The Only Surviving WWII Sturmgeschütz Ausf. A

So today we have our Sturmgeschütz 3 Osferung A. So this is said to be the only A variant left in the world. This particular type of vehicle started off in development in 1936. Daimler-Benz were tasked with designing and producing an assault gun to mount the 7.5cm short gun. From there, 1937, we start going into production in what they call the Zero Series. So Daimler-Benz produced five vehicles in mild steel only on the Panzer III B variant. So they used that chassis to start off with. We go into 1940, we skip a couple of years, so we get into the A model. So they started from about January right through to June. Only producing about 30 models of this vehicle, so a very short production run. This was allocated to the Stug Abteilung 660. This was said to have gone into the Sochia River in the Tula province of Russia. From there, it's obviously been dug out and then it went through the restoration with the Busch-McHale restorations, as we know. The markings are actually different to the history of this vehicle. Mitri's marked it up with Stug Abteilung 192. And we've also got, as you can see, the Totemkopf markings as well with 23. So the Totemkopf has been... You can trace that back to Frederick the Great, and obviously then it's been used in German history right up to World War II, especially with the SS as well. And a particular note, especially with this one, if you can sort of come around this side, and it is on both sides, is this armour plate just here. Because the casemate runs straight with the hull, we've got our track guards that come out, but we've got this on either side. So this was said to be about 8mm thick. So this is at about an angle of 30 degrees. But I've thrown the calipers on this one, and it actually comes in at about 10.7mm. So it gives us, I think, just over 12mm of actual protection on this side as well. The other side is fabricated, as we go around this side. Because obviously you're not going to find original stuff for everything. And I'll duck around here. So this plate here is fabricated. But we also have our sponson here as well, where the FUG No. 5 radio would have sat. So this is a HF VHF radio that sat in this part here, and with the antenna mount that comes out the side as well. With the casemate itself, with A and B variants only, we look up through here, we've got this aperture housing. And you can see the front opening there, which has been closed up. So the A and the B variants only had that opening there. So this is the same sighting system that we see on the Jagdpanzer 38, the Hetzer. So this is the SFL ZF1A sight, which is periscopic. And the commander has these scissor periscopic sights as well that come out out of the top. If we come down, we're looking at the driver's two apertures that we can see above there. So in a combat environment, he can actually close his cover and look through those as well. But the only problem is his vision is very narrow to look out through the front of the vehicle as well. So he's very reliant on the commander, obviously letting him know where he can go left and right. We also have the, as per when we talked about the F and the G, we have the bolt-on towing hooks. Now with the armour on these, the StuG went straight up to 50 millimetres on the front, 30 on the back, 30 on the sides. So the 50 millimetres on the front was said to be protected against, from two pounder and up to Russian 45. When we start looking at engaging to the sides, it's pretty much vulnerable to 45 mil anti-tank or armour-piercing rounds to the sides. Sturmgeschütz, when we look at the three variant and the four variant, was the most mass-produced German vehicle. I think out of all of them would come in about 11,000 odd vehicles. They're credited with the most amount of kills as well against the Allied armour. So a very good vehicle to start off with in the infantry support role. So this is meant to obviously destroy your entrenched bunkers, infantry and that sort of thing as well. It wasn't a breakthrough vehicle. So it wasn't designed to actually punch through and break through to the enemy lines. That was more what the tanks were designed to do. But for what it was rolled to do initially with that short-barrelled 75, very good weapon.