and/or old men,
The panther, such as any other tank in WW2 had it's problems
"most flawless" in reference to the panther. LOL nice joke
Flawless and Panther in the same sentence? One word, transmission
@@globohomoenjoyer69 wasn't the engine more of a problem, considering early versions just liked to catch fire while existing?
@@humzaakhtar9208 that was the tiger
@@justarandomtechpriest1578 pretty sure I heard the panther liked to catch fire while idling a few times or at least the early versions
Next one should be about the jagdtiger, i think that would be very cool!
All you need to do is search pictures of ferdinands and you get your answer
I know its off topic, but I've never heard a english speaking person pronouncing "Sturmgeschütz" (probably a bit difficult for none germans) that good.
I don't know how the heck I never put the Ferdinand and Porsche together for the name. When I hear Ferdinand, I immediately think of the Ferdinand the Bull.
Something I do feel is underappreciated about the Tiger(P) was how relatively easily you could access core components. The horizontal torsion bars worked well enough on the original design and could be replaced and worked on almost as easily as a Sherman. The engines had lots of hatches to get at them after you took the cooling fans off, the transmission was actually accessible by removing the grates on the back and while the original one was huge, it did work better and was easier decouple than the ones used in JgPz6(P). There were still tons of issues and parts would be even harder to come by because Germany didn't like making spares, but as a person that loves the Sherman, I appreciate the ease of access and the fact there was a full wall between the crew and power pack. I personally believe the Porsche is a far better idea and far more interesting tank than the Henschel not that the choice ever really mattered for the war at large.
Wikipedia: 'During the Battle of Kursk, sPzJgrAbt 653 claimed to have knocked out 320 enemy tanks, for the loss of 13 Ferdinands.' I read that the crews liked it a lot because of the survivability. Most lost were not irreparable, but couldn't be recovered as the German army was pulling out. One vehicle recovered lately (I saw a documentary on that) was disabled by a hit to the track and wheel, but was otherwise fine.
Spookston can you start a series call "how good was/is this vehicle"?
Could be interesting see.
Anyway you made a good video as always
Recently german vehicles, formerly known as uber-tanks, are s-talked a lot. But the truth is probably somewhere in the middle:
1. The lack of a machine gun was discussed already during operation Zitadelle. It was not considered a real problem, since the Ferdinand was always used together with infantry. The soviet propaganda claimed that some heroes destroyed Ferdinands with Molotov-cocktails. But this was just that: propaganda.
2. Bad reliability is not mentioned by the units that operated the tank. By todays standards all WW2 vehicles were garbage in this area. The repair crews were obviously able to keep them running.
3. The "Schwere Panzerjägerabteilungen" (heavy tank hunter batallions) that operated Ferdinands, liked the vehicle and praised its strong armour.
4. Yes, there are losses during Zitadelle. But Ferdinands were used to attack fortified, heavily defended positions, so what do you expect? Several struck mines and were immobilized. Some of these could not be recovered and were destroyed by germans, sometimes using Molotov-cocktails (see 1.)
To add two cents I got from another video, there are claims that the Ferdinand killed enough tanks at Kursk to get the statistically highest armored K/D ratio of the war, making it both one of the worst and best tanks of WWII. As Spookston said, tho, all reports are basically from memoirs.
I can’t remember the name of the video, I just remember the claim that the Ferdinand was technically one of the deadliest tanks of the war.
Forgot to mention when they upgraded to the Elafant they added more weight ( aka armor and a machine gun) to the already stressed drive train like come on now they made multiple improvements to it but forgot to improve the one area that was actually a problem .
aka the running joke the enemy to the ferdy is a slight incline XD
Why not do a review on the Jumbo in this series?
Jumbo was good. Verry good. Probably the best breakthrough tank from the western front
@@friedyzostas9998 Actually probably not, it had an okay gun, but one that was showing its age by 1945, the armor profile was good, but the suspension and engine suffered. They broke down A LOT. Same as any heavy tank of ww2 really. They all had reliability issues and the jumbo doesn't exactly make up for it with armor not maneuverability nor speed. Its was a pretty mediocre tank.
@@jonwinfield9193 What are you talking about. The transmission wasn't nearly as strained as the russian or heavy german panzers, and as long as the road wasn't **too bumpy**, the armour had nothing to do with the suspension. Not to mention that before the Jumbo was oficially made, soldier were already loading their pre-existent plates witg bags of sand, track segments and even concrete, which way heavier and not nearly as protective as steel
Good show. Cheers, mate.
At least with the Ferdi whereever it's mobility dies, it could be a decent bunker
Only from the front.
