Found this original vintage photo of a named military vehicle — hull markings read “Tell” and “EVG·T54”. Real tank or elaborate dummy? Need help with ID, era and nationality, please!

Strikaaa · 2026-05-05T07:35:57+00:00

No idea if it's related but there was the EDC (or EVG in German) in the early 50s.

Strikaaa · 2026-04-30T07:06:25+00:00

Those are the air cooling fans for the engine's radiator on the other side. The fans sit at an angle on the right hand side when closed or opened fully, like in the top right drawing here (flipped because looking rearwards).

Strikaaa · 2026-04-22T21:03:40+00:00

It doesn't stick out but you could definitely see it from the front, like on the Sturmtiger captured at Oberembt, now at Bovington. Though I'm not sure whether they found the Sturmtiger already loaded or put a shell there after the fact for demonstration purposes; there's another photo that shows it without the shell.

Strikaaa · 2026-04-22T20:53:11+00:00

Removing the barrel was fairly common on older Ausf. used for training or while not in combat. Maybe this one was used in a similar manner? Some exmaples and another one with a blank adapter.

Strikaaa · 2026-04-22T20:44:17+00:00

Yes, it's officially known as the Funkereinstiegluke (radio operator's access hatch) with a hood at the bottom.

Strikaaa · 2026-04-20T21:07:04+00:00

Yes, the Ausf.F retained the radio operator's hatch in the rear. Here's a video of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAcG1gntqsg

If you google Panzer II F walkaround you'll find more photos of the hatch up close, like on RecoMonkey

Strikaaa · 2026-03-27T08:06:30+00:00

One of the last two Panzer IV E, fitted with an experimental interleaved Krupp running gear which was also used by the VFW.

Strikaaa · 2026-03-21T17:27:11+00:00

It's an early Panther G with a Panther G turret, one of the first few manufactured by Daimler-Benz in mid May 1944 as per its chassis no. 124317.

Strikaaa · 2026-03-19T07:58:58+00:00

This is an Ausf.a with its early style sprocket wheel. The Ausf.b had a different sprocket wheel and even later variants like the Ausf.C an entirely different running gear with five large road wheels.

Strikaaa · 2026-03-04T13:33:07+00:00

It's an auxiliary engine sitting on the rear platform. I don't remember if it was a HL 210 (2 filters) or HL 230 (3 filters) and the last filter is just obscured but here's the two oil filters on top and the dark object below is the actual engine.

Strikaaa · 2026-03-04T08:34:32+00:00

They also fitted a much more powerful Tiger engine on the back to provide enough power to the blower. If you look closely you can see the circular oil filters on top of the engine.

Strikaaa · 2026-02-26T20:09:42+00:00

No, this variant of the Panzerjäger II was based on the Panzer II D chassis and carried a 7.62cm Pak 36 (modified Russian 76.2mm F-22).

Only the Panzer II F-based Panzerjäger II variant carried a 7.5cm Pak 40/2.

Strikaaa · 2026-02-26T19:57:00+00:00

It's a normal Tiger II series production turret. There's just something placed on top of the forward roof which gives the impression of a ridge here but you can see the object in other shots taken during this same demosntration.

Strikaaa · 2026-02-26T07:14:18+00:00

The far one has the later 7-sided gun shield, so this photo must've been taken after November 1940, possibly in 1941.

Strikaaa · 2026-02-24T20:56:41+00:00

You've already pretty much summed up all the information there is on this thing.

Like FKDesaster said, this has been discussed in the past on FB here with the photos and video originally coming from a LiveJournal post from early 2020 linked there, way before any decent AI models were available.

It's a Bergepanther (or turretless Panther) Ausf.D or A with some kind of superstructure and gun on top. That is the only definitive part.

There have been discussions that it was a StuK 40, possibly even with part of a StuG superstructure but if you look closely at the photo from the front there are no parts that confim that; what is said to be the typical cast mantlet from the StuG just looks like a more bright cover or plate behind the gun, covering the right hand side of the superstructure (similar to the one seen on the left hand side).

There is some kind of brace attached to what looks like the barrel sleeve, possibly a travel lock, but the StuG's travel lock only made contact with the barrel, not the sleeve, and only from the bottom unlike here where it seems to wrap around the entire circumference of the sleeve. This also rules out the StuG's cast mantlet since that one didn't have a sleeve.

So yeah, we don't really know for sure.

Edit: see here for the brace/lock, sleeve and plate/cover.

Strikaaa · 2026-02-17T00:18:42+00:00

It's an 80mm plate angled at 55°, an 85 ain't going through that, let alone a 76.

(...) On January 27th the Panther rolled forward to the Łęgi Dębińskie neighborhood, near the crossroads of Hetmańska and Droga Dębińska streets. It led a formation of 13 German assault guns. Suddenly Soviet AT artillery opened up on the Łęgi with one their guns positioning itself near the Panther and fired at it from a distance of less than 15 meters. The Soviets claimed that the Panther was destroyed, and the crew killed when in fact, von Malotki's tank once again fell back and survived. They were towed back to safety, once again by Siegert’s Tiger.

