Dowly, Stug!

[Feuer Frei!]

Originally Posted by Penguin

Ah, interesting, 8000 sounds a lot more realistic than the 1000000 the other source stated. Do you also have infos if it is true that the Stug is now in Saratov?

Apparently it is yes.
I'll try to find confirmation of that.

No mate, you didn't sound so - I wanted to clearify my post, I thought it sounded like I would lump together all battlefield explorers in Russia.

Penguin, this is really interesting, history of this StuG, and what possibly happened:

Early this year the wreck was pointed by 91 yo eye-witness. He claimed in 1945 two StuG's were trying to cross the river. One succeded, the other drowned. Two crewmans died and were found in the river when the spring came. He also said that the rest of the crew came to his home and asked for some water and food - they weren't aggresive. They were completly wet and freezing. Few hours later they were captured by the Russians and shot. Probably beacuse of the black uniforms and sculls on the collars they were taken as SS guys by mistake. They are burried in the near village.

The other story is that the entire crew drowned in the wreck - two were found in the spring (this is the fact), others are probably still there...

We will see which one is true when the hull will be raised from the mud.

According to the uniforms Russians said that they fought on Krim (they had "Krimschilds").

First atempt to pull it had taken place in early 50' - and it failed. During this one polish and russian soldiers were using two T34s and a railroad crane and later were trying to blow it up - probably (and luckilly) they failed to do so.

First attempt nowadays was in August, 29th. It failed too and the search team found only a wheel (some of them were kept on the hull) and some minor parts.

Second try began Septembrer, 28th. Now they had better and more pumps to get rid of water and the entire action had a better plan and organisation.
They succesfully pulled out damaged turret and the gun - it was partially separated from the hull because of the action taken in 50'.
The wreck has tactical number 981. Some guy discovered that probably it belonged to the Brandenburg division, 9th or 10th company from capt. Spielvogel's 3 rd battalion. On Jan 45 they recieved StuG's and were sent back more or less that way to the west.

When the entire StuG will be recovered it will be transferred to military museum in Poznan and its curator, cpt. Ogrodniczuk and his men will try to restore it and maybe repair to running condition. He is a really good mechanic and I mean it - he successfuly repaired Iosif Stalin 2 tank back to running condition.

Hope this short note will give you a better view And please forgive me all grammar mistakes.

That was a post from a member over at this site:
http://www.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...d.php?t=180498

Fascinating read that, it makes a lot of sense, and the poster is from Poland, by the sounds of it this guy had some serious inside info, or he was there!
The 2 story 'what-ifs' make a lot of sense don't they?

Edit:
More digging around now i find this:

The Stug was not abandoned but turned upside down in the swamp after breaking ice during the retreat! Possibly a few crew members escaped before it filled with water, The MP40 was found inside along with an Mg42, ammo and grenades

Matches with the stories above, about the drowning, and a few escaping.

Here are some wonderful pictures of it:
http://dishmodels.ru/wshow.htm?np=2&p=1022