Commando Magazine

2 May 2017

Issue 5017 - The Elefant - 1943, on the battlefields of the Steppes of Kursk, the largest tank battle in all history occurred. More than 6,000 tanks were involved in the deadly skirmish with over 1,000 tanks taken victim. Oberfeldwebel Heinz Schmitt and his crew were there. After Heinz’s Panzer Mark IV tank was destroyed, it was replaced with a Ferdinand tank destroyer. But the Ferdinand had a major flaw. It had no forward mounted machine gun, which made them vulnerable to magnetic mines. To fix the problem a new tank destroyer was built - same as the Ferdinand but better. This was… THE ELEFANT!