Evolution of WW2 German Tank Destroyers 

The quality of these videos is simply excellent, incredible work. Better than most WWII TV documentaries.

Sturmgeschutz is my favorite. The StuG always stayed to a good tank design, and never overdid it. It had reliable armor, a tried and tested chassis, and a gun that wasn’t too big, nor too small. Also had the highest kill rate of all German tanks. It’s a little diamond in the rough of Tigers, Panthers and such tanks like those.

I absolutely adore when engineers decide to take the biggest gun they can find and build a vehicle around it

Love the clarity of Chris’s delivery. Another brilliant video.

The Jagdpanzer IV deserved at least a mention....

I just have to say I'm amazed by the production quality of these videos. Really well done.

I’m literally 20 minutes away from the museum right now and I am heading there while watching this 😂. It is my absolute FAVORITE museum and I haven’t been in a while. So I can’t wait!

The design of the Stug was spot on. A excellent balance of armour, speed and fire power. I am also a fan of the Hetzer.

Jagdpanzer 4? 2000 built…

German Language makes a distinction between “Tank Destroyers” (termed Panzerjaeger which literally means tank hunter) such as the Nashorn and “Hunter Tanks” (termed Jagdpanzer which literally means Hunter Tank). The Nashorn was a panzerjaeger with its open top and 30mm armour. The Jagdpanther was a Jagdpanzer with extra heavy armour and a bigger gun than the tank it was based on. The difference was mainly the armour but also crewing eg having a radio operator for tactical coordination

I am not a military history fan in any way, but, I find these videos fascinating. I never miss one. It's a combination of interesting content and brilliant presentation with no gimmicks or unnecessary effects. Well done you !

4:40 The pak 43 is astonishingly massive

Can’t wait to visit Bovington for my second time this summer! Me and my Father are coming down from Manchester, stopping by IWM Duxford , then straight to Bovington and finally wrapping things up at the Historic dockyard in Portsmouth…. Can’t wait , my most fond memories are at museums with my dad

One of the few channels I've got the notification bell on for. Even having been in this rabbithole for many years at this point, there's always some new tidbit you learn from these

Brilliant as always - excellent, enthusiastic and knowledgble presentation as we always get from Chris!

Hey Tanks Nuts! What did you think of our latest video? Which of these German Tank Destroyers do you think was the best - let us know below

Awesome video Chris, love your passion and insights. Keep up the great work

The Stug and Stug Life will always be the favorite.

I really enjoyed this - love the colour highlights to draw attention to hatches etc. Well done !

Thank you. I very interesting video and following in the footsteps of the 2 Davids is no easy task and yet you've done it and i enjoy your informative and authoritative style. You will always get your nit-pickers who want to draw attention to themselves and then you get those who add a thought,ask a directive question or offer a constructive criticism handed underarm. Very interesting and the Stugs massive kill rate shows how it was way more than an assualt gun and in fact became the most effective tank destroyer. The results and gun size sort of hint at that. Excellent video from every tankers favourite living museum. Keep up the good work!

Great video, I learned a lot, thanks very much Chris and team.

Another excellent video Tank Museum!

What a great piece of content!! Thanks Tank Museum ❤❤

Great video. Really well done

New Tank Museum content, yaaaaassssss! Also tank destroyers, one of my favourite subjects.

Fantastic video! Thank You! Much was learned here, and I’ve been a student of armor for most of my life! Thanks!

Great video! Jagdpanther and Jagdtiger were truly mighty beasts. 🙂

It would be interesting if the video included an analysis of the cost of the various AFV being discussed. A table with the quantities of materials needed to produce the vehicle as well as the number of hours to assemble and finally the actual financial cost. I think this would go a long way to put the "popularity" of niche vehicles like the Jagd Tiger into perspective. Another interesting comparison would be the frontal area of the different vehicles in square centimetres. Obviously the smaller vehicles will be much easier to hide - would be interesting to put a numerical ratio to their comparative sizes.

The Jagdpanther is by far the best looking armoured fighting vehicle.

New Chris Copson video? Happy days! Looking at German tank destroyers? Even better! Excellent video as always!!

Fantastic information as always

So glad Copson's back from Holiday and shifted it into high gear. Love this video. Keep them coming! :)

Great work. Thank you

Fantastic content!!

its quite amazing we get this professional Museum content for free

While some think the technology of tank destroyers made them successful, I'm more of the mind that technology will only be as good as how one uses it. What makes German tank destroyers like the Stug 3 so successful? Ambush tactics. And that's a no-brainer, when you're laying the ambush, you're likely to be the first to land a hit. The low profile does help though in making the ambush easier to do. Reminds me of a page in Ian V. Hogg's old Tanks book which compared German and British tactics. The British liked the cavalry traditions of dash and bravado, so they get chopped up in combat. The Germans use their tanks to draw enemy tanks to the anti-tank guns in ambush, so they do the chopping up.

