Big panzer news!

[IanC]

Simply stunning provenance Simon, thanks for sharing.

Cheers

Ian

[Tim R. B.]

Simon, thanks for posting, really interesting thread. Would be good if we could follow the progress of these two old war horses. Tim.

[Simon O.]

I'll be posting new info as it comes to light. I learned yesterday that one of the vehicles, the ausf.M, may have signs of battle damage on the commanders cupola. Tor-Helge, will take a closer look and we'll tell you guys what he finds.

[SurvivingPanzer]

They will not be split up

Plan is to restore both of the sisters (or is it brothers???) to a statical condition locally.
The third Pz without any dataplate will be stripped of necessary parts to complete these 2 with road-wheels etc.

Cheers,

It always dissapoints me to hear a panzer will be stripped, bu tin this case I am glad we can get two out of three instead of these babies going to the junk heap.

[Panzer Rob]

I just received info this morning that by 31. Aug. 1943 Grossdeutschland were down to just 7 Pz.III (lg), of which these were two, 6 were operational and 76219 was under repair.

Incredible to think these two old warriors fought side by side in the same unit in the biggest tank battle in history, stayed together during their conversion to ausf.N, both sent to their new unit in Finland\Norway (we think they were sent to pz.abt.211 but pz.abt.Norwegen is also a posibility) and survived the war, stayed together whilst in Norwegian service in the late 40s and 50s and are still side by side today!

Now THAT is awesome I'm sure it won't be an easy task by any means, but I do hope that these two are given the proper restoration they deserve and properly preserved.

Rob

[the shadock]

As Rob said, all we can hope now is that these two battle-brothers will be restored and preserved as they deserve it. IMO, these are exceptional tanks with an incredible story, and only few WW2 German tanks had a such incredible combat and after-war career. I really hope that they will be presented as statical exposition in a public area (It would be a shame to hide them from the public view..), with a little (or a big?) sign on which the entire story will be explained.

Pierre-Olivier

http://the.shadock.free.fr/Surviving_Panzers.html

[Mike Bollow]

I just found this thread and am in shock! What a FANSTASTIC find! It's a shame that they plan to strip the worst one for parts, but I suppose that as misc. parts are found they can always build the stripped one back up.

I hope that the folks restoring it don't give up on the idea of making them run... my friends made a static Stug III(G) into a running panzer a few years ago! It took several years, and lots of machining/fabricating but it is a runner now and some wealthy guy in California has it.

Mike B.

[the shadock]

These 2 recovered Panzer IIIs make the number of known Panzer III tanks + variants raise from 24 to 26.

Pierre-Olivier

[PzV]

do you know if the Panzer will stay in Norway?

[Tor-Helge Y]

There are no plans to send any of the three out of Norway.

Cheers,

[Gaffken]

Following up on an item from the original thread, was anything ever found of the Stug III from the unit?

Gaffken

[PanzerJohn]

Great selection of photos of the 3 Panzers here..

http://www.tpmk.no/Forbilder/Panzer%20Setermoen.htm

[helmetbuyers]

Just curious...

as is... what would something like these be worth?

[Doug Kenwright]

The main gun marked EBK...produced by
Maschinenbau u. Bahnbedarf AG, formerly Orenstein u. Koppel, Werk Spandau and Werk Babelsberg (after c. 1943 only)

[panzerlord1]

...

Good luck simon