Is this a STG III (PzKw MK3 with a Sturmgeschutz mod) with a 75mm short rifle or is it a STG IV?

No matter what it is, I wouldn’t want to be an infantryman hunkering down in front of it with nothing to shoot that would make a difference.

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25 COMMENTS

  1. Pretty sure it's the STuG III with the short 75. The two little round ports on the driver's side with the weird big "scoop" thing above them are pretty distinctive, and I can't find any STuG IV pics featuring them.

    Those guys are conveniently sticking their heads out, maybe you could shoot them off? It wouldn't destroy the vehicle, but it ought to reduce it's efficiency and perhaps cause a morale check…

    -Kle.

  3. Yeah, looks like all the STuG IVs had a slab of armor where the driver's viewport used to be, with rectangular periscopes above.

    -Kle.

  10. Not all STG's were created equal, and that may be what threw me. Most STG's were essentially a modified tank killer, thus my surprise at the short rifle.

  14. They packed as much frontal armor on the STG's because they were like a claymore mine – Front to the Enemy. The PzKw 3 was vulnerable on the sides and rear (and top, Juvat). But they packed the armor on the nose when they made a sturmgeschutz.

  16. The short 75mm carries a larger explosive charge per round than a more powerful gun. So a better infantry support vehicle than a longer 75mm.

    Though, really, a 105mm short gun would have been far better, but the short 75mm is what they had to use.

  17. My grandfather was an infantryman in Europe, got his purple heart from being wounded just south of Bastogne during the festivities of December 1944. He said that German armor was quite literally hell on wheels and that if the Germans had as much armor as the allies had they'd have kicked our ass out of Europe.

  18. I always assumed the Stug was a rolling artillery piece, beloved by the German infantry and sometimes towed a carriage full of shells. As a tank killer, the fixed turret would be problematic. Apparently, more Stugs were built than any other tanks. I read a book by a German infantryman who said they would often delay their attack until a Stug arrived to provide artillery support.

  20. They were usually fitted out with a long 75mm rifle, unlike the self propelled guns of the era, that provided indirect fire support. While having a direct fire weapon can be very useful, you need to put the tank in harm's way to do it. They accounted for their share of Shermans (Tommy cookers/Ronsons).

  21. It was the same with the Russian T-34 and the T-34/85. They had a lot of them and they were being built east of the Urals where the Germans couldn't bomb them.

    American philosophy was to overwhelm with numbers of tanks and air supremacy and it worked. The German armor was very effective on the battlefield.

    While I don't diminish the value of infantry, artillery and armor, because they actually won the battle and held ground, it was our absolute control of the air and the force multiplication that it brought that tended to tip the scale.

  22. Yep. It wasn't originally intended to be a tank destroyer, the name means "assault gun". The panzerjagers and jagdpanzers were supposed to be the tank destroyers, and this was meant to support infantry against strongpoints, pillboxes, entrenched infantry, and people hiding in buildings and such.

    So they needed something that could throw a decent HE shell, and the short gun was what they had. At the time, most of the ant-tank guns they had were 37mm and 50mm.

    Later, they had long 75s, which could work well with AP and HE, so lots of stuff could hunt tanks and attack entrenchments.

    -Kle.

  23. One parked on each side at the end of driveway would make a nice entry…better than an NRA sticker on the front door.

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