What a great video, as always.

Super quality content!

i have never been more excited to watch a video

Very, very interesting and informative material. Thank you :)

Regarding the decline of reliability of German tanks. A lot of that is the consequence of the way the war went. When Germany is on the offence, broken down tanks can easily be recuperated, repaired and pressed back into service. Obviously, this changes when Germany is pushed back. Even a broken track pin can now lead to loss of the tank. Add to that the loss of air superiority and dominance of allied artillery on both fronts . . .

Great analysis and pictures. 👍🏻 And a fun to look at. 😊

Super video, thank you

Good video my friend sounds like you made some changes i like it!! 😉

Loved the video!

Great video

The Polish 7tp will always be my favorite tank of World War 2 but the Hetzer is by far my favorite tank destroyer. The thing just has something really aestheticially pleasing about it.

Great video, thanks.

Just the fact that the Stug III alone destroyed more allied tanks ( Armour) than all Panzer models combined,shows how good this small,cheap and deadly vehicle really was. The Stug III main gun,the 7,5 cm KwK L/48 was a modified version of the most Successfull AT gun of WW2. The High Velocity 7,5cm L/46 Pak 40. A Simple but Remarkable weapon of war,the Stug III.

Great job 👍

Great video thanks for the tanks

A visit to the Tank Museum is long overdue to refresh my memory of these fighting machines.

Outstanding video

What a terrific little film. Thanks, chaps!

One of the Hetzel engineers went to Romania long before and saw sketches of a prototype tank destroyer Ro was considering to produce for the E front, called Maresal. It was never produced afaik but he took that idea back & applied it later, producing the Hetzel. Maresal looks very similar.

I never quite understood what a tank destroyer's mission was. Now I know! Thank you for an outstanding presentation.

Anothers brilliant video 📹 Tank Museum & thank you for sharing. Also, a big 'Hello' 👋 from Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, England. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

I might already know a lot of what you talk about, but you guys make fantastic videos nonetheless. Love the work you're doing. Great scripts, great presenters, great historical footage, and real tanks to point to for everything! You guys give all the tanks a real fair shake as well. No editorializing and myths either. I really appreciate that.

Great optics helped a lot

Dang good history video 2 mega👍👍loved it

Well delivered.

Very well done video

Great video. Usual suspects around but also known. And yeah I usually think of the StuG as anti tank even with the StuH42 and such. The primary role was a very good tank killing vehicle that goes against what on paper seems less capable (and suffers in some games, but also those games lack real world inclusion of infantry and other factors (many at least)). Hetzer was also great. But one wonders if the energy and materials spent on the Death Stars of other failed things could have been spent on a sloped armoured StuG III (I know of the Panzer 4 Jagdpanzer but that disrupted both PzIV and StuG production).

Very informative and interesting, thanks. Amazing

Magnifico trabajo de historia...muchas gracias y saludos desde Chile. gracias

Fantastic video, would have been great if we could have seen them in chronological order, or in order of their production quantities. I think that would have given a really nice perspective on the progression and would have given more opportunity for discussion of the impacts of the wider war and Germany itself on the development of these vehicles. Nonetheless, a great watch.

Very nice video

Great stuff

Jagdpanzer is my favourite since I built a model of one 40 years ago. My mate got the T32 instead. Ah to be 12 years old again.

A great video! On my next visit to beautiful Great Britain, I will also visit you.

