The Panzerjäger Tiger (P) Elefant (Sd.Kfz. 184) was a Panzerjäger (tank hunter) of the German Wehrmacht in World War II. They were originally built under the name Ferdinand, after their designer, Ferdinand Porsche.
The design evolved from cruder, improvised designs of 1941-42, as well as the later, but still defective, Marder designs. The chassis was created from the 90 Porsche Tiger I models already built with new tracks and an all-steel wheel arrangement: three twin bogies on side sprung torsion bars driven from the rear breast. The engines were placed in the middle of the hull to give room for the armament at the rear in a simple box structure on top of this chassis.
The driver and radio operator were in a separate compartment at the front. An 88 mm PaK 43/2 L/71 gun was fitted. This gun was not the same famous 88 mm gun that had found fame as an anti-aircraft gun and improvised anti-tank gun in the Western Desert, but an improved version developed by Krupp as a possible replacement--and did not enter production as a flak. This new gun had a much longer barrel (giving higher muzzle velocity) and fired a different, longer cartridge than the Flak 18 or 36 guns. This gave the 88mm L/71 significantly improved armor penetration abitlity. As fitted the gun was capable of only 25° traverse and a similarly limited elevation.
Porsche AG had manufactured about one hundred chassis for their proposal of the Tiger tank, the 'Porsche Tiger' in the Nibelungenwerke factory in St. Valentin, Austria. Since the competing Henschel Tiger design was chosen for production, the Porsche chassis were no longer required for the Tiger. It was therefore decided that the Porsche chassis were to be used as the basis of a new heavy tank destroyer, mounting Krupp's newly developed 88 mm Pak 43/2 anti-tank gun. This precise long-range weapon was supposed to take out enemy tanks before they reached their own range of effective fire. Ninety-one chassis were converted (chassis number 150010 to 150100).
The two Porsche air cooled engines in each vehicle were replaced by two 300 hp Maybach HL 120 TRM engines powering two generators that drove two electric motors which in turn powered the drive sprockets. The electric motors also acted as the vehicle's steering unit. This so called "petro-electrical" drive delivered a quarter mile to the gallon off road and a third of a mile to the gallon on road at a maximum speed of 6 mph off road and 18 mph on road. Besides the high fuel consumption and the poor performance the drive system was also maintenance-intensive; the sprockets for example had to be changed every 300 miles.
Add-on armor of 100 mm was bolted to the front plates, increasing the plate's thickness to 200 millimetres and adding another 5 tons of weight. A large housing for the gun and most of the vehicle's crew was mounted in the rear end of the vehicle. As the engines were placed in the middle, the radio operator and the driver were separated from the rest of the crew and could only be addressed through radio. The work was completed in just a few months from March to May 1943.
In September 1943 all surviving Ferdinands were recalled to be modified based on battle experience gained in the Battle of Kursk. During October and November 1943 forty-eight of the fifty surviving vehicles were modified by addition of a ball-mounted MG 34 in the hull front (to improve anti-infantry ability), a commander's cupola (modified from the standard StuG III cupola) for improved vision and the application of Zimmerit paste. This and other minor armor changes increased the weight from 65 to 70 t. These improved vehicles were then unofficially called Elefant, and this became the official name by Hitler's orders of May 1, 1944.
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