draganm

interesting, looks like they had a number of M3A1 Stuarts, M4A3 Shermans, and then approx 15 A34 comets that were all supplied to the western Puppet regime of Batista before he was ousted. After that it was all Soviet Armor supplied to the Commies.

That's a nice example , engine, final drives, cannon are all there. The country seems ot be full of all of the above mentioned models. Maybe now with the country opening back up to Western commerce Cuba might be the next great place to go pickin for prime examples? I mean the expense and trouble of buying and shipping from Cuba would be significant but no worse that what it takes to fix up some shot-up range wreck.

 

http://www.urrib2000.narod.ru/Tanques1-e.html

 

A34 Comet Cruiser Tank

---

At least 15 british Cruiser tanks A34 Comet were bought for Batista after the American embargo, and they arrived at the end of the war, in December of 1958, being able to participate in the Santa Clara Battle. They were scrapped with the arrival of soviet armor. For a long time the last Comet was stationed in the wall of the castle at Punta, at the Havana coast, defending the entrance of the Havana Bay, stripped of some mechanisms and forgotten after the retreat in 1986.

The Budge gun tank was a runner - did it go to the Littlefield collection ? Then where ?

David

the Littlefield Conqueror was auctioned off after he passed away for $287K., no idea who bought or or whether it's still in the US.

 

http://auctionsamerica.com/events/feature-lots.cfm?SaleCode=LC14&ID=r0075&Order=price&feature=&collection=&grouping=&category=

 

here's a video of it sitting on the streets of California after the auction, parked for 3 days due to a "shipping error" LOL.

 

 

 

nice looking machine , like a an M26 Pershing turret mounted on a KV-1 chassis.

yeah no kidding, hard to imagine this sold for more than double what a really nice, running Sherman brought at auction.

 

For those who are interested it made 100k and was provisionally sold.

And by comparison, a professionally restored 86 Inch Series 1 made £35,500 plus 12% commission, £39,750!!!

112K pounds / 150K Euros seems a little low, but it sounds like it's not a runner? and this never saw action, was only used for training, and finally sent to Portugal,

so maybe about right

 

Noting that work is needed to various electric and hydraulic cables, the vendor variously rates the Grizzly as 'excellent' (engine, manual transmission, body), 'excellent / good' (paintwork) or 'good / fair' (interior). More complete and original than many of the Shermans that have come to market in recent years, CT160194 -

looks like Axis track services finally added some updates to their web-site, not a whole lot mind you but at least there's some news. The Sdkfz 11/1 2cm flak chassis they picked up in Season 1 is now under restoration. Pics of the gun refurbed and ready for install.

http://www.axistrackservices.com/#!current-projects/c98x

 

 

I have a 434 for sale on Milweb. Last Sunday I got an email from Bruce@hetzerman.com enquiring if the 434 is still for sale and if so could he make arrangements to visit.

kind of an odd buy for them, no? Seems like they only deal in ww2 period kit and it has to be 100% original, at least based on what Mr. Compton espouses on the show.

 

Unless they're looking for a 434 chassis to build another "prop" for a movie set. Cut off the top and weld on a fake tiger and such, like they did with the Alvis chassis. The 434 drives appear to be really popular with folks looking for a drive-train for an original panzers as well since the maybach engines are so rare, although not something I could imagine these guys doing.

 

A team hired by local authorities is drilling near Walim, southwestern Poland, on Saturday, Oct. 10, 2015 to verify an explorer’s claim that a system of secret Nazi tunnels and shelters is hidden underground. Water emerged from each of the drilled holes. The findings are to be made public on Oct. 15, 2015. The explorer, Krzysztof Szpakowski, claims the tunnels could be hiding “anything” from technical appliances to armaments, but not a gold train, that, local lore says, the Nazis hid in 1945

this looks like a different site?

BORING

my wife says i'm super critical and impossible to please, but from now on I'm just going to reference your posts. :-D C'mon man, they're DRILLING, we'll have a camera down there in days, or a huge explosion, whichever comes first

 

So , a major concern about wether there is unstable explosive packed everywhere. Then go plunging a sodd*ng great vibrating drill into. Gold Dust fallout lads! Umbrellasssssss, REVERSE!:-D

LOL, the train might be mined, so we'll have the "splosives experts" scratch the dirt on top, then drill down 80 feet and see if anything goes boom! :shocked:

Ralph, any guess on this piece?

