draganm

well thank goodness, it was getting to the point where is was afraid to even ask :-( strange though that amazon prime is already showing as available 3 episodes from S3 . Dailymotion is a good one, I like it better than you-tube after google bought them , but all the season 2 episodes appear to have been pulled. They were all available within 24 hours of original broadcast BTW, if anyone here has access to Mr. Compton or his crew, maybe suggest a DVD release of S1 and 2? The axis dealers web-site already has a "for sale" section, why not make a few quid off the vidies

in case you haven't been following this, old broken torsion bars out , new suspension is in , Maybach V12 located

hilarious that forum morality filter screwed up the name I'm no diver but I do know mines, and presumably caves, can have toxic air . Looks like they had to Scuba in, and If you need a 1/3rd of your tank to get in, a 1/3rd to get out, and really should keep at least a 1/3rd for emergency back-up, a carbon filtered mask for the cave would be the smart choice I guess. 20 bars , 20 kilos each? dam it's a fortune if its real Would you start cutting det-chord though like that though. Would you post your find on you tube?

those looks pretty convincing, were the wear patterns built into them or is that from decades of handling? first thing that came to my mind was , waving that around anywhere near a cop in here in the US would get you shot immediately

oh no! what I have done. Disclaimer, posting link to that vidy in no way is an endorsement or agreement of it's conclusions from said poster (me). :-D HA! I guess me home country of former Yugoslavia doesn't have exclusive rights to ethnic frictions if you look at the videos of people scouring the country side with metal detectors in Europe gas masks and 20mm cartridges seem to be the most common find, although I'm sure more valuable items are not posted on you tube. Not surprising that locations are kept secret either, anyone here would do the same. for now , the Baltic States still seem to be the best place to get your panzer parts. How's your Latvian?:-)

just read/skimmed thru an interesting white paper on what is officially now called Defence Training Estate SalisburyPlain DTESP, and was formerly the Salisbury PlainTraining Area, SPTA). (you guys sure love your acronyms). The paper talks about the construction of a tank-road in 1999 who's purpose was to mitigate the effect/damage of miltary vehicles tearing up the country-side. Just to build the tank-road they had to excavate a ditch 3 feet wide across the entire length and make sure no important iron-age sites were damaged. They eventually identified 30 sites and these had to be fully investigated before the road could be put in. Reminds me of something fro ma Monty Python movie. It looks like the military is still using it but the boffins (learned a new word from Rick) :-D definitely have a heavy hand in It. lists this organization as being the entity in charge of the land at this time. https://www.gov.uk/topic/defence-armed-forces/ministry-of-defence-estate The pamphlet lists public access to the site thru right-of-ways and there's a number you can call to check for " firing times" LOL. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/public-access-to-military-areas really sounds like between the army and the archeologists the chances of getting in there and doing any digging are less than zero

you digging up and restoring some Nazi machine. Say it ain't so! :shocked:

BTW, if you look at how thin the roof armor is, you can see how a dive-bombing hawker typhoon with rockets was so deadly even to the mighty Tiger that reminds me, parts of Michael Whitman's tiger found in a barn end of this video in case you guys haven't seen it

thanks Tony for that sobering reality check. It's so easy get caught up in how cool and powerful these vehicles were and forget how they were used. If one were to put themselves in the shoes of the locals, and having to deal with decaying corpses for years on end, those that would want to save any part of that time as a memento would be very few. Cutting it all up and having it hauled off was probably a huge relief to most people. With all factories and steel yards depleted or destroyed, I would think high-grade steel was quite the commodity as well. Are there still some out there, chances are that yes there is 1 or 2 tigers or panzer 4's here and there. They did find that king tiger under the road in the late 90's , managed to retrieve the turret shell, the rest being under a major roadway too expensive to recover. Tony did you manage to get any promising leads? With a single tiger wheel selling for $2K Euros, I would think the word would be out by now and any local prospects fully exploited?

so to try and answer the question , can something still be found if you were to start scouring the countryside East of Caen? I think the answer is highly unlikely. Take for instance one of the pictures of a flipped Tiger I labeled Manneville France. Go to google maps and you'll see that the area is very developed. There are small stands of trees but it's all private property. So , assuming you spoke fluent French, could you go to the local cafe, find someone around 85 years old who might remember as a child where tanks from WW2 were destroyed? Maybe, I mean 20 years ago would have been better but it still might be possible. then get permission from land owner, then maybe find something, then try and get permission to dig up the landscape. In the end if all this were to somehow happen, anything you found would likely be the property of the French government. Sounds like a fun adventure of if you had the money , time, and patience but I think it's more of an interesting internet discussion than anything else.

