Take Down Tanks and See the Elefant in Bolt Action
June 16, 2014 by dracs
The Germans are getting even more fire power in Bolt Action, enough to terrify any allied tank commanders. Prepare to come face to gun with the Elefant.
The Elefant Heavy Tank Destroyer was capable of firing at targets three miles away, long before the enemy had a chance to fire back.
However, this deadly efficacy was somewhat negated by the fact that they were constantly breaking down and could be easily overrun if infantry managed to get close enough. Even so, the Elefant still saw a fair amount of use by the German army, with the last ones appearing in the Battle for Berlin.
Do any of you tank commanders think this would be worth adding to your German army? How might you Allies deal with it?
Great miniature! I especially like the anti-magnetic paste stitched across the hull.
Looks like these are the later versions that actually included a machine gun in the hull. The first ones infamously had no machine guns at all and so suffered horrific losses to Soviet infantry at Kursk.
But against tanks? Yeah, that 8.8 cm L/70 takes no prisoners. 😀
spot on
a lot also suffered from engine failure going up hill at kursk so much for german engineering 🙂
Vorsprung Duck Tommy!!!!!
Nice Elephant. Ferdinand is nice but I like the German animal theme. Especially when an Animal Killer (ISU-152) shows up.
I have my own 1:72 Elephant that was pretty easy to build. And two micro machine versions too.
1:72 Elephant? That sucker’s gotta be big. These weren’t small vehicles by a long shot! 🙂
Scary to see at this scale… Bolt action looks really cool, but how do giants like this actually play on the tabletop? I know Warlords is actually looking to release a tank battle system at this scale, but it just feels too big…
You’re not alone, @invisiblecalm . I’m sure everyone has their own style of play, but a “literal” representation of a battlefield would need a golf course or tennis court (unless you stuck primarily with infantry). With a 1:56 game, where you’re playing with vehicles with comfortable ranges of 1200 meters+ ? That’s 71 feet. I wanna see that table! 😀
Were going to have to make them RC tanks… it’s the only way.
Got to love the big tanks! This is something to make a cool scenario around. Maybe its out of ammo and need an escort back to the supply lines?
Ok your going to need to put a few tables together but your more importantly want to use lots of LoS blocking terrain. Maybe push all the tables in the hall to one side and play on the floor ?
I’ve not been playing BA that long but have already got more tanks than I need. I’ve tried to be sensible and go for all rounders but they are so hard to resist.
I can see a need for the tank rules as it is like apocalypse it’s just nice to get all the toys out once in a while.
The good news is that you don’t have to worry about bogging down type of rules, since historically they pretty much came “pre-bogged” out of the factory. WWII Germany: good at guns, bad at transmissions.
Bad ass tank 🙂
want!
That is my kind of Elefant in the room.
Most of the Ferdinands lost at Kursk were due to mechanical failure. Those that fought caused casualties many times their number among the Soviet units though to be fair, the Soviets were prepared to trade multiple T34’s for a single German tank if that was what it took to win. In the end, sheer weight of numbers and the compromises made in this ungainly and overweight/underpowered design told against the tank hunters. The same sort of problems afflicted the Tigers, Kingtigers, Jagdtigers and to a lesser extent the Panther family.
The numbers speak for themselves:
Elefants: 91 built
T34: ~60-70.000
Elefant/Ferdinand was making use of the chassis of the rejected Tiger design so there were never going to be many of them. Even the most numerous German tank of WW2 didn’t make it into 5 figures (Panzer IV).