Peter Duttmann 13,11.44 claims

[HGabor]

Hi Nick, I would say yes. However, I am not familiar with the Luftwaffe tank claims and I have just a limited number of soviet tank loss reports. Soviets had amazing records for tanks as well (just like for their aircrafts), they recorded their unit, date, chassis number, engine number(s), markings, crews, location, cause of loss. But: they were lost in such a big number, that in a field it was almost impossible to determine the actual cause of the loss for a burned tank. In other words, even if the Luftwaffe claim was accurate, it might not show up in the loss reports as a victim of a Ju 87G, or Hs 129B, etc. Not to mention that even soviet tanks were lost to the bombs and cannons of 'workaholic' IL-2 crews, because as far as I know eg. all of these tanks were destroyed in 'friendly' IL-2 fire in March, 1945:

3 UF, 18 TK, 170 tank-brigade T-34/85, '536', chassis no: 4121531, engine: 105712
3 UF, 18 TK, 170 tank-brigade T-34/85, '544', chassis no: 4121616, engine: 105589
3 UF, 18 TK, 170 tank-brigade T-34/85, '545', chassis no: 4121591, engine: 105126
3 UF, 18 TK, 170 tank-brigade T-34/85, '575', chassis no: 0412228, engine: 4090656

Certainly these chassis numbers (serial numbers) also have meaning, as for the T-34s the 1st digit was the year, 2nd and 3rd the month of production, like: 4121591 was built in December, 1944: 4-12-..... (I mean in most factories. Some say '412....' was used still in 1945 as well.) Unsure about the other digits. Or all U.S-built tank's chassis number (Sherman, Lee, Pershing, etc.) started with: 'U.S.A. 30.......' , because in U.S. registration '30' meant: 'tank', like: soviet Sherman 'U.S.A. 30116426' of 3 UF, 1 GvMK, 9 GvTBr, '959', lost to a I./Pz.Rgt 24 Panther Ausf. G in January, 1945, west of Budapest, Hungary. Interesting that in her report only one of the two 671-type Diesel engine serials was given (№671150510), because the other one was probably not readable after the explosion. Later, in 1945 in the Royal Hungarian Air Force eg. they listed all of the aerial and tank victories in a single, common list to make life simple ;-)

Gabor