 

http://hmvf.co.uk/forumvb/showthread.php?51288-Um-any-ideas-In-Poland&p=453147#post453147

the spoke/rim design looks pretty much like any German WW1 artillery carriage, but man those hubs finish or Swedish?

looks very military indeed, some kind of horse-drawn towed artillery trailer from WW1, German I think. Just the axles alone are something you would never see on a piece of farm machinery made by the local Blacksmith, never mind all the extra steel banding on the frame.

continental is a huge exporter of tires today, just like they were in the 1930's when the molds for these tires were made. The tires in the pic were obviously used by the German military , but they were also dual use and specked for farm machinery, tractors, etc.

 

What really amazed me is you can contact these companies today and say " I need new rubber tires for my Panther tank road wheels or new tires for Sdkfz 251" and they often still have the original molds and will cast a set if you are ready to pay for a small production run costs.

 

What ever happend to the Allied tanks that were just sitting in the French forest? anyone know..

don't know for sure, but there appears to have been an abundance of Sherman projects for sale in France posted on milweb. One was a turret-less range wreck that was started on a thread posted here, but the owner has moved on to a better example and has/had the first one listed for sale.

looks like they had a lot of fun, roasting snausages over a campfire, hauling an uber rare and expensive panzer out of a river, maybe celebrate afterwards with some ice cold Czech beer.

 

Any guesses on value, this has to be north of $300K Euro no?

the quality and complexity of manufacturing is really impressive , even if you don't consider that's it's 1930's manufacturing technology.

 

Will replace all seals with new ones as even though the units can be NOS, the old leather seals become too hard and will fail. There are 4 large seals in total per unit. Cheers from The Tank Factory.

are you able to source modern rubber/polymer cup seals or do you have to put the leather ones back in?

I had a hydraulic piston on a vertical saw in my shop from the late 1970's and was surprised to find a leather seal inside after it failed. They used "cow parts" in machinery for a very longtime

 

Next on the production line are the final drives. There is a L/H and R/H one, 460kg's each. The difference between the different sides is that the level plug is slightly below centre line, so it is possible to install these upside down if you do not know what you are looking at.

so if you reversed them the fill plug & oil level would be too low ? definitely a bad thing

I wouldn't be quite so harsh - they have had a stalled economy locally for a couple of decades and then - WHAM, all of a sudden they have to deal with something they have little experience with, and have both the government and international press breathing down their necks. And as you can see, it is not a site just in the middle of nowhere :-Dtrevor

yeah I read it was a coal mining area who's economy collapsed after the mines closed. If it's anything like the coal mining areas here, then it's a poor, backwater area both economically, culturally, and educationally. I hope there's something there which will put the town on a tourist map of Europe in a big way, but I'm cynical in their ability to pull this off without destroying or damaging the find. Hopefully they're smart enough to get professional help from the international community and some good donors. IMO the steps should be

 

1)do some small excavations down to verify the trains existence

2) Build a hard shelter over the area to protect the train from rain, snow and wind while the dirt is removed, using Archaeological practices ot prevent damage

3) build a permanent facility around the train to accommodate tourism, maybe even link it to the castle tunnels so visitors get the full "tunnel experience" .

 

To do this properly will take millions, which is why I doubt it will happen in a way that is not destructive. Good chance they will just start tearing into it with heavy machinery :-(

 

I would be less cynical if it were not for the Burma Spitfire fiasco , IIRC even people claiming to have seen crates burried taken to site(s) at cost / overhead of gamer promotion.

 

BUT , open your mouth too much / start typing and you could end up with a plate of eggs on face , still interesting to follow events , the local authorities court now - dig or delay . World press pressure is diminished as the days pass.

wasn't that all based on the testimony of some 80 year old veteran who swore he saw crates buried in Burma? And even though he never saw the contents, was "sure there were Spitfires inside"? I seem to recall they even found and dug-up some crates, but they were full of old tools and trash?

 

Eyewitness testimony and human memory are actually pretty unreliable, so IMHO that's a more "wishful thinking, snipe-hunt" scenario than ground radar images showing a buried train on a siding where the Nazi's were known to be.

They have to hang it out until next year, so it can be filmed for a new series of Combat Dealers

LOL, no WAY can I even imagine Bruce out there in his custom tailored suits with so much as a teaspoon full of dirt.

 

The Poles are worried about funding, I bet the history channel or National Geographic would be glad to kick some in for exclusive broadcast rights.

I know some here think they're just milking it but that would require way too much determination and planning. I think what were seeing is just classic government ineptitude.

so the army has scratched around with some shovels ad said, " this dirt is safe". Now the local authorities are punting the ball up the culture minister who will no doubt have to consult some higher authority and it will spin around in bureaucratic limbo for months to come.

they should make a movie, a Polish version of the 3 stooges go treasure hunting. Why don't they just hand it over to the 2 guys that found it. The state would get 90% of the value after all excavating expenses are deducted. That would be too easy though.

