what do you think happened to these?

[michelekingtiger]

rumaging through google i found a couple of images which were very interesting. firstly are a couple of what looks like a german vehicle/tank scrap yard! what do you think happened to it all?
and the other is once more of unseen tanks, well tanks i havent seen anyway.
if anyone knows anything about these then please do share !

[Rivetcounter]

First 2 scrap metal second 2 prototype tanks that where never produced

[michelekingtiger]

ah okays cheers
i know in poland tanks were scraped to help rebuild the economy, thought more of those vehicles would have survived  :-\ i would of happily put them in my garden lol
its always the prototype tanks which look the coolest and most outrages, no wonder they werent produced 

[Woz]

The third tank was a prototype for a tank that could withstand the shockwave of a nuclear explosion.

[vonrundstedt]

Deffinately scrapped for thier metal to be used else where. I went to a school where the main fabric of the building was made from metal reclaimed from scrapped air craft after the war. The other two tanks are very interesting but as rivetcounter and MKT suggest, never produced.

[wibblywobbly]

All I know is that after the war the UK government simply told the scrapdealers in the UK that they needed to rebuild Europe, and that there were a lot of vehicles littering the French countryside. They dealers went over and removed it all, which is why there is not a lot left. Some dealers became rather wealthy as a result of this venture.

[tankmad]

If only they knew how much it would be worth today they might have kept some
Stevie

[daviddunlop]

I wonder if there was really that much money to be made in large amounts of scrap armor right after the war? There was a military surplus dealer about an hour out of Winnipeg a number of years ago who bought 6 surplus Shermans in the late 1960's because he figured the weight in scrap steel would more than cover the costs of the vehicles. Turned out the foundries wanted the steel in small chunks and paid a very low price because the armored steel took a lot more time and effort to melt and rework to make it compatible with general steel scrap. The dealer also spent a fortune in acetylene cutting the Sherman's up. Worst investment he said he ever made.

On the other side of the value coin, however, I remember reading an article a while back dealing with the design of sophisticated research equipment where accurate measurements of radioactive isotopes were required. Apparently, ever since we started exploding atomic weapons in the atmosphere, all metals we produce contain radioactive contaminants which will corrupt any readings from any equipment we make. Someone in England then remembered that the Imperial German Battle Fleet that they scuttled at Scapa Flow after the First World War all had armor plate manufactured in the pre-Atomic age and a number of these warships have been salvaged over the years to provide this nice clean metal. We probably could have done the same thing with surplus Tigers and Panthers today, if they were around in any numbers. 

David