Destroyed tanks

A Panther's Death

Video
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-396062011779252155

Still photo sequence

http://www.3ad.com/history/wwll/feature.pages/bates.index.htm

 

Lies, Lies, Lies. Everyone can see that those are Goebbel's pyrotechnic devices to obscure the enemy's view.



StuG III Ausf G lies in wait for Joe's Black Cat

 

Soviet SU 152

 

That picture illustrates well the size of the gun...

 

Panzer III

 

Katyusha on ZIS 6 chassis.

 

KATYUSHA

 

It appears the crew of this Ferdinand forgot to pay the local kids in this rough neighborhood protection money

 

This Elefant looks to be the victim of that ubiquitious American engineering device the Caterpiller D7 aka "Bulldozer." This handy tool was regularly used to unceremoniously push abandoned and destroyed German tanks blocking roads out of the way with them often ending up as pictured.

 

Apparently the Americans brought all of the toys to that war

 

Nice diorama, though

 

Newbie here. Just wondering.....what happened to all the thousands of destroyed tanks after the battle? Were they stripped of all usable parts and then sent by rail to be melted down in the war effort? Love to see a pic of after the Battle of Kursk with all these wrecked tanks being hauled away.

 

Those that didn't burn entirely, or explode were generally repaired and reissued to a new crew. This could get a bit guresome for maintence crews who might well have to clean the insides of bits of the last crew that got splattered all over the place....

Ones beyond repair were hauled back to maintence depots for salvage of parts and the left overs scrapped. Enemy equipment might be handed over to the intelligence types for examination or, in some cases find a use with their new owners. Many a Panther had its glacis cut off and then welded on the front of a Sherman in Europe in late 1944 by enterprising maintenance crews.

Of course, in many cases vehicles were left abandoned on the battlefield too. In eastern Europe T 34 road wheels were very popular with peasants for re-wheeling their horse drawn wagons and such.

 

Question about repairs. I have always wondered: how exactly do you plug a friggin' 88mm hole on a tank? Or in case of shattered armor, plates that looks like a glass panel after a baseball smashed through?

 

well to plug a hole you can patch it or you can plug it. If you freeze the plug it will slip in and then expand to be one of the strongest it parts of the armor like a weld line. More often than not they would replace the entire piece or plate.

 

Smaller holes are welded using multiple beads and then ground. Larger holes call for a plug or patch of metal. In both cases a proper patching job is done by heating both pieces before welding and by ensuring that the weld gets good penetration and that the proper rod is used and maintained in a heated, moisture free enviroment.

Face hardened armor like the Germans frequently used is more difficult to repair properly than the cast materials often found on Allied tanks. In either case the hardening process is not totally necessary for repair if the armor is about 2 or more inches thick.

 

nice Panzer shots..

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Hi chaps! I registered here because i saw this picture.This vehicle was destroyed in Poland near village of Kąkolówka (Kakolowka) during September Campaign in year 1939. I have over 40 (different) photos of this destroyed vehicles... Regards: Salieri

 

Well come on then, man. Let's have a look! .

(And thank you very much, by the way. I do appreciate when an old thread gets slow-burn results. S'why I'll never understand history forums which auto-delete ageing stuff.)

~A

 

Sdkfz 232 (8x8) from Polish village of Kąkolówka.















Regards from Nederland