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Elefants, Ferdinands, Brumbars


Sequoia

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I thought I'd ask about standard nomenclature of these vehicles. Are the nicknames Ferdinand and Elefant interchangable or is the Elefant the 1943 version and the Ferdinand the reworked version with a machine gun? Also was the nickname Brumbar actually used by the Germans or is it one applied after the fact such as Bishop and Jackson?

Thanks

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I just checked my ancient falling apart von Senger und Etterlin encyclopedic reference from 1968 (the English translation) and they refer to the 'Brummbär' (Grizzly Bear). A lot of what we take for granted in naming conventions seems to come straight out of first-generation hobbyists in the 60s and early 70s. And early Tamiya kits. A Brit tanker might or might not know what an 'Achilles' was. He definitely wouldn't know what a 'Wolverine' was.

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I just checked my ancient falling apart von Senger und Etterlin encyclopedic reference from 1968 (the English translation) and they refer to the 'Brummbär' (Grizzly Bear). A lot of what we take for granted in naming conventions seems to come straight out of first-generation hobbyists in the 60s and early 70s. And early Tamiya kits. A Brit tanker might or might not know what an 'Achilles' was. He definitely wouldn't know what a 'Wolverine' was.

That'd be true.I know the Kiwi's called the Firefly's "the 17pdr".

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That's what the Russians said at Ponyri. (j/k)

(When the Elephant made its debut at the north face of Kursk, the same German formation had 90 Sturmpanzers, so the defenders indeed faced Elephants and Brummbars - and StuGs in profusion).

Kursk... So there were Tigers too? Oh my!

Such a shame the Germans never called any tank a "Lion". I wonder why?

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Sorry, I should have said "built" to start with, I suppose, cos it was inevitable that some design study/prototype/back of a fag packet sketch done by an anonymous Landser would have had the name "Lion" attached to it... Interesting that the Lion was dropped in favour of the Mouse.

That wiki article made me laugh, specifically the bit about Hitler discarding the light version and then demanding a 6 inch gun and a 16% increase in armour in the same breath as requiring a 30% increase in top speed... Perhaps he was just pulling their legs, knowing full well that the two proposed vehicles were impracticable, let alone his "suggestions for improvement"... The same sort of sense of humour that called the most massive tank built to date a "Mouse"... :-s

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I just checked my ancient falling apart von Senger und Etterlin encyclopedic reference from 1968 (the English translation) and they refer to the 'Brummbär' (Grizzly Bear).

A Grizzly is not a Brummbär. brummen is the noise bears make (german ones anyway ;O) )

A Brummer is a truck.

My favorite brumm word though is Transformatorbrumm, which is the humming noise that transformers make.

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