Welcome back to Part 2 of what is, sort of a 2 part but also completely separate series
on the German Tank Destroyers of World War 2.
In the last video I talk about Panzerjager – from the Panzerjager 1 in 1940 all the
way up to the Nashorn in 1943, so you could go watch that if you haven’t already.
In that video I discuss the Marder vehicles – which were hastily developed in 1941 and
1942 to try and address the threat of the Soviet T-34 and KV-1s, by putting a large
7.5cm Pak 40 into obsolete tank chassis.
But the Marders weren’t the only vehicles to receive this treatment.
Another iconic vehicle would receive the 7.5cm gun – the Sturmgeschutz, or as you may know
it, the StuG.
The StuG, despite not being a tank destroyer itself, was likely the inspiration for every
vehicle I’ll talk about in this video.
Originally designed as an assault gun, as per the name Sturmgeschutz, the StuG was an
attempt to mount the 7.5cm KwK 37 howitzer on a modified Panzer III hull, for use against
fortifications and as an infantry support weapon.
The Panzer III was stripped back to it’s hull and built back up again without a turret.
Instead, the 7.5cm howitzer was mounted in a casemate – an armoured, enclosed superstructure
where the turret would’ve been.
Compared to a turreted design on the same chassis, a casemate has a lot more interior
volume, is cheaper, lighter, has a lower profile and is mechanically simpler, which means a
larger gun can be mounted and more armour can be added.
The downside is that the gun can only be aimed in a relatively small arc, and the vehicle
is therefore very vulnerable to anything not directly in front of it.
The StuG was first put into action in 1940 as an infantry support piece.
By the end of the war it had become the most prolific armoured vehicle in the Wehrmacht’s
arsenal, with over 10,000 produced and over 20,000 claimed vehicle kills.
Over the 5 years of the war the StuG series had seen numerous upgrades including the long
7.5cm Pak 40, and really shone in the defensive operations of 1943 to 1945, where the lack
of a turret wasn’t such a hindrance.
All in all it was a huge success.
But German engineers thought they could do better.
And as per usual with Nazi Germany, better almost always meant “bigger”.
Let’s dive into the Jagdpanzers.
I’m going to be going through these vehicles chronologically, and when I first started
doing the research for this video I was really surprised at the order these vehicles were
produced – unless you had the list in front of you I think you’d also struggle.
So – the first dedicated Jagdpanzer - the Ferdinand.
The Ferdinand actually started life as a Tiger.
Or to be more specific, a Porsche Tiger.
The production Tiger tanks were designed by Henschel, but there originally was another
competing design by Porsche.
Porsche was so confident that their design would be chosen for production that they built
100 hulls before the decision had even been made.
When German command choose Henschel’s design for the Tiger project, Porsche were left with
100 near useless heavy tank hulls.
These hulls were chosen for a new project – a Jagdpanzer, or Hunting Tank.
A heavily armoured superstructure would be added to the vehicles along with the 8.8cm
Pak 43 that was already mounted on the Nashorn.
The idea was that the Ferdinand, named after Ferdinand Porsche himself, would be much more
capable of offensive actions than the lightly armoured Nashorn or Marder vehicles, being
able to destroy T-34s and KV-1s at ranges of over 3km while remaining immune to return fire due to its thick armour.
Like Panther and Nashorn, Ferdinand saw it’s combat debut at the battle of Kursk.
The 8.8cm gun performed excellently and the armour of the Ferdinand proved formidable.
However the commander didn’t even his own cupola, and 33 Ferdinand’s were lost to
mines in the first day of the battle as they accidentally stumbled into Soviet minefields.
The vehicle also suffered hugely from reliability issues – the complicated suspension and
electric drive caused issues on the Tiger P, but now the Ferdinand weighed 60 tons these
issues only got worse.
The weight of the vehicle also meant that they were incredibly hard to recover, with
5 Berge panzer 4s required to work in tandem to haul a disabled Ferdinand back to German
lines.
And just to top it off, the vehicle had no way of defending itself from infantry attacks
– with crews resorting to firing their own weapons through the tank’s main gun barrel
to try and fend off the Molotov and anti-tank grenade wielding soviets.
After Kursk they fought on, and in Late 1943 the surviving vehicles – around 45 of them
- returned to Germany for major repairs and overhaul.
This included wider tracks, the commander finally getting a cupola, a gun shield being
added to the main gun, the drivers armour being improved, and the radio operator becoming
a machine gunner, with an MG34 ball mount being added to the front hull.
Around this time the decision was made to rename Ferdinand to Elefant, but this name
change had nothing to do with the overhaul as some people think, and was a completely
separate issue.
Ferdinands did not become Elefants once they received the upgrade or anything like that.
