Hi to all fans of german Leopards,

Studying german Leopard 2A6 on page
http://www.primeportal.net/tanks/hans-hermann_buhling/leopard_2a6/index.php?Page=3 I noticed an interesting detail. One of the tanks (or all of the battalion?) is wearing a Wehrmacht insignia from WW2 of 11th Panzer Division; ghost with the sword. One tank has some marks of Germanic runes.

Both tanks on page have a distinctive markings.
No. 230 belongs to the 2nd Company, 104th Panzer Battalion.
No. 413 to 4th Company, 104th Panzer Battalion.

QUESTIONS:

Which of them is marked with the ghost? Or some third tank has it??

Where is the exact position of this mark? Right side of the basket??? Or is it on the both sides of basket??

Germans please report with answers!

Thx

Hans bitte helfen Sie mir!

Kein Hans da.




I dont now, will ask a friend, who served in the 5./104.




Only the right side of the basket.

Mit kameradschaftlichen Grüßen, Viktor

Viktor vielen Dank für Ihre Antwort.

If I'm not asking too much, I have a couple questions.

1. These are the tags that puts every crew in its sole discretion?

2. Ask for the number on the turret of the tank, if any.

3. What is on the left side of the basket?

I see that they have something like this ...





This is very nice, with the card.

Hi Val,

I took these specific pics back in 2005 at the Pfreimd base.
First the marking on Leopard tanks are not persistent. I think they change when a new Bn. commander comes. These are mere individual marking applied by the vehicle crews. I noticed that other Panzer Bataillions use different individual markings.
4./104 C-III reads: 4. Kompanie Panzerbataillon 104, 3.Zug, 3. Fahrzeug. I even think that marking system changes from company to company. Maybe Viktor can shed light on this.

HTH
Hans-Hermann

This is from PzBtl. 104 Sept. 2011 ... quite a few tanks had this



Cheers
Christopher

Hans has helped a lot. THX!!!!
He sent me a lot of pictures and I found it.
Tank is from 4. Kompanie Panzerbataillon 104.

Now only if Viktor dig some more information from friend.
Perhaps the number of the tank if it ever has it on a turret ...

Hi

The turret numbers were deleted when the "new type" smoke discharger were installed.
So you would have to set your tank around 2005-2006 to be in the correct time line.
I believe I have a few pics with turret number still on after the refit but you can hardly identify them and since BW uses "decals" for their IDs and other signs these turret numbers disappeared quite fast.

Cheers
Christopher

Yeah, I know. I see by the pictures that they are constantly changing something with those markings.

This will be my Leopard from 2005., just when it was photographed by Hans.

For now, I am well pleased. I have a picture of a tank, the license plate number, the number of battalion ...

The number still may be subsequently sticked to the turret if he had been on it.

and all this messing around with markings is done to keep modelbuilders confused, forever looking for the correct combination, searching a set of photos that show one specific vehicle from all four sides (preferably also from above) at one specific moment in time .....
/ Robin

Hi Val,

Leopards, used in the European part of NATO were not seldomly showing a wide variety of (less, if not illegal) body art.
Units, and individual teams, used the historical background of a unit to impress the military environment. ( a tendency which has been made to a form of art by tank and artillery units!! )
One of the best ways to see that is going into the history of the Canadian Army Trophee, where complete tanks were resprayed.
Also, during (international) exercises, tanks were using various colored indication crosses or panels, to show the side they were used on.
But also for promotional and birthday parties tanks got this body art. There have been Milka pink (in Germany) and Orange (in The Netherlands) Leopard sneaking around...................

Hi Val,

I think the turret number of the "Ghost" tank is 433. 4./104 C III transfers into 433. Check the pics again und you will see it.

Cheers
Hans-Hermann