I always hear about advancing armies capturing equipment and pressing it into service. But I’ve also seen training footage from the era where they train soldiers on the shapes of different side’s vehicles. Even if you painted a big flag on a captured vehicle wouldn’t they still be subject to lots of friendly fire? Plus I imagine big markers like that wouldn’t work well with camouflage. Driving around the captured Panzer doesn’t sound like a fun job to me.
Hi there, thank you for your question!
I cannot answer all aspects of your question, but I would like to note that, sometimes, captured equipment would be highly modified. One example that I find very interesting is the work of Alfred Becker. Mr. Becker was a mechanical engineer and also served as an officer for Germany during the Second World War. (He also served in WWI but I am unaware of his rank or role.)
Mr. Becker did some really interesting technical work, in my opinion. He directed technicians under his command to create incredible new machines to fit whatever roles they thought feasible.
Here is an image of a self-propelled gun. I translated the caption into English two weeks ago and was how I learned of Becker. Here is the caption, for your benefit: "East of Littry, close to the oratory; a 4.7 cm Pak (t) Panzer - Kampfwagen 35 R was abandoned. It was an anti-tank cannon of Czech origin, mounted on a French chassis made by Renault. It was an incredible mish-mash of different things created by the technicians of German Major Becker on French tanks collected after the French campaign. It belonged to the 'Fast Division 517 of the 716.ID' ; This picture was taken by Moran, on the 20th of June 1944."
This is all the pertinent information I have at this time, as I am currently in the process of trying to learn more about Alfred Becker and do not have a body of material to direct you to. Sorry.
Lots of effective ways to do this. It wasn't done as much by the British and Americans but the German and Russian armies extensively used captured equipment in battle.
The first way captured equipment is used is as a training device. After you've dissected a couple tanks to figure out how they run you take them out to the shooting range and hit them with various size guns to find out how effective each is from different angles. This allows you to make a strategy for how to best attack each vehicle. Once you know pretty much everything there is to know about the tank you set it up for realistic target practice.
A second way to use them in training is as actual training vehicles. Each tank has it's own quirks but at the end of the day driving one tank is much like driving another. If some of the training burden is relieved using captured tanks your front line tanks can be put to use in battle.
Probably the most common way to use captured tanks was for occupation forces. When you know the Russians/Germans are 300 miles away and you know you are using some Russian/German tanks you don't shoot at them. A tank is a powerful symbol driving one through the streets of a city inspires a reaction whether you are driving a German tank a Russian tank or an old French tank.
You can also take tanks apart. A tank with it's gun removed and a winch installed becomes a tank recovery vehicle. A tank with it's turret removed and replaced by a machine gun is now an armored personnel escort looking nothing like it's former self. A tank with gun removed can become an armored artillery tractor. The possibilities are endless.
Along the same lines as occupation forces tanks can be moved to another theater where they won't be confused. Everybody knew a T34 in France in 1944 wasn't Russian anymore. More importantly if you're Romanian a couple of captured British and French tanks make up a good portion of your armored forces. Don't look a gift tank in the barrel.
Sometimes you want to confuse people though. It was common for both the Germans and the Soviets to lead their armored columns with captured tanks. It's pretty impossible to hide the sound of a tank approaching. It's even more impossible to hide a column of tanks approaching. But if the enemy think it is their own tanks you can still use the element of surprise. Being the first tank in a column wasn't fun no matter what. If you aren't disguised you have a greater shot of being hit by the enemy if you are disguised you have a greater shot of friendly fire. Pick your poison.
For artillery the answer was even simpler. Turn a mobile piece into a stationary piece. You may not know friend or foe in tanks but you should know your own forts. As for the vehicles towing artillery they were usually horses and you could either push them in a ditch or dinner is served.
