STUG III found

[Deesse23]

At the airbase in Nordholz a STUG III (obviously a G) was found. It seems to be in excellent condition. It will be taken to the Panzermuseum in Munster for further restoration and investigation of its history. The gun barrel shows 17 kill markings.

[Dānu]

I read that a ton of these were produced in WWII. Are they now rare?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I read that a ton of these were produced in WWII.  Are they now rare?

The worst time a weapon will have surviving is when new ones come along and the old ones are stashed for "Oh shit" purposes. The tanks and other armor were convenient piles of soon-to-be scrap metal, an ingredient in alloyed metals.

So, yeah, losing a war will lose the armor to the salvors very often. Even the victors have this problem, everybody wants "new and shiney!" There are hundreds of acres of WWII and Korean War airplanes in a graveyard just north if I-10 in New Mexico (or Arizona, been a while).

[Deesse23]

I read that a ton of these were produced in WWII.  Are they now rare?

Every single piece of german tools is rare. After the war they were just scrapped and molten, nobody cared to preserve anything for a museum etc, they had much bigger fish to fry after 1945. Such a finding, of an undamaged (!) vehicle is really, really rare.

[Minimalist]

The STU G III turned out to be Germany's best tank destroyer far outpacing the Panther and Tiger....probably because it was cheaper to build and thus many more of them were deployed and they were attached as battalions to infantry divisions as well as panzer divisions.

[Rhythmcs]

The lower profile was a major advantage for ambush performance.

[SYZ]

The lower profile was a major advantage for ambush performance.

Allegedly the same overall height as a standing foot soldier?

[Rhythmcs]

Yup, shortiez. For comparison, the us analog was the m18 at 3m - which was a roughly average height for armor at the time. As a fun bit of trivia, it's often been the case since ww2 that the best performing tanks weren't tanks at all. Stug and Hellcat were tank destroyers. Today, the bradley IFV is turning t80 and t90 tanks into scrap with some regularity. They outperformed abrams in the gulf war too.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Ambush predators for the win.

[Minimalist]

Yup, shortiez.  For comparison, the us analog was the m18 at 3m - which was a roughly average height for armor at the time.   As a fun bit of trivia, it's often been the case since ww2 that the best performing tanks weren't tanks at all.  Stug and Hellcat were tank destroyers.  Today, the bradley IFV is turning t80 and t90 tanks into scrap with some regularity.  They outperformed abrams in the gulf war too.

$50 drones are turning t80 and t90 tanks into scrap, too.

[Rhythmcs]

Drones are definitely shortening the runway to obsolescence for the mbt concept (less so the ifv concept..as ifvs are often already mounted with the kinds of rapid firing small weapons that are effective against drones - some are radar guided airburst equipped- even). The types of drones that can get a 1 hit kill on modern (and soviet era) tanks are much more expensive, complex, and rare - but it's a fine point. It takes about 40-60 of those cheaper drone hits (against a modified hull) but the cost is still very low. Anything under $90K per is a steal (that's the price of a TOW missile).

Stugs, in comparison, were something like 20% cheaper than a Pz4 to deploy the exact same cannon....so if the eventual cost of a well made (and still single use) drone hit 70k that'd be a similar dynamic in terms of economic efficiency. The FP1-s are cheaper than that and give you deep strikes at 55K. The "baba yaga" class of drones are cheaper still at 25k for that near front multi use heavy payload stuff. They have room to get more effective and more expensive and still be a hell of a deal. MQ9 reapers are like 34 mil per? Point being it wouldn't surprise me if drones end up something like mini mq9s armed with drone munitions at a fraction of the cost. It's not like ukraine wouldn't want to use beefier drones if they had them..this just isn't the time to spend money producing those types of units. Especially not when they have plenty of rpg warheads and antitank mines laying around to get taped onto a toy.

I have a feeling we're going to be admiring ukranian made and inspired kit for the rest of our lives. They were at the front of the curve when mbts came out too, t-34.

[Minimalist]

There are hundreds of acres of WWII and Korean War airplanes in a graveyard just north if I-10 in New Mexico (or Arizona, been a while).

It's located at Davis-Monahan AF Base in Tucson, G/S.  Just like the Russians we store obsolete stuff.  Unlike the Russians, we don't try to press them back into active service so their crews can die in a relic!  Also, Russia lacks our dry deserts so their outdoor storage in Siberia does not work so well.



The caption says:  "T-62/T-55/BMP-1/BRDM-2 in storage in Siberia"

I imagine that a lot of them are now in Eastern Ukraine and in even worse condition.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Used to hunt deserters for the USN. SoCal, AZ, NM my territory. Routinely cried going past there. I-10 for you Sunday drivers.

[Minimalist]

A short drive away, where I-10 curves north towards Phoenix, there is a commercial airliner boneyard in Marana visible from I-10.




Again, our deserts are good for something.

[Rhythmcs]

I imagine that a lot of them are now in Eastern Ukraine and in even worse condition.

Something like 70%  They're dipping all the way into 55/54s.  It was believed by many people at the start that these museum pieces would be useful, somehow, against ukraine.  They have not been.  Russia is going to end up like the nazis at the end of ww2, with their armor fully depleted and no fuel to run.  Stug is a great point of comparison, really, because the nazi high command shit the bed on the promise of the system in favor of superweapons they believed would provide a psychological terror factor. They should have spent that money and fuel on even more stugs.

[Minimalist]

You mean entries like the Maus and Elefant?

[Rhythmcs]

Among others, not just armor. At some points the decisions could at least seem rationality adjacent - they liked turreted designs for offense.....they thought the v2 would break the uk, even at the start of the end when they were in retreat and defending and the stug would have been the perfect weapon, they kept diverting resources elsewhere, though. The m4 and the m18 had a hell of a time dealing with stugs out in the open, in city streets partially hull down in craters they were a nightmare.