Small Scale Military Headquarters

I find this picture of Panther Ds at what I believe is the battle of Kursk to be very fascinating. The tracks are pulled tight and not slack over the road wheels. Is this because they are in motion? I cannot post a picture so here is the URL:

http://www.ww2incolor.com/gallery/germans/ahs

Comments?

Hi,
I'd venture to guess that these vehicles are in motion, so the treads are pulled tight. Slack tracks would come into play when the vehicle is stopped. Keep in mind that the weight of the tracks would naturally make them sag unless the vehicle was in motion.

Another giveaway that this Panther Kompanie is in motion are the occassional tank commanders heads popping out of the turret. I seriously doubt whether these vehicles have stopped and are instead advancing upon a position or logistical point in enfilade. I'd say the latter is probably more the case, otherwise they would have adopted a battle ready formation and I dont think the cameraman would have exposed himself to enemy fire at the crest of a hill...

Lightning2000
www.themotorpool.net

Interestingly enough despite 50+ years of looking at thousands of tank photos and hundreds and hundreds of Panther photos in particular I never noticed that the tracks were pulled taut . I'n even had this picture up on my desktop for about a year and seen it dozens of times before noticing the treads. Something new everyday. Even in something old.

Here is a youtube video of a Panther on the move. The tracks are not pulling taut on this one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4SlNpZQuPY

Of course this one isn't moving very fast, but I wouldn't expect the ones in the picture to be rocketing along either.

It may also be a factor of the Panthers moving up what looks to be a relatively steep incline--I can imagine that that would cause enough of a weight shift that it may allow the front springs to decompress somewhat and reduce the amount of slack. Looking closer at the pic, it looks like the front of the tank is riding higher on the suspension than one on level groundusually does, and there may be a bit of slack at the very front road/idler wheels.

I am no expert, but the photo looks a little strange to me. It almost looks like it was a "clip and paste" job. The trees in the back are slightly out of focus but the tanks near them are not. Could they be photos of scale models? That is one guess.

The other guess is that since the tanks are moving over less than flat terrain, the compression of the suspension would cause the track to appear taught on the upper level. There is evidence in the books in my collection showing this, but honestly, not to the degree as portrayed in the photo...

Interesting though.

TJ

krieglok wrote:I am no expert, but the photo looks a little strange to me. TJ

I think the "strange " nature of the photo may simply be due to the colorizing process. This would have originally been a black and white photo, wouldn't it?

I am no expert, but the photo looks a little strange to me.

I agree. Those tanks look like they have been cut and pasted into the photo. Also that is dry dirt and there should be some kind of dust cloud behind the tanks. It could be an actual late war German propaganda photo for the folks back home.

These are clearly "D" models and given their number, similarity, lack of apparent damage I suspect this picture would have been from Operation Citadel. I would also suggest that it isn't dirt but mud and that the tanks are all so similar isn't terribly surprising and the guy in the first tank doesn't look like the ones in the following tanks. The gun barrels are also at different angles as are the tanks so I don't think its been doctored. As for colorization- I don't know. They did have color film at the time and there are many color photgraphs that began their lives as color photos from the time.

I have over 100 Panther photos in my file (not counting numerous books) and this is the only one in which the tracks look this way. It may be that all the others are of static tanks, and some of course have the tracks covered by the skirt. I'd almost think this is a doctored photo of the Corgi 60209.

I have a couple sets of those old "Veterans of Foreign Wars" photo history books of WW2. They were printed during and after the war. It is interesting that the Russians and Germans had many photos that were retouched (rather poorly) for what ever reason. They used to use paint brushes on the negetives and you could really tell. That is what that photo reminded me of...

TJ

This Panther picture was discussed on another forum and many of the tank experts came to the conclusion that the picture is a fake for several reasons. Not sure if it's one of those 1/6 scale tanks or not, but it's very doubtful it's a real picture.

Tshintl: Can you supply a URL for the posting thread? There certainly are a lot of Panthers in that one picture.....

Just a thought here, and I'm by no means an authority on the subject, but maybe "new" tracks need to go on "tight" and develop slack with use over time?? It would make sense because if they put the tracks on too loose initially, then over time they would become excessively loose due to normal "stretch" and the vehicle would become prone to throwing tracks, not a good thing in a combat situation. It's just a thought, and I have no idea if there is any merit to it.

Itcbj,

The thread is below. Some of the points made are...

- We are looking at the same tank 12 times and the front one is driving with its engine covers open

- To me it just looks like a fake with the same tank repeated, it could even be a model. The two have the same wheel set as though they were going over the same piece of ground. If you look at the shadow cast by the tracks of the front tank you can see light showing through the holes in the track where the teethof the drive sprocket fit, it the tank was actually moving that wouldn't happen

- The dead give away for me is that the tracks whilst being able to be taught at speed , even if the track is slack, cannot be taught if the road wheels are raised because even more track is fed over the top

- its sitting forward on its suspension and not back


http://xsorbit30.com/users5/wargamesroo ... pic=1708.0

The more I look at it, the more inclined I am to now believe its a fake although I said otherwise earlier in this thread. I'm no photo-analyst but a couple of things now strike me as strange.

First, if the vehicles were in motion, there would be some tell tale signs behind the vehicle like dirt being kicked up or muddied tracks for each individual vehicle. Right now it looks like they're all traveling over ground crossed by other vehicles.

Secondly, the shadow's cast by the gun barrel on the right most tanks towards the bottom of the image fall the same way as they do as the tanks in the forground at the top of the hill, even though they're facing in a different direction. If the sun was truly casting a shadow from one vantage point, the shadow would look slightly different for each vehicle.

Anyway, just my two Deutchsmarks...

Lightning2000
www.themotorpool.net

I have no idea, which is why I asked in the first place. However my contrarian nature insists that I ask:
1) If the ground were just normal-damp and the Panthers moving slowly we wouldn't necessarily expect to see dust or mud flung up.
2) I don't know what difference the ground already being run ove means. Just that it was crossed by prior travelers.
3) The angle of the gun shadow is a great clue. It seems that it should fall at the same angle, but across different parts of each tank, depending on both the turret (gun) facing and the chassis facing, as well as the relative facing of chassis to gun. The shadow (based on the first tank) seems fairly consistent although it cannot be seen on the tanks in the rear at all due to focus problems. Those in the "foreground" do seem to have a consistent look though.
4) The "D" model of the Panther had a number of design problems and one can't expect it would be as photogenic as the "A" and "G" models.

I don't know, it just doesn't look authentic to me...it's the way the trees in the background don't quite blend with the flow of the land...also the tanks just don't seem to be apart of the landscape like they should on a real 2D picture...they just seem to have been "placed" there...I'm no photo expert, just going with my gut on this one, I'm thinking someone pretty good with photoshop tweaked this one a bit...and if you look closely right behind the first tanks there's some "blurring" that resembles a photoshop tool and one of the tanks in the background behind the 2nd tank the commander's coupola isn't even there....

easy8