In many respects, the Panther tank was viewed as the finest armored fighting vehicle of the Second World War. Based in large part upon the Soviet's highly successful T-34 medium tank, the PzKpfw V Ausfuhrung G was built by several manufacturers including MAN, Daimler-Benz and MNH. Mounting a fearsome 7.5cm KwK42 L/70 cannon and two 7.92mm MG34 machineguns, the Panther Ausf. G represented the third and certainly the most impressive installment in the Panther series.

This particular version has been painted in an autumn camouflage scheme and was attached to Kampfgruppe Peiper of the 1.SS Panzer Division, then seeing action during the "Battle of the Bulge". Sold Out!

Dimensions:
Length: 10 inches
Width: 4 inches
Height: 2.75 inches

Historical Account: "The Blowtorch Battalion" - On May 6th, 1943, Peiper was awarded the German Cross in Gold for his achievements in February 1943 around Kharkov, where his unit gained the nickname the "Blowtorch Battalion". Reportedly, the nickname derived from the torching and slaughter of two Soviet villages where their inhabitants were either shot or burned. Ukrainian sources, including surviving witness Ivan Kiselev, who was 14 at the time of the massacre, described the killings at the villages of Yefremovka and Semyonovka on February 17th, 1943. On February 12th, Waffen-SS troops of the LSSAH occupied the two villages, where retreating Soviet forces had wounded two SS officers. In retaliation, five days later LSSAH troops killed 872 men, women and children. Some 240 of these were burned alive in the church of Yefremovka. In August 1944, when Sturmbannfuhrer Jacob Hanreich was captured south of Falaise in France and interrogated by the Allies, he stated that Peiper was "particularly eager to execute the order to burn villages". Hanreich had previously served with Leibstandarte but was with SS Division Hitlerjugend at the time of his capture. The blowtorch became an unofficial symbol of the unit and was painted on the battalion's vehicles.