Luchs armed with 50 mm gun?

The Luchs was originally designed to mount the turret with 50mm gun that was used on the Puma. Unsure why this variant never made production, but I have an old Puma kit and Techmod Luchs kit that I plan on making into this version.

From www.achtungpanzer.com

"It is also reported but not confirmed that 31 Luchs were mounted with an open-top turret armed with 50mm KwK 39 L/60 gun and began arriving to the troops in late 1943."

Is this the turret you are referring to Rob? I honestly never heard of the 50mm Luchs until this post! I did find this Pic though, also from achtung panzer:


Am I on the right track or waaaaaaaaaaaaaay off?

Thanks a lot

I found another book (Atlante Mondiale dei Mezzi corazzati - I Carri dell'Asse - E. Albertelli Editore... sorry, it's an Italian book serie on the armoured Veichles of the WWII) which reports again that the last 31 Luchs were armed with 50mm gun L/60 ...no specification about the shape of the turret, if it is the same of the Puma or a different open-top one...

A couple of years ago I saw the reference about the 5cm pzIIL. Being a PzII fan looked in every ref book our library had, plus few others i found. I read that the last 31 PzIIL's were produced with the 5cm kwk 39 L/60 gun. This would take a different turret. These turrets had been built for the replacement of the PzIIL, the leopard (VK 1602). The leopard was never produced. The turrets were then put on the Puma.I believe this turret was the basis of the 5 cm turret of the last 31 PzIIL's. The only picture I ever saw was the one claymore68 is showing. I don't know If that's a prototype or what? I thought maybe this was the case due to the wheels. If I remember correctly, some references said these last 31 where never made, while other's seem to suggest a possiblity. I built a ICM PZIIL with a Puma turret. If I figure out how to post pictures someday I'll post it. It's An interesting subject with no hard info that I could find. Part of this was guesswork. Good luck.

here is one shot I have of the Leopard (VK1602)

It was supposes to be an enlarged and improved 38(t) chassis designated 38(d).
It appears it would have been built in 2 variants (light and heavy) and they were the prototypes for the E-10 and E-25 respectively.
I have recently found a resin Leopard (New Connection Models) kit and that suggests that there are at least blueprints if not a surviving vehicle somewhere (Kubinka maybe?).
EDIT: In the pic above it appears there 8 road wheel stations as opposed to the 5 on a standard 38(t) chassis, the NCM kit has 5 road wheel stations so accuracy may be way off. The Leopard was to used the improved 38(d) chassis with at least some parts interchangeability with all the vehicles in the E series.
The turret in the image looks to similar in shape to the KT but one source I read stated it was Panther shaped.

Thanks for the picture. I,ve never seen that one. Also great info! It's a good piece of the puzzle.

Here's some pics of my idea of this subject. This is my first try at picture posting.

P.S. Thanks to JWest21 for the fotopic tip.

http://matt24.fotopic.net/c339725.html