As a young boy, I sometimes had contact with soldiers from the 17th Guards Tank Regiment (Saalfeld). They dug in their tanks (I now know they were T 80 tanks) in our forest on the “Saalfelder Höhe”. The camouflage was extremely good. When we played in the forest, we occasionally came across the dug-in tanks, which was rather unpleasant for us. In addition, helicopters (Mi 24) stationed in Nohra tried to locate the dug-in tanks in the forest. To do this, they flew low over the forest.
On one occasion, a tank exploded on the barracks grounds in Saalfeld while they were carrying out welding work on a tank that was apparently fully fueled and ammunitioned. The turret flew 100 meters into a field.