Although it had its problems, the Ferdinand was NOT a tank. It was a tank destroyer.
They really saw the Vk 45.02 struggle with its weight in the Tiger trial and then go "Eyupp! add more weight, armor, a huge casemate and a gun to it"
Genius.
It probably would have done much better as an artillery piece. It wouldn’t have to move much, need armor and could probably fit a cannon around 6-5 inches in caliber.
That's why they later created the Nashorn. Despite its thin armor, its cannon could destroy anything on the battlefield.
Another great vid thanks mate keep up the good work!
can we just talk about that ricochet kill at the beginning of the video
Yeah, what happened? 🤣
@@Kuschel_K i have no clue XD
ill never get over his outro music
Pros of the Ferdinand:
- Good gun
- Good armor
That's all folks
So there is an account of a Ferdi ( or more ) bursting into flames when climbing a hill. That should give you an idea.
And even with big numbers of them to a single action they could still fail to do the job such as the assault at Poniry station. So yeah, big gun and armor does not make for a good vehicle boys and girls.
Well they made for great bunkers that had the added edition of having the chance of moving into position
*Lighter side of things*
And there's accounts of t34s whose hulls cracked and split open with just grenades 🤷♂️🤷♂️
@@penzorphallos3199 Some of the T-34's were of such quality that the good folks at Aberdeen were convinced saboteurs were at work in the Soviet design bureaus.
Iirc this is why the otherwise shitty 75mm T-34 with the forged turret was such a distinguishing mark. You were getting the same trashy transmission, of course, but often the T-34 would be lost before the transmission exploded. Rather, the forged turret meant that the armor wasn't made from babushka's pots.
@@penzorphallos3199 German army fanboy spotted. Opinion disregarded 😎😎
On the other hand, the proved very effective in the defensive battles post Kursk, particularly in the autumn of 1943 in the Dneiper River bend fighting.
The Ferdinands lasted a long time, many through 1944 and even into 1945. Some made it back to the Berlin fighting.
Overall they took a heavy toll of Soviet armour and were very hard to take out, hence their low loss rate post Kursk.
Italy was the only theatre they were ineffective. However it still took the Germans 7 months to lose 8 Ferdinands there. Again, a low loss rate.
Source. The Combat History of Schwere Panzerjager Abteilung 653 by Karlheinz Munch.
I couldn't care less about war thunder, but I love your "How bad was" series
Potential history also made a very good and fun video on the ferdinand. I highly recommend it
Yeah, that was in Ferdi in game is so good, because you take out all the mechanical failures and have everything run as intended. What you are left with is a really good tank for the in-game.
hence why a lot of people thought porsche's idea was more interesting (me included.) dont get me wrong, i think henschel designs badass tanks, but damn porsche was ahead of his time. considering the porsche has lots of access to its components. maintenance/replacing parts would've been so much easier than henschel's tiger (which was one of its main issue. how hard it is to do maintenance/replacing parts.)
Awesome vid as allways
You should start a series where you review an event vehicle or a questionable vehicle and see how the hold up after time have passed.
Fun fact: an enterprising crew managed to fire an MG 34 through the breech. No reports on the effect it had on the rifling.
A vid on the Churchills would be great!
Oh boy, this is going to be a bloodbath.
The Ferdinnd's ONLY redeeming features were its firepower and armor, both of which meant didly squat if you couldn't drive to the battlefield. Or if you were attacked by infantry. Or if an is152 shot at you.
A 122mm could do similar though still less damage if it hit the casemate because the roof armor was so weak.
If I recall correctly, a good number of Ferdinands at Kursk broke down while simply trying to climb a gently sloping hill to get to a firing position
No. I have a book about the unit history of the one used the ferdis at kursk and does not even mentions Ferdis catching fires.
where do you recall this from exactly? because from the accounts of the batallion that fields it, it was actually quite okay.
The problem with the Ferdi was not that much about the vehicle itself (even tho it wa mechanical nightmare)- its was the users.
They ware given to "tank destroyer batalions" and "Assult gun/Strumgeshutz batalions".
The Strum guys that ware used to driving Stugs had geat success with it. The exchange ratios ware outstanding and they loved it. The problem was that it was also given to Tank destroyer batalions that ware only used to dragging Packs true the mud and only had few vechiles - they ware terrtible with them. They drove them out in the open , broke down in swapms , in Kursk they drove them with the tanks so enemy infentry climed on top to throw Molotovs on the fans becase it didnt had MGs to defend itsel.
