Jagdpanzers - The Good, The Bad, and the Elefant 

ELEFANT

In german

👏

That KD ratio dont lie though

@@antoniothegunexpert5955 and in Swedish but he writes it like that because it is written like that in german

Germany was running out of material resources so the Hetzer was a viable option to have a decent gun and have decent frontal armour on a small and light vehicle, saving on resources.

Practicality was only ever adopted by the Nazis as a last resort when every form of idiocy had been tried and failed. And even then many were maintained until the last, like the V-2 lol.

@@j.f.fisher5318 You may mock but it had a better gun, better frontal armour and crew protection and better silhouette than the M10, despite being only half the weight.

@@lyndoncmp5751 ну м10 в принципе нелепая хрень ,зачем делать такое корыто с пушкой изначально ...конечно,м18 более продвинутая версия , но почему сразу нельзя понять,что если нет брони,должны быть другие хорошие параметры

@@user-gd9uq7xi4y 👍✌✌

The Hetzer and Jagdpanzer IV also had sights on the roof, if I am not mistaken. In the glacis plate of those AFV's were the driver's episcopes. I suppose the Jagdpanther also had roof sights.

@@carlotinschert7492 Correct.

Didn't know this. Thanks.

As the STuG were considered with the artillery they weren’t part of the Panzer Korps and the crew wore the Feldgrun uniforms not the Black uniforms

There was nothing to stop them being used offensively either. The German idea to use these kinds of vehicles in the artillery branch is rather unusual, but the product itself was one of the most pragmatic family of fighting vehicles of WW2.

TUTEL superioty

Hetzer gonna hetz

It was very cramped inside though.

Angled metallic coffin

Cramped with poor vision but if youre saving fuel and watching strategic positions some of these issues can be alleviated by not buttoning up and getting eyes from outside for example

I prefer the Jagdtigers design

​@@azizella2778 I also prefer the Jagdtiger design.

​@@azizella2778 The Jagdtiger does look cool as heck only if it weren't so gosh dang heavy.

​@@riatorex8722 nah just put an Abrams engine in it

It looks like a vintage computer mouse

Is this the StuH42 105mm or different vehicle ?

Yes, though the StuG IV is an assault gun, not a tank destroyer.

​@@WhatisthisstupidfinghandleNo. The StuH still used Panzer III Chassis.

No, it was because not the Jagdpanzer 4 factory's were bombed, but the fatory producing Panzer 3's

@@waitasecond5366 Alkett produced most StuG III and the chassis for it; they were bombed so there was a shortage of Pz III chassis.

But for some reason IS flies under the radar

@Dirk Schlebusch Since we are posting in English here, "KW" is certainly not correct. "KV" is correct. Russian "B" is english "V".

​@@executivedirector7467 what's a w in russian

@@beaconblaster33 I don't know why you'd ask. The question would be, what letter makes the 'v' sound in the Russian language, as in 'Voroshilov'. And the answer is a letter that looks like the English letter 'b', but is pronounced like the English letter 'v'. But there's no way you get to 'w' in english from the Russian 'b'. So: the correct transliteration of the tank's name is "KV" in English. "KW" in German....but we ain't speaking German here.

@@executivedirector7467 how don't you know why i asked. also правда is spelt プラウダ in japanese which reads purauda even though there's フ (fu) and ブ (bu) which often used as substitute for v ik anime is not a convincing source but japanese words are spelt and read strictly how it is so there can't be a mistake outside your reading and writing capabilities

Thanks very much! I actually put that image into my discord and commented on how interesting it was too!

Thank you!

He got me as well with his final comment about "Useless discussion" Totally unexpected.

As many commenters have told me apparently I can’t even pronounce basic German words so I’m not even going to attempt this! But thank you very much. :)

Parts of it was recovered after the war. It fell when the Post Office that it was defending fell on it.

Base on my understanding it's pronounced as Lokvat? Something like that?

