Trophy tank "Tiger", which was called the "elephant"

During the Great Patriotic War, the capture of the Red Army by such a trophy as a German tank, and even without serious damage, and without a fight, was an event. One such event occurred in the 1943 year, when fighters from an engineering intelligence platoon were able to get the German Tiger tank left by the crew.

The Diodand channel video talks about that case. The material refers to the report of the lieutenant who commanded the above-mentioned platoon of engineering intelligence. The report reported that for some reason the crew left the tank, the distinguishing feature of which was a drawing with a mammoth that raised its trunk.

Another officer, referred to by the author of the video, talks about how he climbed inside tank and made sure that the tank was working (with the exception of the cut wiring) and that there were ammunition in it.

From the memoirs of a Soviet officer:

I got out of the car and examined the tank from the outside. An elephant with a raised trunk was painted on its tower. He wanted to get into the engine compartment, but the overhead hatch was lifted up.

The video tells how the German “Tiger” was pulled out of the cuvette in which it landed by two Soviet T-34. About what happened with the tank next - in the video:

Comments

[The leader of the Redskins]

Once upon a time in the "Technology of Youth" described this case.

[Alexander Suvorov]

Surprisingly, the Germans did not blow up the tank. I think that for such an offense the crew should not have been punished, at least it’s their penal battalion, or even execution.
The animal is certainly terrible, although not without flaws. But in the end, no "Tigers" and "Panthers" saved the Reich from defeat.
Glory to the Soviet soldier-winner! Eternal memory to all who created this victory, both at the front and in the rear!

[Ham]

they say it so easily and not forcibly, but in fact it was a whole special operation and many people died so that the cat was captured
eternal glory to selfless heroes!

[iConst]

Quote: Ham

in fact it was a whole special operation

I do not envy the Wehrmacht's servants who were somehow involved in the loss of the secret tank at that time. I think they were all removed from their posts and sent to some sort of meat grinder such as Stalingrad where they perished.

[Ham]

The Volkhov front where the events described in the article took place was probably worse than Stalingrad ...

[tihonmarine]

Quote: iConst

I do not envy the Wehrmacht's servants who were somehow involved in the loss of the secret tank at that time.

For the loss of military equipment from the Germans execution.

[Ross xnumx]

Quote: Leader of the Redskins

Once upon a time in the "Technology of Youth" described this case.

Quote: Ham

they say it so easily and not forcibly, but in fact it was a whole special operation

When breaking the blockade of Leningrad, another “monster” came to us. Lieutenant General V.Z. Romanovsky, commander of the 2nd shock army of the Volkhov Front, testified: “In the afternoon [January 16, 1943] I was informed that an unusual enemy tank was moving along the corridor. Our light guns hit him. But even direct hits did not stop the car, obviously protected by strong armor. The fascist tank held the direction to Shlisselburg. The 18th Infantry Division was approaching the road at that time. The tank came under heavy fire direct fire guns. The shells did not incapacitate him, but the tank driver, probably scared, turned off the road, intending to leave for Sinyavinskaya height. Turning around, the fascist tank fell into a peat bog and got stuck. The Nazis began to get out of the car. They were all shot. Inspected the corpses. It turns out that some Hitler general was riding in the tank, but there were no documents with him. But the fascist machine we got "alive" ...
“... Minesweepers and arrows approached an unusual-looking tank with a long cannon and a muzzle brake,” said the commander of the platoon. - A mammoth with a raised trunk is painted on the tower with white paint, so the soldiers called the tank “Elephant”. A black swastika is painted on both sides of the tank ...

https://pikabu.ru/story/zakhvat_tigra_pod_leningradom_5464065

[bubalik]

,,, in fact, the Germans themselves drove him. Tank company commander with tail number "100", the 502nd heavy tank battalion.

[lucul]

The logic of Hans is simple - the tank is heavy, for example you won’t tighten its 2 Pz.4, so the T-34 will not tighten either (according to their logic). Moreover, not today / tomorrow the front line will move 30-50 kilometers, as it was before, and the Tiger will already be on German territory, where it will be repaired ....

[Zaurbek]

And they repaired well and a large% of the tanks were returned to service.

[Alex_You]

I don’t understand why this is so related to technology? Turn over a whole tank to scrap. Why not to the museum? How many of those tigers were captured not one or two, and where are they?

[Avior]

The most legendary tiger in the sense that there are many legends about it

. According to legend, described in Zhukov’s memoirs, the situation was like in this picture — five light T-60 tanks under enemy fire towed a tank with tactical number “100” to the location of the Soviet troops.

According to Marshal Meretskov

. During the breakthrough of the enemy defenses by us, the fascist command threw into the battle a new heavy tank, the Tiger, which had previously been tested at Stalingrad. It was intended to participate in the storming of Leningrad. And this monster was stopped by our armored infantry infantrymen, damaging the viewing instruments of the tank. The crew could not stand it and fled, leaving the whole serviceable car. The Nazis held her under continuous fire for a long time and even tried to repel the tank with counterattacks. Later, I ordered the Tiger transported to our pilot site ....