The Elefant would see combat in Italy in 1944 and would fight on in the East until mid 1945.
Due to lack of spare parts or replacement vehicles, only 4 elefants would survive long
enough to fight in Berlin, where the last vehicle was finally destroyed by the soviets
in the last days of the war.
The Elefant certainly had some serious flaws, but the vehicle is credited with the highest
Kill/Death ratio of any vehicle in world war two, with some sources stating this as high
as 10 vehicles destroyed for each Elefant lost.
Two vehicles survive, one in America and one in Russia.
A rocky start for the Jagdpanzers, but there was definitely potential there.
Thankfully the next vehicle is somewhat more sensible – the Jagdpanzer IV.
With the huge success of the StuG III in the anti-tank role, it was decided to build a
new, purpose built tank destroyer based on the Panzer IV chassis.
The new vehicle would mount the 7.5cm Pak 39 gun – similar to that mounted on the
Panzer IV or StuG, but would enjoy much better armour protection, with 60 mm of armour sloped
at 60 degrees on the front of the vehicle, and 30mm of armour sloped at 30 degrees on
the sides.
The Jagdpanzer IV was much simpler to produce than the turreted Panzer IV it was developed
from, had better armour and the same firepower, with the only drawback being the fact that
it lacked a turret, and was therefore weak in offensive operations.
However at this point in the war, in late 1943, there would be very little offensive
operations, with Germany being firmly on the back foot.
And in this role the Jagdpanzer was an incredibly effective weapon.
Despite being a slightly superior vehicle, many question why Germany didn’t simply
build more StuG IIIs.
This is because the JgPzIV was initially designed around the 7.5cm Kwk 42, the same gun mounted
on the Panther.
Around half of the 2000 production JgPzIVs would mount this weapon, which, despite being
a formidable anti-tank gun, meant that the vehicle was now front heavy and a lot less
manoeuvrable.
One factory, when transitioning from Panzer IV production to JagdPanzer IV production, was ordered
to create an interim solution, mounting the Pak 42 L/70 gun onto the slightly different
chassis of the unmodified Panzer IV.
This vehicle, very much the ugly duckling of the family, would be known as the Panzer
IV/70 A, and around 250 would be built before the plant fully transitioned to JgPz IV production.
The 2000 JgPz IVs would fight until the end of the war, with a few surviving in France,
Germany, Switzerland, and, interestingly, Syria.
This is because Syria actually operated 5 Jagdpanzer IVs until 1967, with one being destroyed
by Israel in the 6-day war.
These were still listed in Syrian army inventory until 1991 and nobody really knows what happened
to them.
The Jagdpanzer IV was a cheap, capable vehicle built on a slightly dated chassis – but
it only had a 75mm gun.
Seeing the success of the 8.8cm armed Elefants and Nashorn vehicles against even the newest
Soviet Heavy tanks, Germany decided that the new Jagdpanzer would mount the 8.8cm gun.
Third time’s the charm as they say.
This new vehicle wouldn’t be completely new – it would use an existing, modern hull
– that of the Panther.
This is the Jagdpanther, one of the most fearsome and iconic vehicles of WW2.
The Jagdpanther would follow the same design philosophy as the Jagdpanzer – keep the
hull of the medium tank it was based on and delete the turret.
The panther’s 80mm frontal hull armour was simply extended upwards to form the basis
for the casemate, while the side armour was thickened slightly to account for the small
decrease in angle.
This was done to ensure the crew had enough space inside the casemate to manoeuvre the
88mm rounds into the massive Pak 43 gun, which was mounted in the centre of the casemate
behind a rather large gun mantlet.
The Jagdpanther was lucky enough to be based on the Panther G hull, so it avoided the horrific
mechanical issues that had been seen on the earlier Panther D and A.
This meant that the vehicle was well armoured, relatively mobile for a 45 ton tank, and had
a very capable main gun.
The vehicle was first deployed in March 1944, first seeing combat in July.
In it’s first engagement, 3 Jadgpanthers were reported to have destroyed up to 11 Churchill
tanks of the 6th Guards Tank Brigade in Normandy.
The vehicle would serve well on both the western and eastern fronts, well liked by it’s crews
and feared by it’s foes.
The issue was that Germany just didn’t have enough of them.
Or rather, couldn’t produce them anymore.
The situation at this point in Germany was dire, with constant allied bombing significantly
slowing any manufacturing that could have gone on.
Even still, Germany was rapidly running out of supplies and skilled labour, and the fact
that Jagdpanther was competing with Panther G production lines for materials and spare
parts didn’t help things.
Building a casemate tank destroyer on an obsolete chassis was one thing, as you’re turning
something useless into something useful.