Yes, it is difficult to compare modern tanks (and the Leo 1 is not even really "modern" -- the Leopard II is still a main upgrade) with those former tanks. The first (western) tanks build (in WW1), had the exhaust gases going into the cabin. And even the first T-34 build had no heating. Even in the German Bundeswehr (post-WW2) there was a size limit for tank soldiers until I believe the Leopard II was released (there might be still one, but less restrictive). The soviet tanks where still cramped at least until the 80s, because they had the doctrine, that tanks must have a small silhouette.

@@What_do_I_Think heh, yeah, I remember that after my physical for the Bundeswehr, tanks and submarines were explicitly excluded.

“Too bad”?!

@@RedWrenchFilms perhaps I worded it wrong

The germans could have NEVER won. There isn't a single combination of factors that could have lead to their victory. It's was always a suicidal, delusional war from the start.

Thank you very much!

Aw thanks so much Randy I hope you stick around

Hahah I’m glad you enjoyed Mark :) Thanks for watching

Thanks very much! It surprised me too.

It’s all a bit surreal. You’re an OG!

Point 3 is often raised by people as a failure of the Ferdinand. These vehicles were obviously never designed to encounter infantry by themselves, which is similar to most armoured vehicles. Yes of course having an mg at the front is an advantage, but that does not stop enemy troops approaching from the sides or rear either. The battle reports from Kursk give positive not negative views of the Ferdinand.

The proper role of the Ferdinand is a long-distance tank killer. Sending one charging into an area controlled by enemy infantry would make no sense. Most of the criticism about lack of MG originated with Heinz Guderian and his postwar book. It wasn't a perfect weapon. But it was a useful way to use the 100 or so Tank Hulls made by Porsche that would have otherwise been scrapped.

​@@Jim-Tuner Tortoises and T95 went no where and never saw action. At least the Ferdinands were put to good use and left an impression. The 110 Jagdtigers were ordered to replace the 90 Ferdinands because it seems worse it to got few tanks with this capabilities. Made a similar post under a Bovington video, ended up being shit stormed.

The MG issue probably arose from a few issues that were more pronounced in the Ferdi. The StuG is more more maneuverable, uses a different doctrine and, was probably loaded with more HE than Ferdinand would. The culminations of these things probably gave way to this want of a mounted MG.

Stug was probably capable of turning around on the spot and running away. Ferdinand was much bigger, more valuable and slower target. But what do I know I only played some tank games.

Thank you Gary! Very kind words.

That doesn’t change the fact that the Elefant is a dogshit tank that is good for nothing. Heavy, expensive, is fucked by literally anything that comes close to it. High kill ratio means nothing when you are so expensive and unreliable in combat. So to answer your question, the Elefant is garbage and that is an universal fact.

He is very biased a lot of his information is taken out of context to suit his agenda, the cheftan also does this to a degree.

@@brianlong2334 Who? Potential History? That channel is pure sensationalist garbage.

You could say the German army was very good at recycling of used up gear. For example the very first tank destroyer was build on the chassis of shot up Panzer 1's. They simply ripped of the turret, put a 4,7 cm Pak on it with some armor shielding for the crew and you had your first somewhat decent tank destroyer. And this practice continued throughout the war. The best example would be the entire Marder series which were at the end pak 40's grafted onto whatever chassis was available (though the real production Marder was a Panzer 38(t) maried to the Pak). The Hetzer was the improved successor on the same chassis but with better armor protection, better shot deflection thanks to sloped armor and a way lower profile making for an excellent ambush vehicle

Sounds cool. Good luck with the project, and your future career.

​@@soul0360 Thanks

Thank you so much!

Tbh I kinda remember when played blitzkrieg 2. When you order a light tank in Germany (during the last campaign of Germany) the game give you hetzer instead of other tank. They're mass produced and light (since the game will give you 5 hetzer per one reinforcement)

Absolutely, and they went on to have a long service life and were well liked by their crews due to the excellent gun and high survivability level. After Kursk, they were knocked out few and far between. Conversely they took a high toll of Soviet armour.

