Landships II

drakegoodman · Captain

A couple of A7V photos

kieffer · Commander in Chief

Hi Drakegoodman,

great pictures! The man just behind the third French soldier is wearing his tank helmet.
The rest seem all quite happy, eating and smiling. Even the French, captured I presume don't look that unhappy, well they are alive and the war is over for them, I wouldn't feel miserable in such a situation I think.

regards Kieffer

jagjetta · Brigadier

Great pics! There are always new ones out there lurking to be discovered. These are two fine ones to find.

John

PDA · Legend

I don't know very much about the handful of A7Vs Germany made during the war, so hopefully someone else can pick up on some of the details in the top photo and give a positive ID on the tank. If you open the photos on the flickr pages there is an 'original size' option which gives an enormous photo in which the details can be picked out.

Something I noticed was that the tank has only one weapon port to the left of the main gun. To the right of the main gun is a dummy vision slit to draw fire. I believe that narrows it down to 1 of 4 possible tanks; "525 Siegfried, 560, 562 Herkules, and (probably) 564" according to this article by Gary Ian Zimmer:

http://www.landships.freeservers.com/a7v_zimmer.htm

drakegoodman · Captain

Thanks for the input guys. The purveyor offered about seven or eight A7V pictures in total, unfortunately my budget only allowed for these two. The rest were snapped up in a feeding frenzy.

Date: May 30, 2010

I think the first photo shows chassis-No. 503 (ex-502, others identify this particular vehicle as No. 540, but i'm absolutely not convinced that this is true - e.g. the general riveting scheme, with the exception of the front plate, exactly matches that of the 00-series, not that of the 40-series!) after refitting with a new front-plate (two-part) and a 'Sockellafette'. It's the only Sturmpanzerwagen i know of with a single 'window' with shutters on the port side only (additionally, it's positioned a little bit closer to the central gun than on other vehicles). All 60ies-vehicles except 563 (to be honest, i don't know for sure about 564 - haven't yet seen any photos of that one) only had a small pistol port in that position, not a large opening with armored flaps.

Can't say anything other than that the armored cab on top is apparently getting disassembled for rail transport in case of the second photo, though. I guess that's what the camouflage netting was meant to accomplish...

Thanks a lot for sharing these two nice, previously unknown photos with us A7V-enthusiasts!

drakegoodman · Captain

Another recent addition.

An often seen image of "Elfreide", although probably not at 3256 x 2124.

Pat · Commander in Chief

Great images, thanks for sharing. Notice how young some of the steel-helmeted soldiers are.

Could the bareheaded sitting soldier be another Allied prisoner?

jagjetta · Brigadier

Bare-headed soldier is wearing a German 1915/16 Bluse and is holding a German gas mask canister. I suspect he, too, is a German soldier.

John

Mark Hansen · Legend

PDA wrote:

...Something I noticed was that the tank has only one weapon port to the left of the main gun. To the right of the main gun is a dummy vision slit to draw fire. I believe that narrows it down to 1 of 4 possible tanks; "525 Siegfried, 560, 562 Herkules, and (probably) 564"...

That tank in the first photo is, to the best of my knowledge, actually 540. The single hinged aperture and its location is�higher up than on other A7V's with the front flaps. 525, 560, & 562 did not have the larger flaps but had small pistol port covers.�564 had the larger flaps as on this tank but on both sides and lower down. 540 had a replacement front shield fitted which had the higher placed flap.

P.S. The rivet pattern of the front plate does not match 525, 560, or 564. It matches 540 & 562 (amongst others) but the single large flap does not match the pistol ports of 562.

-- Edited by Mark Hansen on Saturday 11th of September 2010 11:00:20 PM