Earlier Hetzer?

  • Thread starter Deleted member 1487
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Deleted member 1487

Bren carrier with AT gun should do the trick then.

Littlefield-Collection4.jpg

LC14_r0022_06.jpg

marder139.jpg
 
You mean the Skoda S-I-j KACKO?
PS: Nvm i see your newly posted links now. I think i have read that something similar to that SPG for Yugoslavia was also shown to the romanians before the war.
 
You mean the Skoda S-I-j KACKO?
PS: Nvm i see your newly posted links now. I think i have read that something similar to that SPG for Yugoslavia was also shown to the romanians before the war.
In the phone on the way to beach, wife's driving, so my posts look as they do. ;)

Czechoslovak early SPG/ tank destroyers would be good POD. There are some interesting projects in books on Czechoslovak armor manufacturing between wars.
I am not sure but believe some of the projects were too crumped inside making crew tired quickly.
 
Doing quick research it seems that it had a really awkward layout inside even with a 25mm gun, so was hard to use.

Got a link for the difficulty? This is one of my favorite AFV and I am always open to learning more about it. Thanks!
 

Deleted member 1487

Thinking more like this
full

Though scaled for an AT gun rather than howitzers.
3.jpg

No bad gun overhang problems, engine up from provides more protection for the crew, adequate space to work the gun efficiently
High profiles easy to hit:
marderiiimir_7.jpg
 
High profiles easy to hit:
marderiiimir_7.jpg
Actually Ausf M height was 2.35 m and Ausf H height was 2.51 m. Original Pz 38(t) height was 2.23 m. Pz IV Ausf H height was 2.68 m, Pz III 2.5 m, Pz V Panther 2.99 m, Tiger I was 3 m and Tiger III was 3.09 m! Even Sdkfz 139 with Russian canon was only 2.5 m high. So high profile wasn't really so big issue. Of course, Hetzer was only 2.17 m or StuG IV 2.2 but still Marders were lower then most of German tanks.

Biggest issue was gun casement opened from top and back. Crew was unprotected against shrapnels ans small arms fire. For example Slovak Mareder III Ausf H during uprising were allegedly up armored from sides as at least in one engagement in mountain terrain while crew were doing well against German armor Slovak Marder III gun crew go eliminated by German infantry firing small arms from side. Only driver survived/ was not wounded and was able to back vehicle out of fight. Allegedly armor from broken OA vz 30 was used.
 
Right, so I'm suggesting instead of making new Marder IIIs or Pz 38ts, they make Hetzers instead, with the old Pz38t chassis being converted are made into Marders.
Also, the manufactures for 1942, were those conversions or new production?


that's a problem because the Hetzer is wider chassis that has to be designed first before any armored body can be mounted....and then their is the problem of the diesel engine production.it should take a year to redesign the Pz38t chassis accordingly and adjust the factories to start rolling out Hetzer's.

cant see them rolling out before mid 1943.
 
that's a problem because the Hetzer is wider chassis that has to be designed first before any armored body can be mounted....and then their is the problem of the diesel engine production.it should take a year to redesign the Pz38t chassis accordingly and adjust the factories to start rolling out Hetzer's.

cant see them rolling out before mid 1943.

Going on an unmodified hull could have done for an interim design, if willing to not have as great protection, with less slope and thickness. That also saves time on not needing to redesign the roadwheels to handle the extra weight over the Marders.
This could be done by starting with the IIIM, or Grille SPG the front engined version that was in production in June 1943, and using the KwK 40 75mm till the PaK 39 75mm gun is developed, rather than the PaK40 used in the Marder: the ammo is shorter in length. The KwK 40 is far lighter in weight as well. Its mount will allow the gun to be mounted lower on the chassis
 
Design drawings of "Hetzer" were presented on December 17th 1943 and by January 24th 1944 mock up was ready.

Well Romanians were fester with their Maresal. According to article on Maresal first prototype was built in summer 1943 and by October 1943 3 more were built.




tier-5-maresal-m-05-axworthy.jpg
Did it have a better internal layout than the Hetzer? By all accounts being inside a Hetzer was a real squeezy situation. What about the gun used in the Hetzer, when was that developed?
 
They did recognized such a concept and that's why StuGs were mass produced. Hetzer's development was kicked off in the aftermath of the 1943 bombing of Berlin that destroyed a factory that was manufacturing assault guns, and the vehicle was originally intended to be a substitute for StuG, but ended up designated as a tank destroyer. So have the Allies bomb Berlin earlier and we may see earlier Hetzers. As for the concept of a self-propelled gun with fully enclosed chassis, assault gun was just exactly like that.
 

