Britain operated two captured Panther tanks during WW2 – the well known ‘Cuckoo’ and the lesser known, but more appropriately named, ‘Deserter’.
The story of Deserter begins in Italy, 1944. Allied troops were slowly advanced northwards, a hellish campaign against well-prepared German defensive lines. In German service, this specific Panther (a G variant) was part of the Panzer Regiment 4, of the 26th Panzer Division. In October 1944, during fighting at the River Serio, Canadian infantry captured this vehicle intact. Once combat was over, the Canadians passed the tank on to their armoured support – the British 21st Tank Brigade.
The tank was then issued to one of the Brigades units – the 140th Royal Armoured Corps. Allied symbols were marked on the tank, including a yellow triangle, symbolising ‘A’ squadron, as well as the turret number ‘10’, and the badge of the 21st Armoured Brigade. Along with these markings, the tank was also given a name, ‘Deserter’.
The tank saw combat in British use, and is recorded to have bombarded a German observation post on the 11th of November 1944. However, it was noted that the tank was too wide to cross the mobile British ‘Bailey Bridges’, so its use in the Italian campaign was inevitably limited. Soon after, the tank was withdrawn from the frontline and underwent extensive testing to ascertain its performance compared to its Allied counterparts. Nothing is recorded of the final fate of ‘Deserter’, but it was likely either blasted to pieces during ballistic testing or scrapped for its materials.
+1 for a Panther in the British tree, either Deserter, Cuckoo, or a generic Ausf. G with both as skins. My personal preference is for Cuckoo, as the combat history is less obscure, and it’s more clearly marked as an Allied vehicle.
bruh stop taking german vehicles!!!
like i get that the sherman is in every TT but no one wants the sherman anyway.
first the leopard, then the KTiger, now the panther?
just take the whole TT and remove it from the game at this point
The German ground tree has a captured Sherman, Churchill, T-34, and three captured KV variants.
The British ground tree does not have a single captured vehicle, despite many being captured and several being operated in combat. That’s why I made this suggestion.
Another suggestion (either as the tank or as a skin) would be one of the Panther G that was constructed after the war under supervision by the British at the MNH plant at Hannover.
That would also add a Jagdpanther as a possibility.
It seems there is more than one photo of Panther G ‘Deserter’, easily identifable by the markings on the turret that are shared with the photo in the suggestion. I do not want to see this vehicle in-game, but captured vehicles are still interesting pieces of history that can be implemented through skins and decals.
Amazing photos, thank you so much for these. I hope you don’t mind me including them in the main post?
And I agree, I would generally prefer for captured vehicles to not be in the game. But the reality is that they are, and in my opinion it is an unfair double standard that some nations (Germany and Sweden in particular) have an abundance of captured vehicles, whereas other nations, like Britain, have nothing.
Yeah you’re free to do whatever you want with these photos, I came across them while browsing and figured I’d post them here in case you wanted to include them in your suggestion.
-1 for me personally, you could see it as bias but I really don’t like the amount of copy paste/captured vehicles we have ingame. And before you say anything about the amount of T3 premiums we have, I’d be happy if they removed most of them, at least the captured KV 1 and 2 are modified, but the churchill is just a no
Back to the original point, I’d prefer if tech trees got more unique variants as supposed to lend lease
