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Jagdpanther possibilities


Texans

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Hey hope y'all doing ok 

I know that officially they were never fitted but for arguments sake, a Jagdpanther built by M.A.N would there be any reason not to fit last station rear steel wheels like they did on the panthers.     Had thought about  idea of veteran crew salvaging from knocked out vehicles and field upgrades. 
Also anyone know if Jagdpanthers ever had spare tracks fitted to side of fighting compartment like on panther turrets ??? 
 

thanks in advance for your thoughts 

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Some Panthers had spare track hangers fitted to the turret top edges.  Jagdpanthers did not have them fitted on the casemate edges.  Not that this means it was never done in the field. 

 

However, the roof of the Jagdpanther casemate slopes noticeably.  If the turret-type brackets were fitted here they would hold the spare links at a rearward angle.  But the weight of the tracks at c.30kg per link would naturally pull them vertical and probably off the forward bracket, making such an arrangement impractical.  But that doesn't mean that the brackets couldn't be made and/or attached in a different, level, manner.  The Jagdpanther was already very front-heavy and adding several hundred kg of spare links forward of the CG probably wouldn't help.

 

What would be the purpose of additional links on the casemate sides?  They could already carry 12 spare links on the rear racks, which would seem to be more than enough to cope with breakages between access to further supplies, although the durability of German tracks was getting worse by the time the Jagdpanther arrived in service with the cessation of high-quality Swedish Iron ore supplies and the extreme shortage of the Manganese they needed for wear resistance.  And supply trucks were an endangered species of aircraft bullet and rocket magnets.  Are you thinking improvised additional armour for the casemate sides which were "only" 50mm thick, although equivalent to about 70mm with the slope?

 

If you can't find any photos for what is a very well-researched and photographed vehicle that is probably an indicator that it wasn't done.

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Thank you for your reply   That is  a huge help.  Th e casemate side my idea was like the crew adding extra armour, for added protection but never seen photos.

  

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