Must of taken quite an explosion to fling the turret that far!

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Just for PzJgr!

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Internal ammunition explosion some times does that with tanks.

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Handle every stressful situation like a dog.
If you can't eat it or hump it.
Piss on it and walk away

I wish I had a Stug to use as a resting post.

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Time is only enemy you'll never get rid of.

Thats what happens when doing Gymnastics in a combat zone....So don't try it!

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Soviet IS-2

Attached Images

	IS 2.jpg (114.1 KB, 16 views)
	is 2berlinrusse7.jpg (127.7 KB, 15 views)

The quality of this photo is amazing. Almost looks as if it were staged last week.

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

I think it was staged though...The US soldiers look like they don't give a damn about the dead German.

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wow great pics guys!

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Members of the Dutch Resistance with 101st AB, Eindhoven. Operation Market Garden.

Scott

Check out the quality of that photo! WOW! I say it is staged. Look at the uniform. It is not a uniform of the mobile artillery but that of a normal landser and they knew better than to hang out with the elite StuG crews. So staged it was. I have spoken, just call me Pzjgr.

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American by birth, TEXAN by the grace of GOD!

Well, It's still a knocked-out StuG!

Nice Sig, BTW.

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Or even a knocked out StuH?

The caption for that picture from the US national archive says it shows men of the 2nd AD viewing that poor bastard's broken body in Normandy 1944.
What makes anyone think it's staged? The men may have been asked to pose for the camera but I can't see any reason why that crew member wasn't just blown there, it's as likely as any other grim scene from the period where what at first looks like a tattered tarpaulin in a photograph often turns out to be a shredded man hanging from a tree or somesuch.
I can't see any indication that his uniform couldn't be appropriate to a stuG or stuh crewman of that period either? He appears to be wearing the short jacket and perhaps even camo trousers that would be far from uncommon by then.

Despite the awful subject, it is a remarkable quality photograph, even with the interference of digital technology you can make out the criss-cross pattern Zimmerit on the vehicle, but by that time B+W photographic technology had been pretty much perfected for 50 years and 35mm & larger format films common at the time were more than capable of capturing that kind of detail.
I'd assume it was taken by an official photographer rather than a passing squaddie.
I'm certain it's part of a set I've seen that shows more of the grim detritus of the crew scattered around the same vehicle but now can't find the series.
I'll keep digging.

Cheers,
Adam.

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"Wars cannot be fought with dream stuff" - Sir Percy Hobart.

Heh, it looks like they think that it's nothing more then a drunken idoit who woundered out of his base and somehow died on the tank.

The photo quality is amazing, but then the old plate cameras and large-format Speed Graphics could deliver that sort of definition (note the limited depth-of-field - I'd doubt this is a 35mm image ).

As for the casual attitude - probably fairly typical of front-line combat soldiers ( whose thoughts would probably have been along the lines of 'It's one less...' )

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"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

Most likely medium format, 1620 or something, if it were full or even quarter plate we'd probably be able to see their nostril hairs. I've got glass plates from the 1890's that you can blow up any tiny 35mm size segment of and still get a perfect image, the detail can be phenomenal, nothing's ever come quite close to my eye.

Errrrm... To stop myself really getting started on cameras etc.... there's some excellent wrecked vehicle shots further down this page:
La bataille de Rânes-Fromentel

Cheers,
Adam.

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"Wars cannot be fought with dream stuff" - Sir Percy Hobart.

Nice find VP!

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Got to love technology!!

Oh and a nice site!

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

...

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K.Staton
Chesapeake Bay

Could be the M-32 Armoured Recovery Vehicle that was used.

M4 Sherman variants - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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American by birth, TEXAN by the grace of GOD!

Ward La France M1 Wrecker seems quite likely.
Recover tanks, lift engines, leap tall buildings in a single bound etc...
8.2 litres of Military classic, and in my opinion one of the finest vehicles of WW2.
Widely used both during and after the war.

Cheers,
Adam.

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"Wars cannot be fought with dream stuff" - Sir Percy Hobart.

I saw this and it would fit the bill of a 'wrecker' but it did not look like it could be used to recover tanks. Then again, who am I to question the great von Poop.

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American by birth, TEXAN by the grace of GOD!

Makes sense to me. Sorry I could never get more details.
Thanks

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K.Staton
Chesapeake Bay