This is a brief history of the Finnish Stug III G that is at the Tank Museum of Parola in Finland. It was the very first Finnish StuG that fired at and destroyed Soviet Armour during the hard battles in the summer of 1944. Repainted in a made up wartime-like colour-scheme and featuring some late-war and post-war additions.

Stug III Ausf G (early version) numbered Ps.531-19 "Marjatta", which arrived to Finland in 1943. It is restored to the original colors used by the Finns during the war. It was the first Finnish Stug ever to fire at a Russian tank.

Ps.531-19 in action!: Ps.531-19 commanded by Lieutenant Mauri Sartio destroyed 4 enemy tanks in a very short period of time. Gunner was Corporal Olof Lagus (he was a son of commander of Finnish Armour Division Ruben Lagus). On June 14th of 1944, Finns attacked to retake the village of Kuuterselkä. It was the first time when Finnish Stugs were used in action. It started near midnight (in the Summer it is not dark at night in Finland). First Stugs destroyed some machine guns and anti-tank guns. Suddenly, Sartio’s Stug saw Soviet T-34/85 just 15 meters left to their Stug. As fast as a lightning, driver turned Stug 90 degrees to the left, and Corporal Lagus fired. T-34 started to burn immediately. When it started to burn, Sartio’s crew saw numerous other soviet tanks. Young Corporal fired again and two other T-34 tanks were destroyed. Two other T-34 tanks tried to escape, but Lagus destroyed one of them and second T-34, which managed to drive 70 meters, was destroyed by other Stug. All this had taken only 1 to 2 minutes. All Soviet tanks were T-34/85 tanks and ready for action, but fast reaction of Finnish tankers spoiled their opportunity. Amount of enemy tanks destroyed by Stugs in this attack was 11 T-34/85 tanks, 2 ISU-152 assault guns, 1 IS-2 tank and 1 KV-1 tank.

I found this story on warthunder.com, on www.achtungpanzer.com and on many more websites on internet. It is always said that the Information was provided by Antti Syrjanen, Finland. You can watch more images on www.andreaslarka.net.