Could someone give me the details for a Jagdpanther from above unit in Holland 1944?

(Turretnumbers, tool stowage, technical details, etc)

I'm guessing august prod, and I've seen the pics of the KO'd ones in Holland.

I have Spielberger Schwere Jagdpanzer, but I won't be doing a lot of Jagdpanthers, so don't want to invest in more books.

Thanks in advance.



best regards,




Marc Brandes

All the photos I've seen of 559 from around that period (not many, but at least three different vehicles) show no unit-level modifications. No relocated stowage tube or anything like that.

darren "at" lippi.org

Apreciate it.

best regards,




Marc Brandes

Marc,

s.H.Pz.Jg.Abt.559 received the following vehicles up to September 1944

May 1944 - 5 JgPanthers
August 1944 - 8 JgPanthers
September 1944 - 2 JgPanthers (3rd September)

According to figures from the late Ron Klages I show the unit with 30 JgPanthers in Sept 1944. 2 delivered as above plus a further 15 during the month. I have a further document on Independent Anti-Tank Units by Martin Block which states that a total of 17 JgPanthers were delivered in September 1944. This would back up Ron's figure of 30 in September. If anyone can help with more specific dates for the remaining 15 that would be great as my figures are missing them.

In short you could probably go for May, August or September 1944.

Hope this helps

Regards

Toby

According to Panzer Tracts 9-3 it would appear that the 559 Abt consisted of 1 Company of Jgpanthers and 2 Companies of StuGs. It does not however, back up the number of vehicles allocated to the unit as above. It states that 5 were issued at Mielau in May 1944. Nothing further was issued until 11 more were received between 21-25th August. A further 2 were sent on 3rd Seoptember, 2 days after the unit had left for the front. I would suggest that the JgPanther Company would be numbered 3## with the StuG companies being 1## and 2##. This is because at the end of the article on 559 Abt it says that on 1st November 1944 there were only 6 JgPanthers in the 3rd Company. I have not had a chance to search for pics of the unit in other books, but there are 2 command vehicles in Panzer Tracts. One is numbered 01 whilst the other does not have any obvious numbers. Returning to Panzer Tracts it states that by 29th September the 559 Abt was down to 9 JgPanthers (3 operational) and 8 StuGs.

Regards

Toby

A complete Jagdpanther allocation list sorted a) by date of delivery and b) receiving units can be found here:
http://www.panther1944.de/Panther/jagdpanther/Jagdpanther_einheiten.htm

The late Ron Klage's figure of 30 Jagdpanther available with s.H.Pz.Jg.Abt. 559 on 30.9.1944 is indeed unfortuately incorrect. As Toby already quoted from Panzer Tracts actually German records show 9 Jagdpanther and 8 StuG III at the end of September 1944. After receiving 13 StuG III as replacements the unit repored 9 Jagdpanther and 21 StuG III on 4.10.1944.

Of the 18 Jagdpanthers issued to the unit from May until September 1944 one was handed over to s.H.Pz.Jg.Abt. 560 before the 559 was transferred to the Western Front.

According to Oblt. Franz M. Kopka, himself a veteran of the 3.(StuG III) Kompanie and temporary battalion commander in Sep/Oct 1944, the Stabskp./s.H.Pz.Jg.Abt. 559 had 3 Jagdpanther numbered 01, 02 and 03 in black with white outlines.

The 1./s.H.Pz.Jg.Abt. 559 had 14 Jagdpanther numbered 101, 102, 111, 112, 113, 114, 121, 122, 123, 124, 131, 132, 133 and 134.

Martin Block

This is way more than I had hoped for.


Thanks again.

best regards,




Marc Brandes

Martin,

Thanks for clearing up the inconsistencies in my response. It has however, raised some other points that I wonder if you could help with.

1. Going back through a previous ML post by yourself on 10th August 2004 you state that Jagdpanthers were used by "s.H.Pz.Jg.Abt. 559 (Stab & 3. Kp.) from 5/1944 onwards". This is also in Panzer Tracts. I know you put in your post that it was the 1.Kompanie (which to me made far more sense than the 3.Kompanie), is this a simple mistake by the Panzer Tracts team?

2. Secondly, http://www.sturmvogel.orbat.com/pzjgabt.htm refers to Independent Anti-Tank Units of the Wehrmacht. Within it the s.H.Pz.Jg.ABt.559 is shown to have been issued 5 JgPanthers in May, 8 in August and 17 in September. This equals 30, which is too many for one company. Is it possible that it should show 17 JgPanthers in September (14 in one Kompanie with 3 in the Staff Kompanie) instead of a further 17 issued. The reason I ask is that your name is linked as one of the contributors, and I was just making sure that it was a translation error. Looking at a translation of the link in your post, it seems more likely that it is a mistake and should show 17 vehicles in total in September.

Best regards

Toby

Hi Toby,

Years go by, new documents and information come in, and --- nobody is perfect!

1. It was infact the 1. Kp. that was equipped with Jagdpanther and not the 3. Kp.! This is confirmed by the memoirs of the commander of the 3. Kp. (StuG III) who hopefully remembered the type of vehicle he rode in correctly and apart from that was able to provide turret numbers, loss dates, locations and names of commanders for almost half of the Jagdpanthers of the Stab and 1. Kp.!

2. Delivery records of the Gen.Insp.d.Pz.Tr. do show that s.Pz.Jg.Abt. 559 received a total of only 18 Jagdpanther of which 1 was handed over to s.H.Pz.Jg.Abt. 560. So the unit was sent to the Western Front with 17 Jagdpanther only, and that is additionally confirmed a) by the units own and Ob. West records and b) the battalion history written by Oblt. Kopka, himself a veteran of the 3. Kp. and temporary battalion commander when the CO was wounded as his Jagdpanther 'O1' whas knocked out.

Im probably am listed on the 'Sturmvogel' site because they used informations taken from my posts on this and other internet forums but I did never provide any data directly to them nor did I cross-check the data they published on their site. Probably a typo, I do not know.

Martin Block

Martin,

Thanks very much for taking the time to answer my queries. I thought that it was probably just typos. Re the old info from yourself about the 3.Kompanie I understand that info changes, but without people like yourself who find that new information and share it with the rest of us, we would all be in the dark.

Thanks again

Toby