Regardless of its parameters, the existence of the 'Ferdinand' tank destroyer is a wonderful flower in the German tank family, and the main reason for this is that its unique electric transmission is different from the traditional mechanical transmission. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

The predecessor of the Ferdinand was the Tiger P' Heavy (VK4501P), which was a competitor to the Tiger H Heavy (VK4501H), but due to various factors in terms of maneuverability and failure rate, the Tiger 'P' lost to the Tiger 'H' in the competition and failed to become the dominant Tiger tank.

Due to various factors, at this time, a part of the Tiger 'P' chassis had been produced, and in order not to waste resources, a certain number of them were built according to the original plan, and some of them were converted into 'Ferdinand' tank destroyers. (Please note that this is a discrepancy from the history!) ）

The Ferdinand, as a tank destroyer, is armed with an 8.8 cm 71 x diameter Pak43 tank gun to ensure that it has a considerable advantage in firepower. On the other hand, when the Tiger 'P' was converted into the 'Ferdinand', its armor was also greatly enhanced, its frontal armor was 200 mm thick, which was undoubtedly much harder than the Tiger and Panther, and compared to the strong hull armor of the Leopard, the turret was much more fragile, and the frontal armor of the 'Ferdinand' did not have obvious weaknesses.

However, the armor protection on the side and rear is somewhat unsatisfactory, with 50 mm and 20 mm armor protection respectively, and even the mature tank guns in the early days of the defense war are a problem, but as a tank destroyer, this shortcoming of the 'Ferdinand' can also be avoided by effective command.

If you look at the firepower and frontal armor alone, then the 'Ferdinand' will undoubtedly be a monster-level vehicle, although it turns out to be a monster as well, but it's ...... The poor maneuverability is a bit far......

I've heard Yorkson's complaints before, but for Amphitri's 'Ferdinand', Yorkson, a veteran driver who is good at driving all kinds of vehicles, gave a very low rating, and the biggest reason for this is the various shortcomings brought about by the unique electric transmission of 'Ferdinand'.

The power equipment of the 'Ferdinand' is two HL120TRM-type V-12 water-cooled gasoline engines, and it also adopts two sets of power and transmission units to shoot the scheme, which means that the 'Ferdinand''s driving wheels are driven by an engine and its electric motor components, which is an extremely rare solution in tank destroyers.

Although the electric transmission sounds much more high-end than the mechanical transmission, in fact, the level of technology at this time cannot support it to exert its full strength. The engine starts the motor by driving the generator, which is a set of cumbersome transmission methods, which reduces the total efficiency of the transmission in many links, and the use of mainstream mechanical gearboxes does not have such a serious problem.

According to the data learned by Hans, the efficiency of the general mechanical gearbox can reach 88~90%, while the efficiency of the mainstream generator at that time is about 90%, and the efficiency of the electric motor is about 85%, so it can be estimated that the total efficiency of the 'Ferdinand' is about 76%, which makes the 'Ferdinand' power transmission process consume more energy than other vehicles.

In addition, the engine used by the 'Ferdinand' is only 640 horsepower, which is not too much lower than the 700 horsepower engine used by the Tiger, but if you include the weight of the 68-ton car of the 'Ferdinand', it can be seen that it is much worse than the Tiger in terms of maneuverability. Combined with the upper drive, the 'Ferdinand' is quite a bulky vehicle.

Of course, electric transmission is not without advantages, and its biggest advantage is good handling. You read that right, this is such a vehicle that was given a very low rating by Yorkson, and its potential advantage turned out to be good handling. As for why it is a potential advantage, it is because in the state of 'Ferdinand' being too bulky, this rare advantage can be said to have not been fully exploited.

Compared with the general engine gearbox, the electric transmission only needs to control the current of the engine, and the electric motor can be controlled to change the way the vehicle travels, which can be said to be much more convenient than the gearbox in this regard. However, due to the need for multiple sets of units such as generators and motors to work together, the space occupation is also much larger than that of the traditional gearbox, which is also an important reason why the height of the 'Ferdinand' tank destroyer cannot be reduced.

Of course, in order to enlarge the interior space, the longitudinal torsion bars on the load wheels on both sides are also a relatively novel idea, but this will make the suspension less impact-resistant. However, combined with Ferdinand''s speed, this doesn't seem to be much of a problem.

In order to cope with the lack of horsepower, the designers of 'Ferdinand' did not forget to make up for some obstacle crossing ability, which is mainly manifested in the higher position of the inducing wheels, and it is a toothed design, which reduces the slippage of the track and increases the friction, but the wear and tear of the related parts will also become larger.

JOKSON'S TESTS SHOWED THAT NOT ONLY DID 'FERDINAND' HAVE A MEASLY 20-HS KM/H AT MAXIMUM SPEED (38 KM/H FOR THE TIGER), BUT IT DIDN'T FEEL GOOD IN ALL SITUATIONS, AND THE TWO 640 HP ENGINES WERE CLEARLY STRUGGLING TO DRIVE THE 68-TON MONSTER. In battle, the engine tends to be overloaded in order to increase its speed to an 'acceptable' level, which increases its failure rate, which makes it still squeamish compared to its other German tank brethren, which also has a lot of minor problems.

However, fortunately, there was Marcus who gave Amphitri instructions on how to maintain the tank, and because there were fewer battles, he also got more time for maintenance and inspection in peacetime, so Amphitri's 'Ferdinand' did not have major problems on the battlefield.

On the contrary, in addition to the inherent disadvantage in speed when marching and assaulting, its performance in armor and firepower is still too eye-catching, although it is a tank destroyer, but because of the huge advantage in armor, it can always be used as an assault gun in the squad.