The problem was the tactics imployed. It was the same with Jagpathers and Jagtigers. The Stug guys ware wrecking everything with them ,because they knew how to use them. Hide and ambush. While the TD batalions just lost them due to idiotic tactcis. The most famous Jagtiger loss was due to a TD commander that got scared and ordered his Jagtiger to turn arround in open field and a Sherman shot him in rear (where it has no armor).
People tend to forget they got sent to Italy and contributed to holding the stalemate there until pretty much the end of the war, so they couldn't be *that* bad
As Johnny from PotentialHistory said “take the loss and melt them down and turn them into something useful like a Stug”
I think this glosses over the main argument for the petrol electric drive: making transmissions obsolete. We all know how big, expensive, and often problematic tank transmissions were. But of course this advantage never materialised in reality.
As for the Ferdinand itself, I think it was overall a good use of a cancelled program, which obviously suffered from technical issues but even more so from poor strategic use. They performed amazingly in the pitched battle of Kursk, but afterwards ran from one low intensity area to the other, which they were completely unfit for.
I also don't think that the argument about its lack of a MG for its limitations at Kursk holds up either. Combined arms was a necessity even for vehicles with multiple MGs. Zitadelle was simply impossible in the given situation - too few armoured Panzergrenadiere who could have followed through the barrage, too much Soviet artillery superiority, too deep defenses.
Your post should have more thumbs up. The only thing I'll disagree with is post Kursk. They were well suited to, and were very successful, in the defensive battles post Kursk, particularly in the autumn 1943 campaign around the Dneiper River bend, and then through 1944. Quite a number were still in service at the beginning of 1945.
You should chase down the story about the units that were converted/convicted/sentenced/doomed to form the 2 batalions, the 653rd and 654th Schwere PanzerJager Abteilung. It's actually very interesting.
One was original a Stug unit which treated the thing like "invulnerable" Stugs which lead to a horrible combat record. (and embarrassingly long lists of vulnerabilities)
The other were originally a towed tank gun unit and they treated the thing more like heavy unwieldy guns that, engine and transmission fires permitting, could be persuaded to tow themselves into reasonably thought out positions. According to Hillary Doyle they actually had a quite good combat record.
Ferdinand was actually the first version of the Panzerjäger Tiger P , in 1943 after the Battle of Kursk 50 TD were upgraded and called Elephant . With a mg34 , armor changes , wider tracks , commanders hatch and some reworked drivetrain or this hybrid thing .
The mustache man wanted to see this TD at the battle of Kursk and so it was rushed and no testings happened . After the battle they did some changes , the Elephant was much better then . Maybe we get this TD as a reward some day , Ferdinand and Elephant are 2 different TD's .
It would be interesting to get a short reel or a short video that explains the differences between the Ferdinand and the Elefant
Spookston: How bad was the Ferdinand?
Literally everyone: Yes
i remember Close Combat 3's Ferdinand clapping everything that moves as long as it didnt show side or rear. Good times
Im wondering spook... Could you do a video on a rather cold war era tank?
I always had a knack for Jappanese tanks, and the STB and the Type 74 always had a special place in my heart due them being the first tanks that i ever encountered to have hydropunmatic suspension. I wonder how these buggers performed IRL compared to ther counterparts...
(1 thing i know is that the Jappanese tried to keep their tanks as light as possible, due to the instability of their beaches or something like that. I know more about planes then tanks and that's why a ask for you to go in on them...)
We need one of these but with the Jagdtiger please :))
Over the many tellings of the Ferdinand’s story, I’ve never heard as to how the vehicle was able to be put into production before being approved or even tested. If anyone has any information on this I’d be appreciative to hear it.
I love how you just Call him mustach man
It’s even funnier when you realize people make these euphemisms because RUclips can’t tell the difference between Nazi propaganda and historical documentaries
I think the ferd. lacking a MG is overstated.
The problem was that at kursk, the combat was at relatively short range, whereas the Ferdinand was designed for long range combat, where it wouldn't face infantry.
"at kursk, the combat was at relatively short range"
Bro what? it was completely the other way around, and this is why Ferdinand excelled in Kursk, not so much later in Italy. You mixed up those two things. And there isn't one example of Ferdinand destroyed by infantry in Kursk.
Cooper used in the electric motors was in short supply and deemed a strategic material. The only way those hulls were built was with the bosses approval.
it’s so weird how mustache man was involved in these decisions.
