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Lost Eastern Block Tanks.....tall story?


ajmac

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A chap dropped into the simulator room today to have a chat about the Loyd and lend me some books on KO'd Panzers. He had been to Bovington for Tank Fest earlier in the year and was alive with stories. There are a couple which caught my attention, I hadn't heard them before so I thought I'd ask on here.

 

Breakup of the USSR a Tiger 1 on a plinth in a City (none specific) got lost and no one has seen it since. Where did it end up?

 

Building a new road in Ukraine a drained marsh gave up two Panthers in perfect condition.

 

To my mind both of these are tosh, but does anyone have any info?

 

Oh yea and the 3rd piece of Info was that the Sdkfz JagPanther cost £3Million to restore and that is was possibly going to be 'on loan' to the Tank Museum in the near future.

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A chap dropped into the simulator room today to have a chat about the Loyd and lend me some books on KO'd Panzers. He had been to Bovington for Tank Fest earlier in the year and was alive with stories. There are a couple which caught my attention, I hadn't heard them before so I thought I'd ask on here.

 

Breakup of the USSR a Tiger 1 on a plinth in a City (none specific) got lost and no one has seen it since. Where did it end up?

 

Building a new road in Ukraine a drained marsh gave up two Panthers in perfect condition.

 

To my mind both of these are tosh, but does anyone have any info?

 

Oh yea and the 3rd piece of Info was that the Sdkfz JagPanther cost £3Million to restore and that is was possibly going to be 'on loan' to the Tank Museum in the near future.

 

The Tiger story probably relates to the one at Snegri (sp?) which disappeared but istr turned up again. There is stuff about it on the net.

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The various bits of the USSR, give up tank wrecks pretty often.

As for Panthers, nothing that could be described as "in perfect condition" has been found.

The one displayed at Sinsheim came from a bog in the Ukraine, it's still in its original paint, but as for perfection?

http://www.detektorweb.cz/index.4me?s=show&i=8171&mm=1&vd=1

 

Littlefield's came out of a river in Poland, in very "second-hand" condition.

There's been a Stug in superb condition, now at Saratov

http://www.detektorweb.cz/index.4me?s=show&i=2988&mm=1&vd=1

A PzIII from a river

http://www.detektorweb.cz/index.4me?s=show&lang=1&i=12975

And from another bog

http://www.detektorweb.cz/prispevky/clanky/rusko-a-technika-iv-3351/

The various T34 are well-known, the rest is very fragmentary.

Missing Tiger? There's precious few around, none have gone AWOL recently. The only potential candidate currently on display, is the battered remains at Lenino-Snegri.

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A chap dropped into the simulator room today to have a chat about the Loyd and lend me some books on KO'd Panzers. He had been to Bovington for Tank Fest earlier in the year and was alive with stories. There are a couple which caught my attention, I hadn't heard them before so I thought I'd ask on here.

 

Breakup of the USSR a Tiger 1 on a plinth in a City (none specific) got lost and no one has seen it since. Where did it end up?

 

Building a new road in Ukraine a drained marsh gave up two Panthers in perfect condition.

 

To my mind both of these are tosh, but does anyone have any info?

 

Oh yea and the 3rd piece of Info was that the Sdkfz JagPanther cost £3Million to restore and that is was possibly going to be 'on loan' to the Tank Museum in the near future.

 

There are Cold War tales of the Soviets holding stocks of restored Panthers and Tigers in warehouses ready to use as reserves in the face of a NATO assault. On the basis that some of these would have emerged in the aftermath of the break-up of the old USSR, I suspect these were tall tales. On a more practical level, with the numbers of T-34/T-55s readily available, I can't really see it as a practical plan anyway and would a Tiger or Panther be any more reliable with a Red Star on the side?

 

There are occasional finds in Eastern Europe, perhaps most notably the FW-190 (a winged thing) which was "found" in the location were it made a forced landing in 1944 and has been restored to flying condition and is due to take to the air any time now.

 

Tanks have been dragged from marshes and rivers, though in some cases the wrecks have been known for years, it's just that permissions to extract and access is now possible.

 

This site (which I think is a metal detectorist's site) seems to have details of some of these recoveries, http://www.detektorweb.cz/index.4me?s=show&lang=1&i=28369&mm=2&xb=2&vd=1&PHPSSIDWx=c86fb576e29e85158bbe7762113896f1

 

jch

Edited by jchinuk
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