Pz.I Attachments etc.

There is this on Panzer Pionier Battaillon 58
Lexikon der Wehrmacht - Pz.Pi.Btl. 58

and this on Pionier Batt. 58
Lexikon der Wehrmacht - Pz.Pi.Btl. 58

Both associated with 7th panzer Division
7. Panzerdivision - Lexikon der Wehrmacht

Having looked at the photos here, I reckon the turretless vehicles are Borgward IV demolitions carriers.
Tigers in Combat - Google Book Search

 

I'd looked at Borgwards and other Demo/ladungs vehicles but couldn't quite fit the protrusions on top, (engine covers up?) & twin exhausts.
Ah, just checked books & and they also first came in 1942, so too late for this, though there is a reference to them being based on 'experiments during the French campaign with Mark one demo carrier chassis'.

So perhaps a Pz1 ladungstrager?
To the internet!

Curses! I didn't think of the chronology, what a plonker....

 

Time to move this into it's own thread?
Confusion reigns over the quantity produced of these assault bridges built on PzKpfw II chassis.
For a start there are two different types, the early version Produced by Magirus featured a single span pivoting bridge built on the PzKpfw II Ausf b

The one featured in ATB Blitzkrieg in the West is obviously the version in use in 1940. Built by M.A.N. in 1939 on the chassis of the PzKpfw II Ausf c. It had a two part sliding bridge rated at only 8 tons.

I have read that "at least three" were produced, but in Chamberlain & Doyle they state that "The numbers of these Brückenleger produced is not known, but four were in service with the Engineers of 7th Panzer Division in Belgium and France in 1940."

 

Another shot of the bridge layer


and a rear shot of a Munitionsschlepper Auf PzKpfw I Ausf A (SdKfz 111) showing the engine flaps open. What do you think?

 

What an interesting thread - good info from all concerned.

 

It would appear from this shot that the armoured shrouds over the rear vents was a late addition. These pre-war PzKpfw I Ausf A don't have them.

So bearing in mind that the grainly photo was taken early in 1940. I would have thought that very earliest redundant Panzer I's would have been converted to munitionsschlepper first. Aha, I should read Chamberlain & Doyle more, and not just look at the pictures. From 'Encyclopedia of German Tanks of World War Two'
The original design did not provide adequate ventilation with the result that the air-cooled engine overheated. To reduce this problem, an 'air-scoop' type of louvre was added to the rear deck, and two scoops were added to the rear deck to deflect the exhaust air.
So it follows that this particular Munitionschlepper was based on the earlier body type. It has the 'air-scoop', otherwise the engine covers would fold flat, but not the scoops designed to prevent exhaust gases being sucked back into the engine. Which is why we can't see any shrouds and the reason why it is running with it's engine covers open.

 

Can't find a picture of a gun-tank carrying that plate and shrouding, must be one out there? Would have to be an Ausf. A as the overheating problem seems to have been cured by the B.
(If you can call a mark one a 'Gun-tank'.)
Top down & rear views are always the trickiest to find aren't they.

Cheers Owen , this threads going to cost me another Spielberger book that's missing... at least it covers the II as well. :mellow:
Found one..

 

Another interesting Ausf A variant is the often ignored (except by model manufacturers) Flakpanzer I. This again came in two versions. Model 1 has the original twin engine hatches whereas the second version (see scale drawing) has a single large engine grille made from wire mesh, to aid cooling one supposes. Both of these Flakpanzers share a vertical rear plate drilled with holes in place of the shrouds.