Quote Originally Posted by Flieger View Post
. . . Are you sure the Panzers were diesel-electric? I thought they were plain diesel . . .
Actually, the 'Panther' and 'Tiger' tanks were gasoline-powered --- and shared the same engine. But I stand corrected --- both ran engines delivering their power through a gear-box. (Need to review those WW2 tank histories, more often.)

Porsche's involvement in tanks was with the Panzerkampfwagen VI, aka Tiger II or King Tiger. Porsche designed both a chassis and a turret, but lost to other designs. Their left-overs were then used to build the tank that I should have thinking of . . . the Elefant

. . . . The two Porsche air cooled engines in each vehicle were replaced by two 300 hp Maybach HL 120 TRM engines (also petrol ---I was wrong, again!) powering two generators that drove two electric motors which in turn powered the drive sprockets. The electric motors also acted as the vehicle's steering unit . . . so-called "petro-electrical" drive . . .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elefant

Elefant --- gotta love that name.

Rick Kreiskott