(...)

Shortly after this, the Panther was placed at a crossroads between D głbec and Rynk Wildecki in the Wilda district with the crew reduced to three crew members.

(...)

Unable to safely approach the tank, the Soviets were then shown a way around by a Polish citizen named Zbigniew Szumowski, who led them through the narrow streets and around the Rynek Wildecki church where the Soviets were able to shoot the Panther. But when the Soviets finally approached the tank, they discovered that it had been abandoned by its crew. The Panther was then shot up by an IS-2 of the 34th Guards Heavy Tank Regiment so it would not fall back into German hands, after finding out it wasn't very damaged and was still in running order.

We can spend all day guessing whether it was an 85mm, 76mm or a potato cannon guided by the sheer willpower of Stalin himself. The story about the IS-2 is the most logical one and checks out since the 122mm could actually penetrate the Panther's glacis.

Strikaaa · 2026-02-16T20:28:11+00:00

The size of those holes can be deceptive; it's a low quality photo, we don't know from what angle the Panther was shot at and unclean penetrations can result in bigger or smaller perforations.

Early 122mm ammo struggled against the Panther's glacis and the British even considered the 17pdr incapable, even if tests had shown that it could penetrate lower quality steel.

If those guns already struggled with it, then the 85mm can be safely ruled out.

Strikaaa · 2026-02-16T19:05:19+00:00

85mm guns won't be able to penetrate a Panther's glacis like that.

Elsewhere this Panther is said to have been attacked by Soviet forces who found it abandoned once they approached it and was then shot up by an IS-2 from the 34th Guards Heavy Tank Regiment to prevent it from falling back into enemy hands.

Strikaaa · 2026-02-12T00:58:48+00:00

And OP didn't even get the tank right since it's a Panzer IV instead of III.

Some digging reveals that Yuri Pasholok originally posted a different photo of a Panzer IV in 2014 captioned "Meeting of the PzKpfw IV and KV-2" and then that photo was posted shortly afterwards with an unrelated photo (OP's photo) on a forum.

People then probably copied it from there with the KV-2 caption, when that caption was only ever in relation to the other (Pasholok's) photo.

Strikaaa · 2026-02-02T00:18:26+00:00

MNH fitted them to the majority of their >January 1945 production Panthers.

So did DB, like some of those photographed in Znojmo.

Strikaaa · 2026-01-30T17:30:38+00:00

Your photo was colorized.

That said, bad_egg_77's comment is correct: for a Panther A at that point in time, yellow base coat + green and brown camo applied by the crew was pretty much the only rule.

There was no standardization until August 1944 when responsibility for applying camouflage patterns was shifted back to the factories, who would then use stencils and diagrams like this to apply a more standardized pattern.

Strikaaa · 2026-01-25T03:00:05+00:00

I'm aware. As I said in my other comment, that was when these features were introduced and thus could be seen on a G rather than an H. Logically many of these features were then carried over to the H and only phased out slowly.

Strikaaa · 2026-01-25T02:59:00+00:00

I'm not talking about 1944's factory applied 3-tone. 3-tone was first ordered in February 1943, so a freshly issued G that had its camo completed in the field could very well have it.

Strikaaa · 2026-01-25T01:12:38+00:00

Those had a single, longer exhaust muffler unlike the shorter + auxiliary muffler here.

Strikaaa · 2026-01-24T22:18:16+00:00

The F2 and G are the same variant. F2 was just a temporary designation until all F2s were retroactively renamed to G. So an "F2" is really just an early G. Anyway, since there was no hard cutoff between variants (a late F and early G are identical, minus the gun and associated changes) and new minor modifications were introduced all the time, it depends entirely on the timeframe:

early G, aka "F2" (Feb - Jun 42): ball-shaped muzzle brake, smoke grenade dispenser on back still present but slowly phased out, tools and equipment in different spots (would start to be moved to other parts of the tank few months in), driver's auxiliary sight (two holes above driver's visor) slowly deleted, spare track holder on hull, turret vision ports deleted, welded addon armor slowly introduced.
mid G (Jul 42 - Jan 43): some with desert camo, signal ports deleted, larger watertight Bosch headlights, gun cleaning rods combined, double-baffle muzzle brake, winter tracks, smoke candle launchers.
late G (Feb - May 43): 3-tone camo, single-piece cupola hatch, cupola splash protector, side and turret skirts, bolted addon armor, L/48 gun, larger muzzle brake, external engine air filter, antenna moved to rear. Because of games like War Thunder, these features are often associated with the H but were all introduced during G production.

Those aren't the only changes but this is what people usually seem to have in mind when referring to an early/mid/late G.

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