Recovered in 2005. The Sturmgeschütz III (StuG III) assault gun was Germany’s most produced armoured fighting vehicle during World War II. It was built on the chassis of the proven Panzer III tank, replacing the turret with a fixed casemate and mounting a more powerful gun. Initially intended as a mobile, armoured light gun for direct-fire support for infantry, the StuG III was continually modified and was widely employed as a tank destroyer.
This is what is said on the net about this Stug:
All the internal equipment and some parts were stolen.
Kubinka tank museum planned to buy it, but the local administration wanted 8000 USD for the StuG and Kubinka doesn’t have that kind of money, I just assumed that Kubinka as a State Military unit siezed it anyway. Ayazkov, previous governor of Saratov region, had a plan to destroy this StuG by WWII era soviet guns during 9th May commemorations via
The interior of this Stug was never shown along with the remains of the crew but i do know it was stripped out by the guys who recovered it and the items quickly sold off before the Russian government could seize them
There was said to be documents and maps preserved as well as many personal items.We believe it was part of Stug Brigade 226 as they reported “2 gun’s missing” in the Poskov area during the retreat in 1944.The Stug was not abandoned but turned upside down in the swamp after breaking ice during the retreat via
Scroll down to page two for video of the recovery
Scroll down to page three to see what happened to is two years after 🙁
Overall, the Sturmgeschütz series assault guns proved very successful and served on all fronts as assault guns and tank destroyers. Although Tigers and Panthers have earned a greater notoriety, assault guns collectively destroyed more tanks.
Because of their low silhouette, StuG IIIs were easy to camouflage and a difficult target. Sturmgeschütz crews were considered to be the elite of the artillery units. Sturmgeschütz units claimed to have knocked out 20,000 tanks by 1944. As of April 10, 1945, there were 1,053 StuG IIIs and 277 StuH 42s in service.
https://youtu.be/f-UrieZwqeg
This vehicle was truely a “rosetta stone” of unique information about paint, markings, finishes, details on tools and OVM, etc, etc, etc. It’s too bad those who were fortunate enough to find and recover it were too ignorant of its true historical value. It would seem to me that the whole thing was reduced to just so many Rubles of pirated parts for the vehicle collector’s market.
