Photo of the Day: Panther II

Since the other two posts we made today both deal with the Panther tank, we figured we might as well stick with that theme for today’s POTD.  This picture comes from a musty old copy of the book “Tank Data: Aberdeen Proving Grounds Series“.  While the book does not contain a publication date, it appears to be from the 1950’s (our copy is the 1975 reprint edition.)  The book is basically a catalog of the various vehicles at APG at that time, including a full page picture and stats page for each vehicle.  Here is the picture and description of the Panther II that would later be housed for many years at the Patton Museum. Interestingly, the stats are for the Panther Ausf. G “Heavy Tank”, the photo is captioned as “Panzerkampwagen V, modified”.  Granted, the turret on this vehicle is from a Panther Ausf G, so the caption is half right.  Obviously, we would not recommend anyone use the stats from this book as gospel and we are only posting these as an example of how our understanding of these vehicles has improved over time.