Tank Commissar Malyshev describes it like that

. In January 1943, when breaking the blockade of Leningrad in a peat bog near the quarries of a brick factory near Workers' Village No. 5, the following happened.
An unusual tank moved along a narrow corridor separating the Volkhov and Leningrad fronts, one of the Soviet units. The shells of our anti-tank guns that hit it did not stop the heavy vehicle. He continued to move to Shlisselburg. But another one came up to the road at that time - the 18th Infantry Division, which immediately rained down on him a strong fire of direct-fire guns. The shells again did not incapacitate him, but ... As Colonel General V. 3. Romanovsky, the commander of the 2nd shock army, suggests, the tank driver apparently got scared, turned off the road, intending to leave for the Sinyavinskaya height. But, turning around, the fascist tank, which turned out to be clumsy, fell into the peat bog, stalled and soon completely got stuck. The Nazis jumped out of the car, not even destroying a brand new technical passport, instruments, weapons, but they were immediately shot

According to the version in one of the post-war brochures, it was like this

.
“In the area of ​​Sinyavinsky heights in the dense thickets of bushes, a battery of 122-mm guns of the 267th corps artillery regiment is located at the firing position. Suddenly a rumble of a tank engine was heard. Two huge tanks with crosses on the sides were approaching the battery. When no more than 50 meters were left to one of the guns, a shot was fired. An armor-piercing projectile weighing 25 kg at a speed of 800 m / s crashed into the tower of the head "tiger", which, having split, flew off the tank. Strong blows of large fragments of the tower on the armor of the second "tiger" forced his crew to flee without drowning the engine

According to the participant in the events of Lieutenant V. Sharikov

. after 16.00, when it was already beginning to get dark, a single tank appeared on the road from Saw Mill to Workers Village No. 5. Not reaching 200 m to the southwestern outskirts of the village with the right caterpillar at the turn, he came down the road to a ditch covered with snow and leaned on the starboard side.

Since Leningraders advanced along this road and pulled steel machine-gun caps with them on skis, our fighters took this tank for ours - the Leningrad one and did not pay attention to it. Some people got out of the tank, but as soon as our sappers and gunners headed for them, these people rushed to run through the peat quarry in the direction of Work Settlement 6. Our soldiers opened fire on them, but stacks of peat in the quarry and condensing twilight allowed the runners to hide. Minesweepers and arrows approached an unusual-looking tank with a long gun with a muzzle brake.

A mammoth with a raised trunk (emblem of the 502nd heavy tank battalion) was painted with white paint on the tower, which is why the soldiers called the tank “Elephant”. The tank stood with open hatches, completely intact, even with intact paint. I, as the commander of an engineering reconnaissance platoon, sent my fighter with a division report to the division engineer, and I myself began to carefully examine the unknown car.

[Aerodrome]

. According to legend, described in Zhukov’s memoirs, the situation was like in this picture — five light T-60 tanks under enemy fire towed a tank with tactical number “100” to the location of the Soviet troops.

it was the other way around: Wehrmacht soldiers removed the T-34 tank of the 106th tank brigade of the 12th tank corps of the Red Army from the river.

Machine with tactical number 174 and personal name "Kotovsky". Four artillery semi-caterpillar tractors mittlerer Zugkraftwagen 5t (Sd. Kfz. 6/1) are used in the work. September-November 1942.

[Avior]

More version of Zhukov

. It was January 14, 1943. I was informed that between the Workers' villages No. 5 and No. 6, our gunners shot down a tank, which in appearance differed sharply from the types of military vehicles known to us. Moreover, the Nazis took all kinds of attempts to evacuate him from the neutral strip. I became interested in this and ordered the creation of a special group of rifle platoon with four tanks, which was tasked with capturing the tank, towing it to the location of our troops, and then carefully inspecting it. On the night of January 17, a group led by senior lieutenant Kosarev began to carry out a combat mission. The enemy kept this area under continuous fire. Nevertheless, the enemy machine was captured and towed to the location of the Soviet troops. As a result of studying the tank and the form matched in the snow, we found that the Hitler command transferred the Tiger tank to the Volkhov front for testing ... We sent the tank to the testing ground, where we experimentally established its vulnerabilities, which later became the property of all of ours fronts. "

Version M. Baryatinsky

.tigra “, but no more), which was tested near Stalingrad, but for some reason intended to storm Leningrad, after the Soviet infantry-armor-piercing soldiers had disabled all of its sighting devices, it’s obviously slept, it reached the positions of our corps artillery where was thrown by the crew. After that, the 18th Infantry Division of the Volkhov Front evacuated this tank (and with the engine running) from Work Settlement No. 5, and the 86th Tank Battalion of the Leningrad Front from Work Settlement No. 1 ”.