According to Jagtiger there are still some myths which get constantly repeaded. Its power to weight raito is not worse compared to other vehicles of the same type and role. Us T28/T95 was much slower, same goes fot the British Tortoise. Even the Churchills power to weight ratio is worse than the Jagtigers (8,7 hp/ton vs 9.7 hp/ ton). Jagtiger could maintain a roadspeed of 12.5 Miles (20 Km/h), well thats Churchill Mk IIIs top speed. The Jadtiger had a 8 Speed transmission, allowing it to make good use of its power (Chuchill just had 4 gears). The interleaved roadwheel system further reduced rolling resistance. US replaced the running gear of a M24 Chaffee with the interleaved running gear of a Sdkfz 9 for testing. The Results show that rolling resistance was up to 40% lower on most surfaces. If you watch original footage of Jagdtigers they actually move quite gently through terrain. The Bergepanthers had no issue in towing Jagtigers or recovering them. During tests the Bergepanthers +100 ton hydraulic winch could pull up a Tiger II a 35° inlcine. But of course because of the late war situation fully equipped bergepanthers were rare. But if those vehicles were in service with the allied, they probably could have provide more ARVs for sure. It was not technical issue to recover Jagtigers it was a resource issue of late war german production. Futhermore there were only 120 or 130 Jagdtigers ordered to replace the 90 Ferdinands, it was a special weapon for what if scenarios (like the russian fielding something like IS3 earlier) and creating strong points in the defensive or in the attack against heavily fortyfight positions. It was never planed to be mass produced. Relying mostly on parts which were already in prodcution, it was a far more practical solution than T95 or Tortoise which should served the same roles and followed the same concept. The success of the Ferdinand and the impression it left with the soviets can justyfy the realisation of those tanks, which did not even made up half a percent of germanies entire WWII tank production and are heavily over represented in the media today.

The Jagdpanther just may be THE best mounting of the high velocity version of the 88 like was used in the Tiger II ... Admittedly, the Stug was the most useful

Thanks!

Great to watch,was hearing of the stripped out interiors,will we be able to see the full interiors as they were one day"?.the jagdpather was my favorite.

Thanks for a great Tiger day ❤

Awesome thanks 👍

It would be interesting to have a video comparing the American+British, German and USSR approaches to tank destroyers

Excellent video. I had a great time at Tiger Day.

貴重な写真が、沢山あるんですね！！有難うございました。

An excellent deep dive into the German assault guns OP! I have wondered what the inside of the Jagdpanther was like for years. And i can't imagine being on a Sherman or a Cromwell crew sometime after D-Day and finding yourself on the receiving end of one. Imagine your tank platoon furiously firing round after round at a Jagdpanther only to see every single shot shrugged off like so many flung rocks by that massive plate of sloped armor.

Thanks for the tanks

Really good video thank ypu ❤ You didnt really say what the bad was with any other TD than the ,jagdtiger

This guy seems to know what he is talking about ! Good stuff.

It's a good day when you can wake up with a strong cup of joe ☕️ while watching another awesome video by the great crew at the Tank Museum! 👍

Thanks

The Germans just thought: “oh let’s put the biggest gun there is on the tiger 2 chassis.”

Continuing the Tank Museum's excellent vidoes. Can you please give the speaker proper name credit or introduction like you did with David F and David W? I think he does a teriffic job stepping into some pretty impressive shoes and fully deserves the recognition.

I still want to see a video on "Evolutionary Dead-Ends". I've posted asking for one before but I love the idea so much I want to suggest it again.

Love to hear more, jagdpanzer iv and stug iv are the ones tobadd here. Also, can we expect an allied TD video? From M10s to su-100s?

Great video! The evolution of Soviet tanks as well is something very impressive

this is great

Excellent video. Very informative. I had a German relative who was on the Stug III from 1942-1944 exclusively on the Russian front. His first vehicle had the 75mm cannon, but I remember him saying his battalion later had Stug III with the 88mm cannon with some suspension upgrades and took orders directly from OKW in Germany via a special communications section that had long range radio equipment to talk to them. In essence they were a fire brigade that moved about the southern front in late 1943 to fall of 1944 to hot spots in order to add their fire power with the 88's. By autumn 1944 the remainder of this special Stug BN was in Transylvania, and there the last ones ran out of fuel. My relative said he and his crew had to abandon theirs and blow it in place. They were on foot moving west but were captured sometime after losing their vehicle. Does The Tank Museum have any information on this special one of a kind Stug III BN variant that apparently mounted the 88mm anti-tank gun?

The comment about the Hetzer colour scheme made me smile. A Czech friend of mine published some books on the Hetzer and Marder in the '90s and 2000s which I helped with 😁 and I was thinking those colours on that Hetzer look very strange.

Fascinating.

German Tank Destroyers are a guilty pleasure of mine. There are lots of important details in this one, with a couple of minor errors. Nice work!

I was a conscript with the Panzerjäger when they were still part of the Bundeswehr. The Jaguar 1 and 2 vehicles were carrying guided missile systems like TOW and HOT, yet the history of the Sturmgeschütze was very much alive in the branch in the 80s.

Thank you.

Imagine how loud one of those shells inside that steel box going off would be... I don't know how any of these men had any hearing left after the war to even be able to do interviews.

Jadgpanther was the first ever Airfix model I ever built and painted as a child in the ‘70s . Looked very sleek and powerful

Would be good to have a follow-up to place the Jagdpanzer IV into context with the others already discussed.