Deleted member 1487

Actually Ausf M height was 2.35 m and Ausf H height was 2.51 m. Original Pz 38(t) height was 2.23 m. Pz IV Ausf H height was 2.68 m, Pz III 2.5 m, Pz V Panther 2.99 m, Tiger I was 3 m and Tiger III was 3.09 m! Even Sdkfz 139 with Russian canon was only 2.5 m high. So high profile wasn't really so big issue. Of course, Hetzer was only 2.17 m or StuG IV 2.2 but still Marders were lower then most of German tanks.

Biggest issue was gun casement opened from top and back. Crew was unprotected against shrapnels ans small arms fire. For example Slovak Mareder III Ausf H during uprising were allegedly up armored from sides as at least in one engagement in mountain terrain while crew were doing well against German armor Slovak Marder III gun crew go eliminated by German infantry firing small arms from side. Only driver survived/ was not wounded and was able to back vehicle out of fight. Allegedly armor from broken OA vz 30 was used.
So the tank hunter version was taller than the regular tank version. Higher is easier to hit. The T-34 was 2.45m, shorter than the Ausf H.
Everyone did say the Panther was like a barn door in terms of ease to hit. Meanwhile the Hetzer was 2.17m and supposedly noticeably harder to see and hit as a result.
Sure the open casement was an major issue, which was more the driving concern of a fully armored fighting compartment. The shorter height made it harder to hit was a nice byproduct.

They did recognized such a concept and that's why StuGs were mass produced. Hetzer's development was kicked off in the aftermath of the 1943 bombing of Berlin that destroyed a factory that was manufacturing assault guns, and the vehicle was originally intended to be a substitute for StuG, but ended up designated as a tank destroyer. So have the Allies bomb Berlin earlier and we may see earlier Hetzers. As for the concept of a self-propelled gun with fully enclosed chassis, assault gun was just exactly like that.
No, Sturmgeschütze was assault guns, so were used as assault weapons to support infantry and engineer assault units, not specifically as anti-tank weapons. Remember the original gun on the StuG was a short howitzer:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturmgeschütz_III#Variants

The Hetzer IOTL was initially conceived after StuG III production was damaged, by which time the StuG was shoehorned into the AT role as it was accidentally discovered in Russia that it was a fine AT weapon with a higher velocity 75mm gun to help infantry deal with enemy tanks. But it was not a self propelled AT gun in the sense that the Hetzer was, as the Hetzer was not an assault gun, it was an ambush weapon as an alternative to a towed AT gun. Remember too that it replaced the Marder III entirely in production and service (the Marder II had been phased out earlier for the Wespe). It took over the Marder's role as the self propelled AT weapon of an infantry division, but didn't tank over the StuG role, except when badly misused for lack of any alternative:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hetzer
 
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So the tank hunter version was taller than the regular tank version. Higher is easier to hit. The T-34 was 2.45m, shorter than the Ausf H.
Everyone did say the Panther was like a barn door in terms of ease to hit. Meanwhile the Hetzer was 2.17m and supposedly noticeably harder to see and hit as a result.
Sure the open casement was an major issue, which was more the driving concern of a fully armored fighting compartment. The shorter height made it harder to hit was a nice byproduct.
Tank hunter was app 27 cm higher. Or app add hight of grown man head. It was still lower then most German tanks. Really I wouldn't consider itnsuch a big issue. With Herzer you got improved biggest issue - open gun crew position as well as height is lower - nice bonus. After all Marder IIIs were just 5 cm higher then T-34s. Marder III Ausf Ms were actually 10 cm lower!
 

Deleted member 1487

that's a problem because the Hetzer is wider chassis that has to be designed first before any armored body can be mounted....and then their is the problem of the diesel engine production.it should take a year to redesign the Pz38t chassis accordingly and adjust the factories to start rolling out Hetzer's.

cant see them rolling out before mid 1943.
Not a wider chassis, a wider track AFAIK. But anyway the time from being ordered to produced was October 1943-April 1944, so roughly speaking only about 6 months and some change. That didn't take much time and it completely replaced the Marder in service when production was higher than ever for the Pz 38t chassis, so there was pretty much no significant disruption of production at the time the Hetzer was introduced; in fact production rose to new all time highs. An the Hetzer didn't use a different engine than the Pz 38t:
https://books.google.com/books?id=Z...INDAC#v=onepage&q=Praga-Wilson Typ CV&f=false
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hetzer
5 + 1 Praga-Wilson Typ CV
Regular petrol engine, not diesel.
 
Could early adoption of a Hetzer-like TD by Jr members of the Axis have inspired the Japanese to follow suit? This is the type-5 ho-ru a late war Japanese TD design that has a strong Hetzer resemblance, it was armed with a 45mm gun and I think only one was built in 1945 when I can't imagine it would have been very effective.
CfGgrKG.jpg


If however the Hetzer or Hetzer styled TDs went into service earlier, could something like this TD I made using the Chi-Ha's hull and the gun and upper hull section of an E-10, seen service before the end of the war?
zEPTxEM.jpg
 
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