Senior Lieutenant Vorobyov, popotech company from 98 tank brigade, repeats Sharikov’s top and continues the events

. I also ran to this tank, climbed into the open hatch of the driver and found everything was in good condition, except for the cut wiring at the control panel. Ammunition was intact and lay in their nests. I got out of the car and examined the tank from the outside. An elephant with a raised trunk was painted on its tower in white paint. Using a tape measure, measured the thickness of the armor and dimensions of the tank, caliber and length of the gun. He wanted to get into the engine compartment, but the overhead hatch was lifted up. I reported to my superiors about this tank and asked for permission to start it, but I was ordered to rebuild my tanks.
Near the tank "Elephant" appeared a tall thin tankman, who took up his study. I was ordered to assist him. At his request, two of our T-34 tanks pulled the Elephant tank onto the road and put it on level ground. Then, with my help, after a long study, the specialist opened the inspection hatch. The engine was a 12-cylinder, gasoline, in the collapse of the cylinders was a box of some expensive wood, in which lay two spark plugs.
At the request of a specialist, the Elephant tank was covered with tarpaulin all the way to the ground, an iron stove was placed under the tank and the tank was heated with an reinforced firebox. When the tank warmed up well, it was easily wound up with the help of "self-start" (compressed air). On the night of January 20, the Elephant tank proceeded on its own along the embankment of the narrow gauge road to the Polyana railway station, where it was loaded onto the platform and sent to the rear. During the movement of the tank, German artillery from Sinyavinsky heights conducted heavy shelling at it. This is where my acquaintance with the Elephant tank ended. ”

Such is the Tiger overgrown with legends.
But perhaps the reason for such discrepancies was another damaged Tiger captured in the same places with number 121 from the same 502 battalion.

[Xnumx vis]

There are many versions. Fact one. The tank went to the Red Army.

[beeper]

In our rural hut, built of clay-dung-straw "lumpach", in 1943-1944, the German headquarters settled down and the tank stood right at the wall, when it drove away, the corner of the house and the apple tree twisted forever ... the same "tiger" skating rink - "a plate (only without rubber)" on our street near the washstand lay so as not to get into the mud ...
Another such rusty "plate" in the forest plantation, when the countryside was grazing, I found it back in the late 60s and early 70s, but it was a heavy, infection, it was far to drag to the hut and later I regretted more that I was too lazy to find a blacksmith anvil found nearby come with a cart .... although, then, already with the Deriban "square", when our old people died, it all went to dust - the rural unemployed and drug addicts even dragged steel laces from the door locks and aluminum wire from the garden, not to mention the more massive things and a piece of the wing of a downed German bomber, which served as a canopy for the summer kitchen ...
In the mountains (attic) of the barn and the hut we had long casings from "tiger" 88-millimeter paper - in them (as, indeed, in German boxes from machine-gun belts) we kept grain and cereals from mice, filling the necks with thick tarred chop, carved from a tree trunk.
From numerous strong wooden, with stamped metal bottoms, shell containers, openwork stands for rabbitries were made ...
Yes, and cartridges 7,92x33 for "Sturmgever" (I learned about this much later) occasionally, among many others, came across in our garden (they surprised me very much with their atypical appearance), and the panzergrenadier "Sturmgever" itself, without a butt and a bolt found by my brother (I didn’t believe him then that a machine gun could be made of such thin steel and rust through and through, because everything we saw, German and Soviet, weapons were massive and didn’t care about rust) while digging worms at the rabbitry, our granny threw it into an old deep well, in who threw out all our dangerous finds - out of harm's way!
German duralumin necks with union nuts, from fuel (tank, air -?) Tanks, retained their original golden appearance even after many decades of being on the street, they simply hung on the fence, since they could not find a use for them, but, peasant, left "in reserve" ...

[Rasskazov Sergey Ivanovich]

listened and remembered A.S. One of the tales, this one I dedicate to the light. A TIGER appeared, fell into a hole, the crew cut the wiring in the presence of a full BC, We put it on the train car and drove away. A tank without infantry is a tin can, one in the field is idiocy and crime. In the presence of BC, one grenade is enough for self-destruction. To transport the Tiger on a platform, the railway did not fit in width. AND TELL THIS DO NOT NEED TO SING BY LIGHT.

[ENOTE]

Stress publication of this comrade. A small text and then a video of a young man with a trivial text of slurred content. Someone monetizes YouTrub seems. It only clogs the site! And then the people in the comments write an article for him. Very comfortably!

[Dedok]

[quote = peeler] In our rural hut, built of clay-dung-straw "lumpach", in 1943-1944 the German headquarters settled down and the tank stood right at the wall, when it drove off, then the corner of the house and the apple tree twisted forever ... the same "tiger" skating rink - "a plate (only without rubber)" in our street near the washstand lay so as not to get into the mud ... [quote]
yes, what was not there - hand pumps for pumping water, from the corner chopped "supports" for barbed wire, from galvanized corrugated half-arcs