I took a lot of photos of the Elefant at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds when my family and I went back east for my Sister’s wedding. The Elefant is not on display with the rest of the tanks, it’s about a 1/4 mile, maybe half mile down the road all by itself next to the railroad tracks. Apparently they were attempting to move it onto a rail car, but the huge steel cables just couldn’t handle the weight and well, there it sits, rotting in the grass.
Here is just one photo, the rest can be viewed in an album at photobucket. Since photobucket reduces the sizes of the originals, I’ll be more than happy to e-mail any of the pictures to anyone who would like them. http://photobucket.com/albums/y106/Zushia/Elefant%20Aberdeen/ There are a lot of photos here, so the page may load pretty slow for you.
Here is a picture of me in front of the tank, wishing I was in that thing at Kursk… oh wait… no I don’t… LOL
cool photos man [:D]- thanks for sharing those-- in the 18th pic(the one with, i presume is your family) you really get a feeling for how big the elefant is!-- real nice!–thanks–treadwell[:P]
wow. that is really kul. thanks for sharing the pics, scott. by any chance do you know if it’s still wearing it’s original paint job, or it’s just touch up paint over the zinc oxide primer coat? sure see that decal in ENGLISH on the back that doesn’t belong there.
That Elefant is massive. To put it into perspective, my wife (the one on the left) is 5ft. tall. I’m 6’2" and I’m dwarfed by that thing… It is one impressive vehicle!
Unfortunately I am not certain about the paint on it. As you can see, it has been suffering severely from the elements and from neglect. It’s really a shame. Seeing the Elefant in such a sad state motivated me to make a donation to the Aberdeen Museum. I highly recommend if you are interested and would like to help preserve the tanks that you go to their website and make a contribution.
I wish I knew more of the story behind that particular vehicle, how it got there, what’s going to be done with it etc. If anyone knows what the scoop is, please share.
Some good pics. They’ll come in handy when I return to working on my Elephant. I’m trying to replicate the same tank but I havent worked on it in a while.
The story behind the tank- As I recall from when I was looking for info on this guy- The tank was going to get shipped via train to be restored. It was too heavy for the flat car so they attepmted to take it in peices, which would explain the missing bolts in the superstructure. I cant really recall what happend after that, but I have heard 2 things-
The tank was sold and never picked up
the tank is awaiting restoration (on site I guss?)
On the paint, I am almost positive that the paint is a coat put on by the museum. I have a pic of the tank when it still had the zim and unit numbers on it and it had a camo pattern on it.
Unfortunately, the Ordance Museum at Aberdeen will be relocated to Virginia. The tanks and such will be left at Aberdeen to basically rot away. They won’t be moving any of the tanks or vehicles outside because of the cost and logistic problems.
That is absolutely tragic. We can’t let those tanks rot like that. I wonder if anything can be done to raise funds or perhaps get those tanks into other museums?