cat pulling german artillary?

i found this video with the title unplished german ww2 pictures. i love ww2 history so i gave it a watch. one of the first pictures shows a cat pulling german artillary which crashed in a building. couple questions came to mind here. 1- is that in fact german artillary? and 2- where did they get a cat? maybe cat sold units to germany pre-war, i dont know. maybe someone can chime in and shed some light on my curiosity. having heard stories from my uncles and relatives who were in the war, i know that germans were pretty dedicated to using german equipment simply because they thought it was inferior. enjoy, eric

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9i-C9_nYZUE

I have no clue on the artillary, but that tractor sure looks like a Sixty to me, or a copy of one. Didn't the Russians copy a Sixty?

Thanks for sharing the link

BP.

I think you will find that the tractor is a Stalinetz 60, a Russian built SIXTY, they were metrified, approximately 64,000 were built. I don't know about the artillery, could be Russian or German, as the Germans advanced the Russians left them behind because they were slow, then as the Germans retreated they took them for recycling (metal).

I don't think the tractor crashed into the building, rather parked there for a small amount of protection from the cold.

There were a number of Diesel Sixty's in Belgium, not sure of whatever happened to them, I think maybe the Germans melted them down too.

Germans captured a lot of enemy equipment and used it extensively. Unfortunately this caused many problems with supplying correct munitions and parts, and with operator unfamiliarity, so many were abandoned where they broke down. But they did manage to effectively utilise many thousands of captured equipment including British tanks for which they established special repair services and workshops.

Of course the Russians and other armies made good use of German captured equipment too.

To my eye that artillery piece has more of a Soviet look to its design, instead of German. That tractor is almost certainly a Stalinetz. One possibility is that it was a piece that was knocked out by the Germans and had crashed to a stop in the side of that building. At any rate, it's a mystery of history now.

The Germans did indeed capture a lot of hardware from enemy hands and turn it around for their own use, not so much at the start of WW2 but as the scales started to tip against them it became more and more common. Not trying to take this thread too far off track, but here's a video of a Russian T-34 tank that was recovered from a bog a few years ago now. It was German law at the time that any military vehicles in use had to have German markings put on them, even if it was captured equipment. This tank was one of those that was captured by the Germans and still clearly has the Wermacht "Open Cross" markings on all 4 sides of it. During that conflict there was no love lost between the Russians and the Germans to put it lightly, but many of the German tankers respected the design of the Russian T-34, it was one of the most reliable, yet simple tanks of that time period.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNJ-acc9Qsk