Grey Jagdpanther ???

[FireflyKeith]

I know there was a discussion about if they painted the Jagdpanther grey at any time, and i was just looking at my Panther cd-rom and i came across this, i think it is a 1945 post war Jagd but the text reads, "one of the unarmed british built hulls being recovered by a Panther, note the all grey finish on both vehicles" so can anybody shed some more light on this, especially the British built hull part the photo is reproduced with the permission of the tank museum so it has a good source.



Keith

[Tankie]

I read somewhere that the allies 'finished' some tanks that were on the production line when the war ended. I guess this is the point referenced by the tank museum. They were without guns because there had regularly been supply problems at the end of the war due to the transport infrastructure breakdown.
Since they were never fielded in anger I guess the fact they were grey doesn't mean much in terms of confirming authenticity, but may explain the 'rumours' that grey Jagds were fielded. Was it the Brits that painted them grey perhaps? I have the Tanks in Detail book by Terry Gander which also states the French used Jagdpanthers after the war until the 50's - perhaps they were grey?

[Saxondog]

Hello Keith,we have talked about this before and I believe their were some Jagdpanthers painted Grey either in the field or because of the Battles in Austria,or maybe the Baltic states and their environment,Grey urban battles,Winter months where Grey would blend into the background much better than Tan.I have continued my search for the right color to paint my Jagdpanther from FGB Dec.44.I cannot verify the color one drawing shows a tan colored Jagdpanther with a dirty white finish.I have only found reference to British Jagdpanthers being moved to other area's,away from the Baltic coast to avoid Russian troops loading up every thing of any value to ship back to Russia.No reference to British building? Sax

[Tankie]

112 Jagdpanthers were made in Hannover at MNH. This factory (so badly bombed by the British that it stopped production) fell within the British occupation zone so anything unfinished in the factory (awaiting guns) would have been available to the occupiers so I think this supports the Tank Museum caption for the gun-less tank. The main factory was MIAG in Brandenburg-Havel which ended up in the USSR zone. As to colour - can't help!

[BigPanzer]

Hi,

There were a small number of Panther and JP's built post war by REME for assessment purposes. I believe the combined total was about a dozen vehicles. Because they were put together from bits available at the factory they probably had a hybrid appearance.
The Panther at Bovvy is definately REME built and I believe the JP is also one of these. The running Panther 801 at Koblenz is also a post war build.

As to being without guns, I would guess if there was a gun easily available one would have been fitted. If not they may well have been built without armament. But this is only an educated guess.

As far as colour is concerned, I can't help but they were probably painted in whatever colour was available.

Peter