Help for identifying a shipwreck

[arena]

Hello Gentlemen,

I kindly ask for your help for identifying a wreck I found last summer in the Central Mediterranean sea. It is the wreck of an MFP, located in high sea, 50 miles off shore Lampedusa island, in the direction of Tripoli in Libya. It is in the route of the convoys for Libya, at the height of Kerkennah islands, but some 60 miles off shore Kerkennah, in high sea.

Its position seems to exclude it was involved in operations with Tunisia, and seems to suggest it was part of the convoys for Libya.

The vessel was carrying six armoured tanks, but I'm not able to ideantify the type.

I don't think it is an Italian MZ, as the list of the MZ sunk in the area doesn't bring any matching or compatible report.

thanks in advance for your time and attention.

kind regards

Mario Arena, Trieste - Italy

[Dimitris Galon]

Hello Mario and welcome on board.

It is a great honour, at least for me, having you in the forum.
As a fast and first suggestion - till the results and answers of other members – feel free to examine the MFP-Data of our "Historisches Marinearchiv" department under the following link

http://historisches-marinearchiv.de/projekte/landungsfahrzeuge/marinefaehrprahm/uebersicht.php

Welcome and all the best to you.

DG

[Peter K.]

Hello MARIO!

Are you sure about the six (!!!) tanks?
A MFP was able to carry only three tanks as far as I know!

[Karsten]

Hello Mario,

welcome on board!

As Peter mentioned - six tanks is too much for a MFP. Only three tanks were possible.

Do you have photos of the wreck? Can you estimate how long the wreck is?

Greetings,

Karsten

[Spee]

Photos/drawings would help to identify the tanks. Any available? Maybe the MFP carry italian CV-tankettes or armoured AB-cars or british Bren-carriers, 6 would be possible.

[arena]

thanks a lot for the nice welcome and for your answers!

I do have some footage of both the armoured tanks and the vessel. both object are pretty confused and not clearly understandable; the tanks are all capsized and belive me, not easy to understand. they are broken, and half covered in nets. The vessel is capsized, upside down, but I'm pretty sure it is an mfp. One of the three props is not clearly visible, but the bow, the sides, the length... all in all it really seams to be an mfp. It is not the first fmp I see underwater, so I'm pretty confident it is one of those vessels.

I remember to have read somewhere that an mfp could carry six panzer mk IV, which would confirm the possibility. Interesting to consider it could be some British tank, even if the route would be a strange one, given that it really is in the connecting straight line between Tripoli and Lampedusa island.

I don't have the footage with me now, and it will take some days for me before I'm able to post it here, but I'll be happy to do it and hope it will help identifying.

Finally, unofrtunately for me I don't speack or read German, so ... I'd need help for the data in your archive.

Thanks once more for your help and participation!!!

my best regards to all of you

Mario

[Karsten]

The hold of a MFP (type A, B or C) is about 19,5 m long plus the inner ramp which is less than 10 m. So all together the usable length of the hold is about 29,2 m. Its width is about 3 m. Sorry, no space for six tanks!

Thus, photos would be very helpfull.

Finally, unofrtunately for me I don't speack or read German, so ... I'd need help for the data in your archive.

Please don't hesitate to ask any question. We will be happy to help!

Greetings,

Karsten

[arena]

hello gentilmen.

here is alink to some image of the armoured tanks and mfp. Quality is pretty bad and so is the editing as unfortunately I had to do this in a rush and am not an expert. I hope some one will be able to identify the type of armoured tank and vessel. Did the allied had something similar to the MFPs? Or maybe did they captured some?

thanks and best regards

Arena

[Darius]

Hello Arena,

sorry, but you forgott to add the link.



Darius

[arena]

ach, sorry 


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vM86gIfX7E

[Darius]

Hallo Arena,

ein sehr schöner Film. Ich dachte kurz, ob es nicht ein PiLaBo sein könnte - doch dann kamen erst die größeren Abmessungen zum Vorschein. Die drei Schraubenansätze sprechen ebenfalls für einen MFP. Die Suche nach dem richtigen Fahrzeug wird bestimmt spannend - wäre eine gute Idee, mal alle Untergangspositionen aus unserer HMA-DB in Google zu visualisieren - da könnte man sich etwas leichter tun.

Aber was meinen die Experten dazu?

Vielen Dank & 

Darius

[arena]

sorry, but I don't understand German! English?

[Darius]

Hello Arena - sorry:

a very nice film. For a while the wreck looked like a german Pionierlandungsboot, but later the larger part is visible.The 3 shaft positions also indicate an MFP/MZ. Searching for the right ship will be very hard. We had some time ago the idea, to put all our loss positions of the HMA-database on Google-maps - now it would be of some advantage.

But we have some more experts here.

Greetings



Darius

[arena]

Thanks Darlus!

one note is that I have this memory of having seen only two propellers, which immediately seemed strange to me because I know they had 3. But it may well be that one was just covered in net and debries.

best
Arena

[Uwe]

Bei 2:32 Min. sieht man das Fahrwerk von einem Sherman Tank.

Uwe