Hey all!

I know this has been gone over before but it looked like it's been a few years so I thought I would see if anything has changed.

I am trying to find any pictures of a MNH panther tank with the rear stowage boxes with the 5 vertical embossed lines other than Cuckoo, or any other proof that they actually existed.

I am also open to discussions of the likelyhood of them existing.

James

When I get up to the work room today (I hope!), I'll leaf through my references to find the citations and page numbers, but there are a couple of photos that I can recall of at least one Jagdpanther with that style box.

IIRC, there might be one or two other photos of actual Panthers (besides Cockoo) with them as well.

Jentz and Doyle provide a written description along with scale drawings in their Panzer Tracts Panther and Jagdpather books.

FWIW, I think the evidence is definitive that they existed, but they were surely scarce.

I think that it's very possible that they were a MNH factory locally procured or on-site fabricated item used in place of the standard sub-contracted boxes to meet a temporary shortage of the standard boxes. But, that's just a guess on my part based on nothing more than how few have shown up in photos and some ideas about the state of industry in Germany during the late war years.

I wouldn't hesitate to put them on the rear of an MNH Panther as an interesting variation.

Well, after an hour in the work room, I couldn't find my "muse" and I couldn't find any photos of Panther gun-tanks with the MNH rear box either!

The photo that I had in the back of my mind turned out to be a pic of another Panther with the rear IR equipment stowage box. Aside form "Cuckoo," that was it for tanks.

However, I did find two photos of the box on two different Jagdpanther G1's.

The one book that had both photos was:

Munch. "The Complete Combat History of the schwere Panzerjager Abteilung 654." Published by Fedorowitz.

Page 549, top, has a picture of a G1 from 3rd platoon, 1./sPzJ Abt 654. (You can see the ribs on the box best if you turn the book sideways.)

Page 570, bottom, has a picture of tactical number "123," 2nd platoon, 1./sPzJ Abt 654. This same photo is also published in Panzer Tracts 9-3, pg. 9-3-60 and in the Speilberger & Feist book "Panzerkampfwagen V Panther" (1968) on pg. 43.

Interestingly enough (and totally off-topic!), In the Speilberger-Feist book, that photo is captioned, "A Jadgpanther your author commanded which was knocked out by American anti-tank guns in April 1945." (BTW: This caption contradicts the info in "History of sPzJ Abt 654.")

Both Panzer Tracts 5-3 and 9-3 also have scale drawings of the MNH box on pages 5-163 and 9-3-54, respectively.

So, that makes at least three different vehicles with the MNH box. (Although it's at least arguable that the "Cuckoo" box is a replacement from a Jagdpanther since neither of its rear boxes have Zimmerit, but the tank was clearly manufactured with it.) The MNH boxes existed, even if in very small numbers.

Sorry I couldn't find any other photos, but maybe I can find my model-building "muse" if I look hard enough!

Happy modeling!

Thanks for the help Mike, I really appreciate you going out of your way to find those photos for me.

So far we have Cuckoo with the left box, jagdpanther 123 with the pic that shows the right box and the one laying on it's side (both of which I found online after much searching) and the Bovington Museum panther with both boxes.

Since Jagdpanthers and Panthers were built at the same facilities (to my knowledge). I have no problem with assuming that they were putting the same boxes on both models of tank. I think Panzer tracts says April of 45 for the start date but Cuckoo was captured in 44. So I think it will be appropriate for my fall of 44 Panther.

So, I guess I'll be buying the aber MNH stowage boxes after all

Thanks for the help!
And thank you for your 44 Panther G build log. I'll be referencing it many times during my build.

James

(edit) fixed a sentence to say what I meant, not what I typed.