27th Canadian Armoured Regiment at Authie and Buron

[Bruce worrall]

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I know this is an old thread... Hopefully folks are still monitoring it.
I'm building a diorama of Blitz being inspected by 12SS personnel as depicted in the newsreel, and I'm trying to figure out why the damage to the tanks looks different in two parts of the film.
In the screenshots posted at the beginning of this thread showing Blitz side-on there is no damage to the suspension on the left side of the tank, other than the rubber being burned off of the two rear road wheels.
Later in the video the left front-most suspension assembly is shown completely torn apart, with the second road wheel missing. This is definitely Blitz, as the camera pans up from the damage to show the name on the hull.
Any thoughts on the disparity?

[Jack Geratic]

Hi Bruce, could it be the Germans set off a few more explosives to make it not worthwhile for the Canadians to recover Blitz?

regards,
Jack

[David Herbert]

The damage shown in the photo in post 21 is almost certainly a HE hit on the roadwheel or a demolition charge. The hull side is pushed inwards and the floor is displaced downwards. A mine would have pushed the floor upwards. The bogie wheel has vanished, taking with it the suspension arms, which are very robust. The mangled arms that you see are the spreader bars that pivot on the spring seat that the two volute springs push down onto. If that is the left front bogie the return roller and bracket have also been torn off as they should be attached to the rear of the bogie casting. Also the tank was not moving at the time of the explosion as the track is damaged directly below where the wheel was.

I think that Jack is spot on !

David

[Bruce worrall]

Thanks folks. Sounds plausible that the Germans did this damage to Blitz after it had been knocked out/abandoned. A demolition charge to the front VVSS assembly sounds most plausible, as I would imagine it would take a lot of force to blow the arms apart and remove the road wheel. It also appears that the fire damage to the rear two road wheels may have also been caused by a German attempt to burn the tank, as there is a gerrycan visible on the rear deck immediately above the fire damage... I can't imagine that the crew would have put it there, as the historical accounts above make it sound like they bailed out quickly. The interesting thing is that the German newsreel shows Blitz's suspension intact, and then shows the tank with the damage described, meaning that the film crew was there long enough to film the after-effects of the attempt to render the tank unrecoverable.