"It has been much maligned both due to its poor performance at Kursk " What were the Ferdinand losses at Kursk and how many Soviet tanks were destroyed by the Ferdinands? Could it be that at Kursk the Ferdinand was a good tank?

@@olafkunert3714 At Kursk all armour ypes had difficulties due to the very nature of the battle. Layers of defensive belts, minefields, anti tank gun emplacements, anti tank ditches. Let's not forget that Soviet tank losses were 3 to 4 times as many as German losses. At Kursk, altogether 26 Ferdinands were total losses by the end of July. They appear to have knocked out over 200 Soviet tanks etc.

Failure at Kursk is kind of a double edge sword. It's number of kills vs. the number available is kind of nuts.

@@olafkunert3714 About 35 were lost at Kursk out of 89 deployed. One unit at Kursk claimed to have knocked out 320 Soviet Tanks for the loss of 13 Ferdinands. The most serious problems with the Ferdinands at Kursk were damaged vehicle recovery (due to weight and difficulty towing) and maintenance given how few total existed.

Reliability -_-

Sure was, but it was also "why". The only vehicle you need that 128mm gun to fight is an IS-3 and that never even made it into the war.

Otto Carius (tank ace who lived till around 2017) had to change from his beloved Tiger I to Jagdtiger in the last weeks of the war facing US tanks in the Ruhr Pocket. He wrote about a panicked JT commander who turned his tank around for retreat which then got shot in the back. However they destroyed quite some US tanks from incredible long distances. However the Jagdtiger was totally overkill and a nonsense design.

@@void1968able i heard the same thing that jt gunners were making some world record shots with that sweet gun. Like i said, when used correctly they were lethal.

@@MgtowBarbarian Used correctly a .50 caliber anti-materiel rifle is also an excellent anti-infantry weapon, but you don't see them issued to every squad because it's total overkill. You use .50 caliber rifles for anti-materiel (e.g., unarmored and lightly armored vehicles). The point is that sure, the Jagdtiger would absolutely annihilate anything else 1v1, but Germany needed *more*, not *better.*

It is very complicated. I just split them semi-arbitrarily but I’m aware that many of the vehicles in this video are also considered “Panzerjager”.

the Ferdinand was know as a stug and a panzerjager depending on what troops it served with

@@user-fw3fq3de3z there are many factors. The big "break" is in late 1942 when the assault artillery was looking for a replacment for the StuG III. The Panzertruppen (Guderian and his gang) werent happy to Lose more production value to the assault artillery arm so they forced Hitler to reclassifiy "Sturmgeschütz" projects like the Ferdinadt assault gun into "Sturmgeschütze neuer Art" (assault gun - new type). All Sturmgeschütze neuer Art were assigned to the Panzertruppen and they renamed them Jagdpanzer. So vehicles like the JgPz IV or JgPz38t shouldnreplace the StuG and should be assigned to the assault artillery but with the new "trick" they formed a new sub Branche in the Panzertruppen.

It makes so much more sense as a heavy breakthrough assault gun than as a TD. Not that Germany had much heavy breakthrough assault opportunities by that point in the war. Fun fact, the gun produces more muzzle energy (because of the massive round at quite high MV for the era) than even modern tank guns do.

@@j.f.fisher5318 interesting

I agree with you, the Jagdtiger is my favorite German tank too, it looks awesome and it packs a heavy punch, it's my favorite unit in Company of Heroes 2.

@@ioannescerdicsasismontorio7380 yeah! 😃

@@j.f.fisher5318 but it was super slow and broke down all the time, not good for a breakthrough vehicle.

Kill ratios are but one statistic in many when considering a vehicles effectiveness. And in every other metric the Ferdinand was woefully subpar.

