Posted on 07/03/2015 11:17:02 AM PDT by NRx
German soldiers grappled for nine hours with an unusual task: trying to remove a Second World War tank found in the cellar of a villa.
Almost 20 soldiers struggled to remove the tank from a villa on Thursday in a wealthy suburb of Kiel in northern Germany, after police searching the property discovered the tank, a torpedo, an anti-aircraft gun and other weapons in the cellar on Wednesday.
Police raided the home in the town of Heikendorf under instructions from prosecutors, who suspected that the villa's 78-year-old owner held the weaponry illegally under a law controlling the possession of instruments of war.
The army was called in to try to remove the 1943-vintage Panther tank, and struggled for nine hours to tow it out using two modern recovery tanks designed to haul damaged battle tanks off the field.
The soldiers ended up having to build their own wooden ramp in order to free to tank.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
The bureaucracy can be sluggish, but it never sleeps.
LOL!
A Panther is perfect for home self-defense.
He told the newspaper there was even a note from the responsible district office from 2005 stating that the tank had lost its weapons capability.
Mr Gramsch now wants to take legal action against the seizure and also for compensation for his client.
“I assume that the tank was damaged in the process,“ he said.
So, Eric Holder is doing consulting work for Germany now?
I don’t see any machine guns sticking out of the ports (turret and front armor), and the owner has a letter saying the main gun is disabled. It sounds like it’s a little less functional than a dozer but way cooler!
If memory serves, German tanks were designed to run without treads, so they could easily use railroad routes. One of the reasons the initial push against France and Britain went so quickly is, Rommel ran his entire tank force across a high railroad bridge over, hmm, one of the major rivers (considered to be a significant barrier) during the night, reinstalled treads, and merrily rolled on into attack the following morning.
Jaques Littlefield, Portola Valley, CA
He used to allow the public to tour his museum once a month before he fixed. Sadly, his collection was auctioned off last year and I never took the secretive tour.
It's probably worth a fortune. There are only a handful of Panzer Mk V still running and this one is very restorable.
Nothing like an 88 to deal with those pesky door-to-door salesmen.
They’re both worth a fortune, and I suspect that’s why they were seized.
Dear Sunken, About “run without tracks” Unfortunately you are mistaken. The Germans didn’t have that feature. They did take some tank turrets and mounted them on specially built rail cars for railroad support fire. Note the front drive sprocket, that powered the tracks. All the road wheels did was to roll along the track. Break the track and all you have is a big pillbox for defense. Think of the immobilized Sherman tank in the current movie “Fury.”
He had apparently dug them out of a former Wehrmacht arms depot with the ammo.
Most German arms depots in the field were simply bulldozed over with earth by the Allies: anything packed in cosmoline is probably still in good condition.
Sorry guy, Oddball traded gold and his Sherman for a PzKfwg Mk VI Tiger tank. Actually it was a vis-mod tiger that was sitting on top of either a Soviet T-34 or a British Cromwell chassis.
“It’s a piece of junk!, fuel leaks all over the place!”
He had apparently dug them out of a former Wehrmacht arms depot with the ammo.
Most German arms depots in the field were simply bulldozed over with earth by the Allies: anything packed in cosmoline is probably still in good condition.
Ob's stürmt oder schneit,
Ob die Sonne uns lacht
Der Tag glühend heiß
Oder eiskalt die Nacht
Bestaubt sind die Gesichter
Doch froh ist unser Sinn
Ist unser Sinn
Es braust unser Panzer
Im Sturmwind dahin
The price of the toys, is all that separates the men from the boys!
Stephen Morris, the drummer for Joy Division and New Order, owns a few tracked military vehicles, but I don’t think any are actual tanks. He’s in England, wonder how many bureaucratic hoops he had to jump through.
Thanks GreyFriar!
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