I've heard "Ferdinand" and "Elefant" used interchangeably for this vehicle...Now I know the the Elefant is the up-rated version...Who knew :p
My favourite anecdote is when about 10-20 of them climbed a hill in the battle of kursk, and I think about 10 of them caught fire
Edit: the fact that their was no machine gun makes sense, they're not meant to be at the front, but stay behind and fire from afar
Please do more of "Everything wrong with 'X game' tank designs"
When you make your tank have 40% reliability in HOI4 but ends up actually functioning
'Begging the question' is the logical fallacy (in simple terms) of assuming a position without proof. What the uploader meant to say was (something like) that prompts or leads to the question, which can then be stated.
Love your videos man, is there a way I can add Portuguese subtitles to them ?
At least the crew casualty rates would have been extremely low. An unexpected benefit of self-destroying tanks XD
kinda makes me wonder what if Gaijin tried implementing engine mechanics into ground into like a super-simulator, idk just thinking about all the times I had to break off an engagement in air because I was leaking coolant and my engine was cooking itself…idk…might be some unconventional balancing…more likely just not fun but…it would be interesting
Hey Spookston you might want to do a video some time or another on all the hybrid vehicles the Germans made from captured armor. I've been reading a book on British light tanks, and after the fall of France the Germans mounted a French 75mm a Brit light tank, with an open superstructure and a crew of 4 modified locally in France.
I don't know if they made any kills, but its an interesting method of recycling LOL
It also shows how desperate they were, as British light tanks were not all that great. But one thing is for sure, a 75mm is way better of an armament than two machine guns (a .50 and a .303) or 4 Besa machine guns!
i like how spook calls hitler the mustache man so nonchalantly
Another reason why the Porsche design wasn’t selected was bc Germany didn’t had enough copper to make the electric motors effectively
You can tell hes an american main because he has packed 30 APCR with an 88
When you unlock a new shell it fills up your entire ammo reserve with that ammunition. By the time I noticed it I was already pretty much done with recording.
@@Spookston Ooh... I genuinly thought you packed that to see how it performed. If you want to try an interesting vehicle try the Tiger II (H), The P is not a very good representation of the BR issues the tiger faces in my opinion, You face cold war tanks even in a slight up tier its insane.
I still wonder If Wiesel 1A4 really cannot do a full 360 with its turret
I enjoyed the video
[Porsche's Tiger: A Victim of Dirty Competition] from warspot claiming that the Porsche Tiger was quite reliable, even more relaible than the Henschel one, but Porsche just lost in a Dirty Competition. As this video and that article both have very compelling reference lists, it is very hard to tell which one is more historically accurate.
The real question with "Can a bad vehicle do well" is "How good is its gun". The worst vehicle can still do reasonably well if it has a good gun that can kill things. The best vehicle without a gun that can kill things will do worse.
I actually enjoyed watching Ferdinand, but i didn’t know that he was that badass
Why do you enjoy playing the Ferdinand?
People who play the Ferdinand: I like suffering.
I like that instead of like idk angling the armor. They just slapped more giant sheets of flat armor on this struggling hull. If they just angled the turret armor it would have fixed the engine deck problem and probably cut the weight by a few tons. But I guess that super complex extremely advanced technique was reserved exclusively for the panther.
idk if you know the geometry or what but, a thinner angled armour with effective thickness of 200mm and a flat 200mm armour weighs the same if they're trying to cover the same ammount of height. angling armour does not keep weight down just because you use thinner plates, it only increases the chance of ricochets. u still need to use *longer* thinner plates which would end up weighing the same as thick flat armours. not angling the front face (not turret, becaus it has none) means you keep a lot of the accessibility of the engine deck, which means its easier to maintain. and it means you have more room in the fighting compartment for more things such as ammo racks and crew space. crew space is a really important factor that can make the crew more efficient in fighting. for example the panther is a good tank. good gun, good armour. but there's so little space for its crew, that its so hard for the crews to maximize the potential of their tanks. its not that the germans didnt understand the concept of armour angles. they just thought that its not worth the sacrifice of space.
@@satriabagaskara4198 this is true if the plates are a mathematical object and you completely ignore ballistics and how penetration works. Yes if you just measure a flat plate with a thickness of 200mm and a angled plate that has a horizontal thickness of 200mm they will weigh the same buuuut. A plate does not need to have a horizontal thickness of 200mm to have an effective thickness of 200mm against a projectile. Depending on the projectile and how good it is at penetrating angles the plate only needs a horizontal thickness of around 100-180 to have the same effect as a flat plate that is 200mm thick. This is easily seen with APCR projectiles and none capped shells just look at any simulation or military test, but this also applies to basically everything except some modern APFSDS projectiles and HEAT projectiles. There is a reason angled armor is a thing and is used by literally every army in the world. I didn't even touch on force dissipation and the added chance to bounce projectiles. This is why engineers don't like mathematicians
@@simethigsomethingidfk i understand where you're coming from but the problems is rooted deeper than just the weight of the vehicle.