But trying to build one on the chassis of one of your most important and capable battle
tanks at the time?
Slightly less efficient.
As a result of these issues, only 413 vehicles were produced by the end of the war.
Naturally the Germans learned from this mistake, and didn’t any more casemate tank destroyers
from hulls that were still in production.
Just kidding, of course they did, this is WW2 Germany we’re talking about after all.
See, there was a plan to mount a 128mm gun in the Jagdpanther, but this was deemed impossible.
Instead, it was decided to mount the 128mm gun on the chassis of the Tiger II, to create
the Jagdtiger.
The jadgtiger was essentially the jadgpanther on crack, and took the concept to it’s extremes.
It mounted the 12.8cm Pak 44 gun on a lengthened Tiger II hull, with a boxy superstructure
in place of the turret, very similar to that seen on the Ferdinand.
Like the Ferdinand, the armour was incredibly thick, with 250mm of steel at the front of
the casemate and 150mm on the angled front glacis plate.
Having this much armour essentially made the vehicle immune from the front, but it had
it’s drawbacks.
Namely, the weight.
The Jagdtiger was the heaviest combat vehicle used by any nation in WW2, at over 70 metric
tonnes.
The vehicle was equipped with the same engine that had struggled to power the Tiger 1, which
weighed just over 50 tonnes.
This engine was being pushed to it’s limits in the Tiger II, but the Jagdtiger was just
too much.
The limited, 10 degrees of gun traverse meant that the entire vehicle was forced to rotate
to aim the main gun, which put immense strain on the engine and led to the vehicle having
absolutely abysmal reliability.
The 128mm, while impressive, was overkill for pretty much any target the Jagdtiger could
possibly face, but it did mean the vehicle could engage from incredible ranges, with
kills reported up to 4km away by some units.
Only around 80 vehicles were ever produced, running into the same issues as Jagdpanther.
The majority of these were destroyed by their own crews, after their vehicles broke down
or became immobile.
The mammoth vehicle was a sitting duck for allies aircraft, and when damaged it was almost
impossible to recover or repair.
Yes, they mounted a 128mm gun in a tank destroyer – but really what was the point?
In a shock twist the next, and last Jagdpanzer was actually a sensible, efficient design.
Based on the modified chassis of the Panzer 38(t), the Jagdpanzer 38t took all the strengths
of the previous Jagdpanzers and avoided almost all of their weaknesses.
It mounted the same 7.5cm gun of the Jagdpanzer IV in a much smaller vehicle, with 60mm of
frontal armour sloped at 60 degrees, giving it more frontal armour protection than the
Tiger.
The vehicle was likely based off the Romanian Maresal tank destroyer, which does have very
similar characteristics and was assessed at length by German engineers.
This new vehicle had over 29 different names throughout its short career – but nowadays
it is known by it’s nickname – the Hetzer.
This name was originally designated for the future E-10 tank destroyer but somehow has
been attributed to the Jadgpanzer 38t.
The Hetzer was a pure tank-hunter.
It was a remarkably compact vehicle, with the armour of a tiger, the gun of a Panzer
IV and the dimensions of a Panzer II.
Due to its small size it was easy to conceal and excelled in defensive operations.
It was almost impossible to spot a camouflaged hetzer in a treeline, and armed with its 75mm
gun and remote-controlled machine gun, it was not a vehicle you could afford to miss.
The vehicle did suffer from the same weaknesses as most of the other casemate tank destroyers
– poor gun traverse and thin side armour, but as it only entered service in July 1944,
the war was very much a defensive one.
Perhaps the biggest advantage the vehicle had was that it was cheap and easy to produce.
Despite being the last Jadgpanzer to enter production it was by far the most numerous,
with over 2800 vehicles finished before the end of the war.
It was used post-war by the Swiss as the G13 and by the Czechs as the ST-1.
This was the last Jadgpanzer to be put into production before Germany surrendered in 1945,
The Jagdpanzer IV and 38(t) were, in my opinion, very good vehicles and epitomised what Germany
needed at that point in time – smaller, better armoured Stugs to fight a defensive
war against incredibly unfavourable odds.
The Jadgpanther and Jadgtiger, while impressively armed, were more of a hindrance than a help,
slowing the production of the Panther and Tiger II for no real gain.
The Ferdinand was a bit of a ridiculous vehicle too but was actually quite a good use of Tiger
P hulls that would’ve otherwise been scrapped.
But that’s just my opinion – what do you think?
Comment below or join the discord to get involved in this completely useless discussion.
Anyway despite my voice in this video which is really starting to give up now,
I hope you enjoyed this video and you should check out the Panzerjager video if you haven’t already.
Don’t forget to subscribe if you want to see more content from me!
I’ll see you in the next one.