Product Details

While it's the impressive Tiger I tank that usually attracts the most attention, it was the Panther that in the long run was a more important tank to Germany during WWII. This 45-tonne medium tank was also converted into a useful armored recovery vehicle known as the Berge-Panther, with nearly 350 examples produced. One particularly unusual vehicle to be created by the unit s.Pz.Abt.653 was a Berge-Panther fitted with a Panzer IV turret. The result was a command tank with a fixed turret, plus a name that was absolutely mind numbing: the Berge-Panther mit aufgesetztem Pz.Kpfw.IV turm als Befehlpanzer. The work was done as a field conversion, and only one vehicle is known to have been converted. It served with the named heavy tank destroyer battalion (equipped with Ferdinand and, later, Jagdtiger vehicles) on the Eastern Front in 1944.