PANTHER No:231 Daimler Benz production 1943/1944

[Lubomir Toman]

Hello everybody,
my next, third armor project is Panther late autumn 1943 - winter, early spring 1944. This panther number 231 was abandoned in May 1945 - 9 km from Jihlava direct to town Brtnice, Czechoslovakia, region Vysočina. This place is located 13km from my home. it is probably the remains of a short battle for the town of Jihlava. That's why I chose this tank for my project. Attached are a few original photographs from AFV Photo Album book.

[Lubomir Toman]

The Book

[Lubomir Toman]

Mark Lawson helped me with the analysis of the pictures, I would like to thank him very much. I quote below:

"To me it looks like a Daimler Benz Panther from December 1943 or January 1944 with a few interesting features.

The front end; as you may already know, is without a lot of zimmerite and has a repair from a hit that probably gouged the scurvy in the front, looks like it was filled with weld and left horizontal lines.
I can't see if the shell has monocular or binocular sights, or even if one was plugged in to make it binocular.

The left side; as you already know, the cleaning rod sleeve of the gun was moved to the rear and additional zimmerite was applied in the field to this location.
On page 78 plus other pages there is an L-shaped round rod bracket welded on the side near the rails, I have never seen it before and have no idea what it was used for, I can't tell if it is on the right side as well, but from the left side it is clear that there is only one bracket, so it is not for additional replacement rails.

Tower; the vent on the roof of the turret is an early production version, not the later rounded cast version, in December there were no longer gun plugs on the sides but there was one at the rear, this was removed at the end of January, note, that the escape hatch handle is at a slight angle, there is no zimmerit on the dome which is sometimes seen on MNH and Daimler Benz Panther, also note that there is a strange bracket welded on the back of the dome, again I have not seen this.

The rear plate; at this point you are usually looking to see what month it was made in but not much can be seen as this area is in shadow, however we can see it still has the single pipes for the exhausts it will also have an early engine control cover with no towing device and should have either a 15ton or 20ton jack mounted horizontally yes over the engine control cover as seen on page 5-76, 5-104 and at the back of your book Panzer tracts 5-2. See page 5-95 for parts drawings.
The vertical 20 ton short jack was fitted to the MAN Panther from early February 1944. MNH and Daimler Benz did not get the 20 ton short jack until March 1944, but the triple exhaust manifold on the left side was received sometime in late February 1944.

The rear tension wheels; these are not the early types, having been changed at some point to the later 650mm Ausf G version. I suspect this was done in the field, as the exhausts were not upgraded to the later triple pipe version.

There are no Balkan crosses painted on the hull, these were in various places depending on the factory that produced the Panther, they were painted at the factory and often repainted in the field"

[Lubomir Toman]

here was my first step's

[Lubomir Toman]

[Lubomir Toman]

welding and welding again ......

[Lubomir Toman]

..and next parts mounted. Thanks Mark.

[Lubomir Toman]

bottom of the tank, moving on ....

[Lubomir Toman]

my attempt at zimmerit application

[Lubomir Toman]

[Lubomir Toman]

Rear plate zimmerit

[Steve Norris]

Lubomir.
This is going to be a very nice Panther when complete, good to see you have added details to the lower hull.
Mark is a bit of a Panther expert and always keen to advise.
Regards
Steve