Why so many postings?

I never knew it until just this encounter but the Pz III has a gear and shaft linkage that counter-rotates the Commander's Cupola so his vision blocks and orientation always faces forward no matter which position the turret might be facing!

At least one of the Panzer IV's at the museum had the exact same mechanism.

All Photos Copyright Michael Koenig -- All Rights Reserved
For personal reference use ONLY

He has pictures to share with the class and is excited about it.

Nervous Nellie - finger on the trigger - Bradley auto cannon - Hits away! . . . .

I clicked the "post" button and nothing happened, so I clicked it again, and again, and again . . . .

Then I get a warning that says the upload was not completed, OK, but now this!



UNWANTED DUPLICATE SYSTEM POSTS - THIS THREAD IS THE ONLY ONE I WILL BE UPDATING!

Crank'n - The Pz III has an inertial starter - meaning two guys crank a flywheel quickly up to speed, pull a clutch lever and if they are very, VERY lucky the engine starts. If not then they start the process all over again!
(Preferably two very healthy, young guys!)


Runn'n






All Photos Copyright Michael Koenig -- All Rights Reserved
For personal reference use ONLY

It’s all good. I was lead to believe Robin never sleeps and always on fire watch.
I guess not.
Might need a search party to find him.

The pictures do look nice.

I too figured it would be Robin who would correct this - but the guy has GOT to sleep sometime!

Cmdr. Silvo Wolfe Bush on the left.

All Photos Copyright Michael Koenig -- All Rights Reserved
For personal reference use ONLY

Snap out of it Robin !



H.P.

No, the cupola doesn't rotate. Too heavy.

This shaft merely rotates an indicator band where the commander can read off the heading of what he sees.

All the big Panzers had this until it was deleted for cost reasons, in '44 I think.

Pz.4 indicator

David that is a little depressing - Here I thought I had found something REALLY significant. Still impressive though that the Germans would go to such lengths. (German over-engineering strikes again.)

Cooking and eating dinner after some other household work

David Byrden managed to post this:
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I see it uses DIN 72591 sockets... standard for German vehicles.



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before I deleted that thread.

Thanks Robin!

Hope Frenchy/Batman didn't slap you too hard.

Psssht! Moderators aren’t supposed to have lives. Modding is your life.

One of the few things impressive about this vehicle is that is has not had its interior repainted.

Well thats kind of rude.

Myself I am highly impressed with this vehicle and hope the interior STAYS original and is never repainted. Also impressed that after 65+ years all it took were two new Mercedes radiators, some engine adjustments and tightening of the brake clutches to get it running again.

I think it looks absolutely great from the outside. As to the inside it goes to show us all just how bleak an existence the average tanker on either side had to endure. Also most of these photos were taken during the restoration process so there is even more dust and grime having been raised by the Volunteers. No cosmetic cleaning what so ever had been done at this point.

As far as I know this interior had not been touched since the tank was captured during WWII so to my mind the whole purpose of these photographs is to show you guys what it REALLY looked like, not show what a pristine restored Museum piece might look in it's modern but very unrealistic state.

Sorry Dan if I sound like I am bitting your head off . . . but I just might be!



p.s. Sorry Dan also, as I might be over reacting because to us Volunteers this equipment is like FAMILY - and I don't care how weird that sounds because its true. And you just called my child ugly.

Besides it is far better than driving the US M578 with a pool of oil sloshing under you feet where if you let your boot drop into the oil then your shoe was going to slip off the brake peddle the next time you needed to stop. But not to worry we got that fixed too!

I don't get to take a whole lot of credit here for the little bit of work I contributed to this project but I can still be proud of the many things our tight knit group of Patton Volunteers were able to accomplish at and for the Museum in our time.

I certainly wish my model of this tank looked this dam good!




I need to turn this into 3 color camo and use stronger colors to give the model more contrast. Doing camo is not my forte.
That's the Tamiya stock Pz. III, the Dragon heavy platteformwagan and a kit bashed and scratch built steel bridge as a work still in progress.

All Photos Copyright Michael Koenig -- All Rights Reserved
For personal reference use ONLY