1st: what i think the main problem is.
the drivetrain that porsche had chosen is not too fit for heavy applications. he would've been better off with a diesel engine or any other alternative. however the tank wouldn't be as fast as his electric motor idea, and also electric motors had the added benefit of having the same speed both forwards and backwards (which is quite useful for a breakthrough tank, as they're supposed to retreat post-breakthrough). my guess is that he needed to overwork the engine to generate enough electricity from the generator to drive the weight of the vehicle (hency why a lot of breakdowns and burnings, since the engine is overstressed.) so lets just say angling the armour (highly unlikely because at that point ur much better off designing a new vehicle) would save us 10-15% of weight (and im giving a huge benefit of the doubt here) the engine would still be overstressed though not as much. technology is not like what we have today back then.
2nd: design doctrine
we need to understand that when designing a vehicle ur not just "okay lets make a heavy tank thats well aromured and has good guns." it needs to fulfill a role and that role is determined by what the army encounters in the field. so as i said. its not like the germans didnt understand the benefits of angled armour (they used it for panther and tiger 2) its just that with the concept that they had for the tiger (WHICH WAS A BREAKTHROUGH VEHICLE) they didnt see the worth in angling the armour as it was a waste of space which could've been used as more ammo storage. the doctrine was for the tiger 1 to breakthrough defensive fortifications and after they're through they're supposed to be pulled back for maintenance, and not carry on the operation. it was not supposed to be their main battle tank. but somehow the gap in roles just "accidentally" got the tiger 1 to be the main designated heavy tank. hence why they thought the hull just needs an extra slab of armour, and not more angle.
@@satriabagaskara4198 Your acting as if I dont know anything about tanks. I understand all of this. My point is when you have a tank that is literally more likely to knock itself out then be killed by a enemy do you really need to slap more giant slabs of armor onto it. Angling the frontal armor on the ferdinand and the tiger not only would have increased the amount of internal space (They literally have a big flat lip on the front of the tank that could have a angled plate over it) but it would also reduce the weight and increase its effective armor with minimal added engineering time. But no they just bolt on more armor for no good reason and then act all surprised when their tanks start combusting. Why do they even need 200mm of flat armor, the only thing that can penetrate 200mm of armor (That the americans had anyways) is APCR, APCR that is specifically amazing at penetrating flat armor. The only AP shell that could get through 200mm of armor was the russian 122. And those only really became somewhat common in late 1944. So why the hell are you adding 10 tons to your tank to protect against a single fairly uncommon gun. Realistically they needed at most 180mm of effective armor to counter the few american 90mm guns, but really they only need 150mm of effective armor to make 95% of all possible threats null. So I think giving up being able to protect against maybe 5% of the threats your going to face, so you can have a FUNCTIONAL TANK THAT DOESNT DESTROY ITSELF is a pretty worthy trade off. Or are you seriously trying to argue that being able to protect against like 2 guns that are relatively rare is worth 50-100% of your tanks breaking down? Call me crazy but I think making a vehicle that actually works should be the priority
@@satriabagaskara4198 Also the russians did literally exactly what I am suggesting with the IS 2 1944 (IS-2m). They shifted to having a large flat frontal plate that was angled at 60 degrees rather then the lip leading to a flat drivers port. And get this, shocker but it reduced the weight of the tank, made it simpler to produce, AND increased the armor. Crazy I know. Its almost as if using your brain to do basic logic leads to better tanks
> How bad was the Ferdinand?
Daring today, aren’t we?
you should make a video like this, but focused on the M22 Locust
Looks cool! At this point that's all that matters to me.
When you make it up the hill but get shit on by the ISU-152 waiting at the bottom:
Awesome 😎
and for some reason depite knowing the peformance of Ferdinand climb a small hill they thought that it was a good idea to send it to Italy, you know a place where the majority of it are mountains
Potential history already made a video about that topic years ago.
Germany seemed to really struggle with all their engines, transmissions and/or suspensions on all their tanks and SPGs at some point it seems.
I could see the Ferdi having been a bit better if it was used in a more defensive action. Where it would be basically a semi-mobile bunker that can deal with enemy armour, and due to positioning, mitigate the need for infantry and limit its drive wear.
Well, that is what happens if you don't have enough time to work out the kinks and need new tanks yesterday.