Photo of the Day: Panther II

September 3, 2016 by Leave a Comment

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.

Panther modified

Panther Heavy tank

 

 

 

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Wheatcroft Collection gains huge haul of WW2 German vehicle parts

February 2, 2016 by 5 Comments

According to a post at warhistoryonline.com, the Wheatcroft Collection has come across a “huge haul” of rare German tank, half-track engines and spare parts.

Maybach-HL120-5The Wheatcroft Collection in the United Kingdom is a large and important collection of historical softskin and armored military vehicles. It is one of the largest private collection of military vehicles in the world.

The collection has around 200 items, including more than 130 vehicles, of which 88 are tanks.The majority of the collection is of German, American and British origin, with a smaller number of vehicles from Norway, Japan, France, Russia and Sweden. The owner of the collection, Kevin Wheatcroft, has been collecting military vehicles for 30 years.

The collection is perhaps notable for having a number of extremely valuable and rare Second World War-era German military vehicles, including three Panther tanks, one of which is close to full restoration, one Panther II, two rare Tiger II (also known as “King Tiger”) tanks, a Tiger 1 as well as a StuG assault gun, a Panzer III, and a Panzer IV tank.The collection is also working on restoring the only surviving German E Boat.

Kevin Wheatcroft said:  ‘This is one of the most significant mechanical finds of recent times and has overnight supplied us with all the engines and gearboxes we need for our current restoration program’.

Editors note:  We find the mention of a ‘Panther II” in the Wheatcroft Collection to be rather curious.  As far as we know, the only existing Panther II is the one that was part of the Collection at the Patton Museum which is now at Fort Benning.

 

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