Т-2. Pzkpfw II, Sd.Kfz.121

At the beginning of 2010 our workshop had done very important project - T-2 chassis's restoration - Panzerkampfwagen II (Sd.Кfz. 121). The Moscow Museum of Defense hosted the exposition in Snegiri.

T-2 is light german tank WWII period. 1937. Tank was produced in different modifications till 1942. At the beginning of the WWII Wermacht had up to 38% of these tanks. It was pretty weak tank compare to the same class guys. The tank has 20mm automatic gun KwK 30 coupled in 7,92-mm MG 34 machine gun. It was high-speed, reliable tank and showed pretty good results in numbers of german campaigns (1940-1942). A possibility to fight against opponents was very limited. Before December 1942 were produced 1800 units of  Pz. I all modifications. Full name of our exhibit is Sdkfz 121, Pzkpfw II,(2cm) ausf B, Alkett, Zusatzpanzerung 1940.

Before restoration tank had very poor look - broken base, without wheels, superstructure and tower. The tank was found in 1995 by people from Usanevich's team (director). Unfortunately many interior and exterior parts magically disappeared as a gifts later because it was open air exhibition. In internet community people called the tank as junk.

We had done really huge and difficult part of work during the restoration. The first part of it was to fix all body's defects. Then we took off bearing body parts - hull sides, armored sheets and made necessary parts - motor's cover, tower's box, external parts of covers, hatches, elevating hooks. Then we putted together the tower's box.

Our next step was to prepare a copy of tank's tower including copy of main gun and machine gun. Then we put the tower to the body, install tower, fix all flexible elements and block all holes. All metal parts are unarmoured "Raw" steel and you can not even see the difference between original one. Plus we took care of territory, pedestal and then moved tank to his historical place.