Soviet union could probably easily provide more than 10 tanks for the production and logistics cost of one Ferdinand

The Ferdinand was project to find a useful role for around 90 surplus tank hulls. The entire project to create and deploy the Ferdinand was done in three months. It filled an immediate need in German army in 1943 for a long-distance tank killing weapon. It wasn't an ideal weapons system, but it was better use of those 90 tank hulls that just scrapping them.

@@Jim-Tuner Agreed. If they had been built with the MG and cupola, fewer might have been lost at Kursk. And they should never have been sent to Italy. The fact that more were never built would indicate the Germans knew the limitations, but re-using the hulls was more cost effective. From 1943 every German vehicle needed to have a 10-1 K/D ratio for Germany to survive and the Elefants pulled their weight.

@@robertdickson9319 if you add up the russian and the us production the kill-ratio should have been 18:1-20:1 - as they reached 5:1 at kursk (as an attacker with many losses to artillery and mines) it may have been worked for a short time (before d-day)

Cheers!

I do think Jagdpanther was the best vehicle of the bunch. But logistically it just never really made much sense to me.

​@@RedWrenchFilms Panthers was Germanys main MBT. Around 4000 were made compared to just 2500 PZ IV in 1944. Logistically the Jagdpanther was the only logical solution.

@@HaVoC117X Wasn’t an MBT really - and yes more were made but the fact that Jagdpanther production and Panther production were happening simultaneously was a bad move.

@@RedWrenchFilms Yeah true, I meant main medium tank by this time. According to Hilary Doyle, it was planned from the beginning to base a whole family of vehicles om the Panthers chassis : medium tank, assault gun, ARV, self propelled artillery and later even AA. All that to create part communality. Even the Tiger II should share most parts of the drive train parts with panther. Creating a new vehicle for every role is just stupid.

@@HaVoC117X Yes of course but all of the vehicles in this video were based on an existing chassis - it’s a good idea in theory but my point is that it was a waste to use a panther chassis when the panther itself was already a very capable anti tank platform and vehicles like the Panzer IV were showing their age. Making the decision to slow panther production at that point in the war for the sake of a bigger gun seems a poor choice, in much the same way as the Jagdtiger was a poor choice.

Haha thanks 🙏

Hahaha it’s mad isn’t it - you’re one of my early adopters

@@RedWrenchFilms such a great content

bruh what? like yea its unreliable but that sprocket hit would of immobilised any tank

@Jammy Gamer The point is it was vulnerable because it was crawling down a narrow street unable to aim the main gun, then it went sideways and the gun was stuck inside a building. A tank or a faster tank destroyer would have had a much better chance

@@folly6682 Ähm... A Jagdtiger, was never lost in any tank to tank combat. Just sayin'...

@Melchior von Sternberg The US Army Ordnance Museum has one. As I said above, I don't know if it's still at APG or if they moved it to Ft. Lee. You can probably look it up online. I know they planned to move it around 2010, but put it on hold because the contractor didn't have anything that could pull it. The thing has marks on the front from shell hits and they cut the teeth off the right drive sprocket so they could drag it away. The museum has pictures of the site where they recovered it.

@@folly6682 Shit happens. It was never designed for doing crazy maneuvers under fire.

I think you just described the Ratte

Aw heck yeah, SPGs! I was looking for the Grille since there've been so many videos on the other 38t-hulled vehicles...

I thought so too, based on the fact that the jagdpanzer 4 looks exactly like a hetzer with sideskirts. Interestingly they decided to integrate the sideskirts into the side armor of the hetzer, instead of slapping them on the Hetzer to create a panzer 4. This seems very counterintuitive…

Very early JgPz IVs had the Pak 39 L/43, then a large number had the Pak 39 L/48. Panzer IV/70s were all given the Pak 42 L/70. That Panzer IV idea is great! But I’ll probably take a break from German vehicles for a while haha

No. Putting the 8.8cm on it is just a WoT thing. ;) there's probably plenty of room but the tank was already front heavy and the long 75 is a better AT gun.

