Best Tank Destroyer/ self-propelled gun

[tomo pauk]

FWIW, Russkies admired the reliability of captured Pz-III -IV, and didn't like Tigers Panthers due to their 'fragile' transmisions trackworks, at least as it's stated on battlefield.ru site.

JagdPanther really got it all, save for numbers produced. Elephant was created so the hulls don't end up scrapped, not because hulls weren't world-beater ones.

 

[vinnye]

I agree with you Soren about the JagdPanther being an awesome TD - but I just thought that the decision to use the (50?) hulls that were not going to be used for Tiger production turned out to be quite a good one!
The Germans could not afford to waste the materials that had already been shaped int these hulls - so an alternative use had to be found for them - and what a use!
I did vote for the Panther as my choice for best tank - and didn't want to be to boring and predictable and go for the JagdPanther as well! But it was a close call!
I did not realise that the Panzer ii and IV's reliability went down the pan inlate 1944! A lot of the talk seemed to suggest that it was the Heavies that suffered most. But what you said does make a lot of sense - shortages of maintenace materials would affect all vehicles.

 

[xenogears1978]

I GOT TIRED of correcting glen's crap.

crap 1:german penetration is 50% of rounds fired penetrated,russians 80%
conclusion: it's a lie.

Specification and Armor Penetration of the Soviet Tank Guns - BATTLEFIELD.RU - everything about the Great Patriotic War
the russians claim when half-penetrated,the russian standard is 75% part of projectile behind plate as penetration and germans 50%.even though it never gave any source,no name of the document.

crap 2:m26 withstood kwk43's shell at close range
conclusion:misunderstanding, zaloga pointed out in Armored Thunderbolt the crew regarded a IV as a tiger.

crap 3:kwk43 can only penetrate panther glacis at 650m.
conclusion:no source.self-invented stuff.

crap 4:d-25 penetrated panther front at range of 2500m.
conclusion:lie. battlefield.ru states that penetration only at 600-700m.also it states that at 2500m shell can jump off panther glacis leaving "holes(russian poor english,it should be dent)"and cracks.
also a russian website claiming d-25t can ko panther turret front at 2000m,it's also a lie because they shot at the hole on the plate.we can learn more here.


Axis History Forum • View topic - Reexamine the Kubinka king tiger test

crap 5:king tiger was penetrated at kubinka so its armor plate sucks.
conclusion:also lies, specific information here:Axis History Forum • View topic - Reexamine the Kubinka king tiger test

 

[xenogears1978]

russians already confessed they penetrated kt glacis after 3,4 shots.
http://img623.ph.126.net/P44wD-CONe6gwvjXx_431Q==/1678435286127286252.jpg
http://img460.ph.126.net/7zlIHjZoWWZgqy-zqZnGPQ==/2577184886763880347.jpg

as for the turret
http://img533.ph.126.net/7TG6RNYXl-BN5G-08-Y0pw==/2594636335319971622.jpg
http://www.battlefield.ru/images/phocagallery/articles/king_tiger/thumbs/phoca_thumb_l_039.jpg


all of the "penetration"on turret were hit for more than once.

 

[psteel]

The Hetzer was a great efficent design, and had it come out a couple of years earlier it might have been something of a game changer, if nothing else because it could do everything a Stug could do but at 2/3 of the tonnage. Given the simplicity of design, it could have supplanted all the Marder/Stug/Jagd Panzer designs....except you would probably end up with 50% more produced [ton for ton] and double the amount when you add 'economy of scale' in the second or third year of production. It also had demonstrated growth potential with the D model able to mount the 75L70 gun and have 80mm Glacis armor @ 60°.

Shows what the Germans could have achieved had they been pushed to do so.

 

[Juha]

Now even if I like Hetzer it was not an ideal design, the following sums up its weaker points:
Jagdpanzer 38(t) Hetzer
Quote:"Commander could observe the battlefield using periscoping binoculars, through an open hatch in the roof but overall, his field of view was limited. The low silhouette made it a difficult to spot and at the same time gave Hetzer an advantage of attacking first. 75mm anti-tank gun was mounted far to the right (380mm of centre) what created difficulties for the crew (especially the gunner and loader), since the weapon itself was designed to be loaded from the right, resulting in the low rate of fire. Small space inside allowed only 40-41 rounds of 75mm and 600 round of 7.92mm ammunition to be stored. Later on storage space was increased and 45 rounds of 75mm ammunition were carried."

And because of already the original design overloaded the chassis, I doubt that D model would have been a great success

Juha

 

[Shortround6]

The gun also had a very limited traverse which required the vehicle to turn to bring the gun to bear over all but very limited arcs. This would have been worse with a bigger gun.

 

[Juha]

Hello Shortround
yes 6deg to one direction and 11 to other, altogether only 17deg, the most limited of all German JgPzs or StuGs.

Juha

 

[psteel]

Well, while all that might be true these are minor tactical issues. The main idea was the replace the vast majority of towed PaK 40 with a tracked SPATthat could be used easily in infantry division mission.... since anything was an improvement in survivability and tactical mobility over heavy towed ATGs. Most ATG were lost during retreats since they were far to heavy to be easily manipulated. Since they could never be as mobile as the attacker, they always have to be deployed more dispersed than any SPAT unit would function. As it was planned the Hetzer would have doubled the annual STug/JagdPanzer production...going along way to solve one of the basic short commings of the HEER. That is the lack of organic effective mobile AT weapon system.

 

[Juha]

Hello Psteel
IMHO the problems were more than minor tactical issues, rather rather significant tactical issues but I agree that Hetzer was belate answer to a burning problem of the Heer but in fact Hetzer was more a development of Marders, which had the same functions than Hetzers but there were never enough Marders around to give them to all first line infantry divs, only PzDivs and PzGrDivs usually had them in their A/T battalions plus some selected infantry divs. And Hetzer was better armoured and lower than Marders also less vulnerable to strafing. But because Marders were produced mostly by the same factories than Hetzers the question was the lack of production capacity in the Czech factories in 42-early 44.

Juha

 

[psteel]

HI Juha
What I meant was that such limitations can be overcome with training , which is by far the most important factor that determines AFV effectiveness. The Hetzer was a huge leap forward compared to towed ATGs.

But you do touch upon the important issue of mass production. In some senses the Hetzer represented the first mass producable chassie that opened doors to cheap 'Waffentragger" AFV concepts, that could cover the needed selfpropelled gun/howitzer needs that even be expanded to include APCs etc.

Prior to this all such production was either based on a limited run of captured enemy chassie or converting the limited production of prewar tank designs that were not really suitable for mass production since they were designed with 25 year life span in mind.

Hitler was against mass production since he was convinced the war would be over before such mass production programmes could take off. Most of his calculations were based on the war being short and when his gambles failed, he was unsure when to shift gears.