New pics of a JPz IV from 11. Panzerdivision from the 702nd Tank Battalion website:
http://www.thetroubleshooters.com/702nd/stover001.html>






and a Stug with Ostketten (north of Nancy):





from http://www.thetroubleshooters.com/702nd/seiler01.html>

Regards Uli

Hi Uli,

Thanks for doing the detective work to track down these photos of an old friend. They help to complete the picture of this rare vehicle, the Jagpanzer IV L/48 final one of the very last of it's kind, built by Vomag in September '44 alongside the L/70 and sharing many it's features, including: licht und schatten paintwork, 3 return rollers, no zimmerit and possibly smooth front fenders (no dot or dash pattern). One of your photos also reveals that this one had the earlier "can" exhaust system.

Here is a link to a 2002 post discussing the stencilled unit marking on the port front near the towing eye:

http://www.network54.com/Forum/47207/thread/1039193394/

As mentioned in the thread, Jon Bailey managed to ID this as 11 PD even before the "Gespenster" stencil was spotted.

Here are a few other views of the vehicle:





Manus

Hi Manus.

The first JgPz photo appears in the book Wydawnictwo "Militaria" 150 Jagdpanzer IV, credited Tank Museum Bovington.

In the concord book 7050 "US Tank Battles France" (page 58) is a uncropped version of the second pic with a village sign at the right. Unfortunately this sign is not clearly readable. Location near Morhange or near ST JEAN-ROHRBACH ?

Regards Uli

Hi Uli,

I think you're referring to the pics I posted, no? I don't think I've ever seen the two you posted before. I forgot the credit for my first photo, it was taken from p.122 of "Patton's Tank Drive" (MBI Publishers).

Manus

Hi Manus.

Yes i mean the pics you posted.

The credits of the Wydawnictwo "Militaria" series are sometimes vague.

Regards Uli.

Apart from a vague recollection of seeing a StuG III running on normal tracks, but with just a length of spare Ostketten fitted on its side or rear, thus far I can only recall one vehicle with Ostketten fitted. This is a Bergepanzer III seen in Jentz, Doyle and Chamberlain's seminal work Encyclopedia of German Tanks of WWII (p.76) and more recently Jentz's Panzer Tracts Bergepanzerwagen, to name but a few titles.

This unpublished grab below of the same vehicle come from a US Army cine film. The footage was made in Germany, probably in late February or March 1945, but does anybody know the actual location?



Detail:



These are some other grabs which were on the same film, but which don't appear to show the same stretch of tree-lined road as the Bergepanzer sits. They are of additional interest due to the not so commonly photographed Panzerfaust-equipped GIs (a nice touch for modellers):









Baz