Destroyed Russian BT-7 tank
This BT-7 tank was photographed by Gruber in either 1942 or 1943. The tank’s condition suggests that a hit to the turret caused the internal ammunition supply to explode.
The light tank was armed with a 45mm cannon and two machine guns. However, Gruber provides incorrect information in the German original image description (see the browser's address bar), as the tank weighed just under 14 tons.
This could correspond to the encircled 2nd Shock Army west of the Volkhov; the photo would then date from the summer of 1942.
The mocking slogans scrawled by German soldiers on the rear of the tank are understandable; after all, when fully operational, the vehicle was a formidable adversary for an infantryman—at least in the absence of anti-tank gun support.
Partially blurred graffiti: German *Balkenkreuz* (literally "bar cross"); "don’t get angry!" "do not damage" "WH" (for the vehicle registration prefix: *Wehrmacht Heer*) and "SUDETEN" (the former German-speaking territories in the Czech Republic).
Based on the vehicle’s visual details, it can be confirmed that this is not merely a vehicle that has broken down, but rather an object destroyed by enemy action.
The specific damage you previously mentioned in our correspondence concerns the state of the tank turret. It exhibits typical signs of an internal detonation—almost invariably caused by a direct hit that ignites the internal ammunition supply. A simple malfunction or mechanical failure resulting in the vehicle being abandoned would not compromise or blow apart the turret structure in such a massive way.
The visually distinct text was created in July 2026 with the help of the AI Gemini. - Page translated with Google.