 

Why do i get the nagging feeling this will turn out to be another Russian swamp-stug, perfect time capsule vehicle hauled out in preserved condition and left to rust and be stripped in some open space.

S2-E7 was one of my favorites, still hard to believe the German kit fetches a full 10X price over the same allied gear.

 

Can't believe we have to wait another year for more episodes

holy crap, that's right in the middle of the city, there's building, parking lots and even a motor-way on all sides. Lets really hope there's nothing dangerous buried there

DM states - digging to last 6 days, it seems by spade/shovel , big area to strip to depth of even 1m , all that concrete too - otherwise a total sham.

,

LOL, just read DM, the guys who found this posed the same question I did, "what's the point of scratching the top of the dirt?" i mean the dam thing is 10 meters down and they have soldiers with shovels out there.

Could be a big sham just like you said, something along the lines of "

Value of train, 10 million Euros.

cost to have the military and government "investigate and dig", = 9,999,999.

Finders get 10% of the rest :-D

 

And the world waits , you can't be serious, you can't be serious,you can't be serious,you can't be serious,

Do you know how many miles of track German engineer railway squads laid per day from Poland into Russia , and that did not include conversion from broad gauge to standard ,,

the Polish government might just decide to investigate every single meter of that track, and save this tunnel for last :cheesy:

I think that has been posted on here before. Vehicle underwater is actually the remains of a STUG-III (Ausf-G) with the saukopf mantlet. Probably the wreckage of was dragged out onto the ice to let the spring thaw take care of clean up. Was an effective means of disposal back then.

Matt

any news on that wreck? Still down there or salvaged?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/28/nazi-gold-train-polish-army-search-secret-tunnel

 

Not be long now ?

any ordinance or NBC specialist guys on here?

How will they know by walking around thru brush if there's "splosives" or nerve gas 12 to 30 meters under their feet?

Don't care what anyone thinks. I love this , really makes my Sunday night worthwhile.

same here, really like how they travel to a part of the world to collect something and then talk about the local history there and connection to WW2. Last episode's trip to Holland was especially poignant for me as my wife's family is Dutch and her grandfather died working under slave-labor conditions for the Nazi's.

My 2 gripes about the show

1) 40 minutes is too short, takes me 30 minutes to get warmed up and then bam, it's over. a full 60 minute show would also leave more room for the technical/hands-on stuff they gloss over.

2) there's only 8 episodes :-( . I thought it was 10, which is a minimum, 12 would be ideal. Really bummed last week when it ended

 

The Highlight of one of the episodes for Me. Was when Bruce was at Chatham Militaria Fair, looking at some commando Bergans........And I got to see my Right leg dressed in MTP Cammo, my claim to Fame! :cool2:

 

your leg is famous, the rest of you now has to catch-up

gotta love Eastern European governments, a bunch of lazy apparatchiks who serve no purpose and usually have nothing to do. A situation like this is a great opportunity for everyone to justify their salaries, from obscure professors at some state university who are certain the GPR images are "fake", to some local "conservator of monuments" who's biggest responsibility was polishing off bird-turds from Bronze statues now making absolutely sure these hardened criminals do 30 days for failing to get the right permits.

Look at me, look at me, see how important I am :yay:

 

Mrs Nowak-Obelinda, from the Lower Silesian Conservator of Monuments, filed a complaint with the District prosecutor's office saying that the pair had searched for the train 'without permission' and that 'using devices such as ground penetrating radar is an offence punishable by a fine, community service or detention for 30 days.'

looks like the "lost train" isn't the only thing the Nazi's left behind, some of their attitude lives on in the bloated government full of self-important busy-bodies. Instead of thanking these 2 guys they will now be prosecuted:rolleyes:

 

By law, Pole Piotr Koper and German Andreas Richter should have applied to Lower Silesia's Conservator of Monuments, Barbara Nowak-Obelinda, or Poland's General Conservator, Deputy Minister of Culture Piotr Zuchowski.

 

Nowak-Obelinda has already filed a complaint with the District Prosecutor's Office in the city of Wałbrzych.

The two men submitted a claim in August with Wałbrzych authorities, calling for 10 percent of the value of their supposed find

 

still no digging

Sappers preparing for action

 

Meanwhile, sappers from an army regiment in the Silesian town of Brzeg are expected to appear at the site on Monday.

Although they will survey the territory, it has been stressed that no digging will be carried out at present.

Minister of Defence Tomasz Siemoniak has underlined that first and foremost, the question of safety must be tackled.

“Rumours have spread about mines and bombs which supposedly could be hidden there,” Siemoniak said.