lots more pics here http://worldwartwo.filminspector.com/2013/09/tiger-tanks.html

amazing that someone posted those pics, they've been on my mind for a long time for just the reasons posted above, holes filled in and vehicles still there?. to the pics, , those are indeed shell holes from very large bombs and Those are the remains of the 503rd panzer Abteilung. Caught out in the open in Normandy towards he end of the war by a massive US carpet bombing run involving heavy bombers of operation Godwood. Some tanks were flipped into holes from concussions, other drove into shell craters in a panicked flight to avoid the bombing. Thousands of Germans, both military and civilian, lost their lives and the surrounding area. The 503 lost almost all their vehicles, tiger 1's and panzer III's. they were re-equipped with tigers II's and those were destroyed also. This is around Caen for anyone who wants to go look, historical records should show exactly where the 503rd was when it was wiped out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/503rd_Heavy_Panzer_Battalion

that link goes to O1 tool steel, is that what you guys use for torsion rods? I know it comes annealed and not hardened to 67C but.......... [TABLE=width: 100%] [TR] [TD=class: TableHeader, align: center]Carbon ©[/TD] [TD=class: TableHeader, align: center]Manganese (Mn)[/TD] [TD=class: TableHeader, align: center]Silicon (Si)[/TD] [TD=class: TableHeader, align: center]Chromium (Cr)[/TD] [TD=class: TableHeader, align: center]Tungsten (W)[/TD] [TD=class: TableHeader, align: center]Vanadium (V)[/TD] [TD=class: TableHeader, align: center]Phosphorus (P)Max[/TD] [TD=class: TableHeader, align: center]Sulfur (S)Max[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD=class: TableData, align: center]0.95[/TD] [TD=class: TableData, align: center]1.2[/TD] [TD=class: TableData, align: center]0.4[/TD] [TD=class: TableData, align: center]0.5[/TD] [TD=class: TableData, align: center]0.5[/TD] [TD=class: TableData, align: center]0.2[/TD] [TD=class: TableData, align: center]0.03[/TD] [TD=class: TableData, align: center]0.03[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] a quick search for Torsion rods shows alloy 5160 as commonly used the much lower carbon + lack of tungsten means it cannot be hardened like tool steel but hardness doesn't seem like the quality you need here? more like flexibility + fatigue and shock resistance . just curious

exactly. 2 weeks before Xmas is finals, and when the students leave so do all the profs. Digging in the middle of winter can't be too much fun either. 2017 will be the year of the Covenanter :-)

there's been a lot of coverage of this one, originally dug up in 2011 as a real "bitser" as you guys say, they finally went thru tremendous effort to put it back together and did a good job. There was some talk of possibly making it a runner but it would have taken a fortune to complete so the point that they brought it back to is still a very good restoration or conversation if you will, IMHO. reportedly 2 full dumpsters (skips?) full of parts waiting for more funding. Here's the part I don't get, why go thru all that trouble and then stick it outside in the weather without so much as a tin roof to keep the rain off ? at least the engine appears to be stored inside and hopefully they at least left the drain cocks out of the floor tags Panzer IV Muzeum Kołobrzegu

wow, $200K is a lot of cash, hopefully there will be many movie deals to recoup some of the cost. Panzer IV build will a good one to watch too. Looks like they're accumulating a good number of original parts too.

according to seller, an original and it looks genuine. Asking $66K US in Arkansas USA http://armyjeeps.net/Pakgun/pak_35.htm

only one known to exist? http://www.sotonfreight.co.uk/1940s-scout-tank-found-in-australia.htm

just a thought, but if vehicles in the EU have gone nuts on price why not import? I recently saw a running CCKW here (missing bed but otherwise complete), sell for $1500. A fully restored 1942 MB is currently listed for $10K. asking price even if shipping is $3K + VAT of 17% , you would still be ahead no?

Wow, was gone for week and now all this good news , Hooray :-D LOL, will I think it's only fair to point out that the folks from the Polish National Geology Institute were 100% correct. They said " there might be a tunnel but there is no train." they were challenged in that finding by the 2 guys who wound up digging there but I remember the Professor in charge saying "It's normal to make a mistake but foolish to repeat it" just prior to excavation. So contacting a local University and getting a few geologists out there out there might be the best way to make sure nothing is left behind. I work with University Faculty daily and they are almost without exception very easy to talk to and deal with because they are very passionate about their pursuits, just Intelligent people who love what they do. They are also almost always looking for a chance to give their senior students a chance to apply the skills and use the equipment they have learned in the classroom out in a real world setting. Also important, since it's a learning/teaching opportunity you don't pay them like you would a private business. It might make things easier to have a detailed scan of the site now than digging now and digging again later? just a thought

if you scroll down the page you can see the guy they hired to work on each piece to clean and then preserve the original finish. Must have taken hundreds of hours but it looks like it was worth it. Bravo to them for taking such care

I've been looking at the pics and reading the comments because I follow this build along with many others and I noticed any talk of the vehicle having been originally built in Sweden in 1944 are deleted. A little odd since you can scroll down the page and see exactly what it started off as. Oh well, Panzerbandvagn turned into Marders are listed as such in the surviving panzers web-site and not even cutting off the extra return roller will change that. It'll be fun to follow regardless

in case you have not followed this, they have in fact preserved the vehicle in all it's original paint and just got the engine running. https://www.facebook.com/PanzerFarm/ is this the worlds most original SdKfz?

Imperial War Museum website also suggests it could have been adopted from a polo club symbol http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/30071697

no kidding, those manuals are amazing. I have to ask though, A Panda for a combat unit mascot to Strike fear into the enemy? , not too many people are deathly afraid of Pandas :-D Hey Rick I hope your Divining rod is in good shape So according to the article, there is definitely one more there " in really bad shape" that they left, and maybe as many as 2 more on top of that in unknown, un-dug condition.