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What happened to.....


Jack

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What happened to all of the German tanks/ armour after the war to make them so scarce today? I would of thought that the allies would of reconditioned them and then sent/sold them to the four corners of the earth (even though it is round).

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I went to the Montormel Museum in France this summer. This museum tells the story of the Falaise Pocket, the capture of 50,000 German troops, and also the German escape before the Falaise pocket is closed.

 

There was so much scrap metal from the thousands of abandoned vehicles that the French scrapping operation wasn't completed until the mid 1960's, not that long before I was born.

 

They are scarce because they were cut up and recycled.

 

Steve

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There was so much scrap metal from the thousands of abandoned vehicles that the French scrapping operation wasn't completed until the mid 1960's, not that long before I was born.

 

Steve

 

That is pretty amazing, can't quite comprehend that amount of destruction.

 

Good to see you back Steve!

 

Jack.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 months later...
And I've heard lots of German tanks in good order in germany were destroyed to prevent re-arming of the Germans.

Also a lot of Panthers were delivered to the French Army and were probably used up?

 

If you visit the Tank Museum at Bovington, you'll see that their Panther bears a plaque describing how it was built from parts from the factory by the REME after the war to be used to conduct comparison trials with Centurion.

 

Although the Centurion won, it says a lot for the Panther that it was still cinsidered goof enough to consider. Especially since I remember one source suggesting that six months' tank development in wartime is the equivalent of twenty YEARS in peacetiime.

 

If you look at the http://www.arrse.co.uk forums, somebody there states that Israelis fought against Jordanian Panthers during one of the Middle East wars.

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And I've heard lots of German tanks in good order in germany were destroyed to prevent re-arming of the Germans.

Also a lot of Panthers were delivered to the French Army and were probably used up?

 

Hi all,

not forgetting most German armour had self destruct mechanisms installed.

 

Ashley

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A reason you see quite a few German half tracks and Hetzers around is that the Czechs made copies of them after WW2, they're not perfect copies but if you don't look to hard you won't notice, the copy of the Sd.Kfz 251 was the OT810 but I don't know what the one for the Hetzer was

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Hi all,

post war the Finish built the Stug `s 3 under licence and the one at bovington tank museum is one of these :( yet there was an origonal one parked up in good condition with the zimmeritte paste falling off it due to damp in the reserve collection sheds a couple of years ago apparently awaiting transport to another museun for re-furbishment :?:

Ashley

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A reason you see quite a few German half tracks and Hetzers around is that the Czechs made copies of them after WW2, they're not perfect copies but if you don't look to hard you won't notice, the copy of the Sd.Kfz 251 was the OT810 but I don't know what the one for the Hetzer was

 

The Czech Hetzer is the G-13.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Hi all!

 

Ashley, your information about Finnish Stug 3's aren't quite right. Finland bought 59 Stug 3's from germany during WW2, in years 1943 and 1944. The s.p. guns were used with great success to defende Finland against the massive attack by Russians in summer 1944.

The Bovington Stug is indeed one of those used in Finland and it is all original, although there are some minor postwar alterations, for example, the rear lights and their guards.

In fact, most Stugs in Europe's armormuseums come from Finland, for example Munster and Sinsheim.

Here in Finland we have 3 Sturmgeschutz 3 ausf.G restored in driving condition. I have taken part in restoring one of them, number 531-18.

So, no postwar Stug 3's were built in Finland and i have not heard that they had been built anywhere else either.

 

Best wishes!

 

Mikko.

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Don't forget also the small numbers that all german armour was produced in compared to allied, especially american armour. Some 48-49 thousand shermans were produced '39 - '45 and how many exist in preservation today? In contrast about 1300 tiger 1's were made and now i think about 6 survive, with only 131 at bovington in running condition. Plus with german armour being so thin on the ground, any spare parts you are lucky enough to find will cost the earth plus a bit, making restorations extremly expensive, as the sdkfz foundation and bovington have found. Many parts for german armour restorations now are made new, which is insanely expensive especially when you get into drive train parts.

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  • 4 months later...

A lot of them, after used by the allies for trials, ended up on firing ranges, like a lot of allied tanks did, theres loads of Churchills etc on firing ranges, shame the condition is too bad for them to be restored though

 

 

Toward the end of the logical tour round Bovington, tucked away in a corner behind a display (of how armour-defeating rounds work), can be found the only known surviving Schmalturm. I use the term "surviving" loosely: it spent many years on Lulworth ranges until somebody realised its historical significance.

 

Long story:

 

There were three pre-production versions of the Panther, so the first production version was Panther D. To understand why the next version was Panther A, it helps if you speak German. They say the letter "E" as we say "A" and they say A as we say "Ahhh" and even they sometime get it wrong. So Panther A ought to have been Panther E, but somebody wrote it down wrongly and it stuck.

 

Before the definitive final version, Panther G came into service, a radically-improved Panther F was in design. The mods were so severe it later became Panther II, and then scrapped, though all the mods were applied in the design of the Tiger II (which is why the latter looks more like the former than a Tiger 1) and indeed, the improved road wheel design was implimented on the late model Tiger 1E.

 

One of the biggest design changes was a much longer but slightly narrower turret to make loading the gun easier whilst reducing the frontal aspect to Allied gunners. This was the Schmalturm or Narrow Turret.

 

Sadly, Bovvy's Schmalturm has been essentially destroyed on the side that was facing uprange. It has been cleaned and tidied up (and rough edges painted red as appears to be the norm) and is displayed next to "How an armour-defeating round works" so that the effects of said rounds can be seen.

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