@@RedWrenchFilms looking forward to future videos as i find these topics quite interesting. also, i'm still irked that they made the Panzer IV /70 in Company of Heroes 2 a dedicated Anti-Light Vehicle/Anti-structure unit despite the gun being literally far more capable in AT work than the Kwk 40 75mm L48 used in the Stug III.

@@j.f.fisher5318 i don't know to whom you're replying this, i assume with your wording that it is directed to Red Wrench Films, but might i add my own perspective in this if you don't mind, you can certainly choose not to read this. i find it quite difficult to even compare the Kwk 36 and the Kwk 43 (both 88mm) with the Kwk 42 75mm gun in terms of their AT capabilities, considering both 88mm gun models were already quite capable due to their design being primarily for AA rather than AT, with their ballistic characteristics being favored by their users, and their projectile having greater energy retention over range due to their caliber and also with their weight, i sincerely doubt that the KwK 42 had any advantage over the Kwk 36 and 43 considering that the former was at best a scaled up Kwk 39, which does not diminish it's capabilities but simply doubting it would be of any par to the 88mm guns. i might add some industrial and economic views on the viability of the 88mm at the time, but i refraine in terms of internal volume, with the 128mm gun being quite massive, mainly it's breech, i doubt it had that good of a space for the crews in the superstructure, as some images of the casemate compartment showed, that the crews would likely have had to be capable of similar contortion techniques as that of the crews on a Sherman Firefly i kind of see that it could've mounted the Kwk 42 75mm L/70 earlier or later in the war but i doubt that it would've made alot of sense considering that the JagdTiger as i have learned was more of a knee jerk response to the Soviet Heavies of the time, most likely the IS series above the KV series. may you have a great time reading through many more pieces!

That’s so interesting - apologies for the botched pronunciation!

​@@RedWrenchFilms The pronunciation was actually not bad at all ;)

It gets very complicated when you start making comparisons like that! Probably quite a few.

They began mass production of the Hetzer since the 38t factories couldn't be reached by Allied bombers. The Germans did add two more production plants and scattered the factories making the components in their areas once the bombers could reach them.

I heard the biggest problem with the Jagdpanther was that the crews were greener than desired, and made many noob mistakes. But it's not like I was there or anything, so yeah.

As much as I love my Jagdtiger and Tiger 2, I do storngly believed the germans should've stopped at the Panther and Jagdpanther produced more of those together with Pz4/3s

@@davidjula7432 I concur.

@@davidjula7432 Guderian once proposed to switch to priority production of STUGs - for ressources and their similar suitability for attack & defense

​​@@zachariasobenauf1895 It was too late. Multiplication of models, use of abandoned chassis and limited series production only get two things: - proove the industrial deficiences and actual chaos in the end - create logistical mayhem

Never take WoT stats as gospel. Most if not all tank stats are tweaked, for gameplay and balancing purposes. For easy reference, I'd suggest you look up the Hetzer in game. And compare it, with what's said in this video. 12:38 . While games can help spark interest for real world subjects. Which is great. They are sadly also a great source of misinformation. And a reason for many hopeless discussions in communities, such as those surrounding weapons and history. Please don't fall into that trap, while broading your horizon, and fueling your curiosity online. Best wishes.

That'd be a question of which one takes longer to break down, or catch fire (Elefant was infamous)

​​@@soul0360 the hetzer is great in game tho, probably the best tank I've used at his own tier.

Elephant was the original proposed name for the vehicle and is why the rebuilt ones were given the name.

Not necessarily, Shermans alone outnumbered all of Germany's tank production like 50:1, and a much larger population space to draw crew from.

@@Appletank8 The only reason that the allied invasion in France worked was because the battle in Russia had come to a stalemate. The battle for Moscow started is Sept of 1941, 3 months before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and a year before the Sherman entered production, let alone before it got into combat. Had the Germans had more tanks and artillery instead of better, there is a good chance that Moscow would have fallen before the Soviets could get there tanks into the fight in any meaningful way. The Soviets by comparison made the T-34 which had a flaw in production that made it so it didn't have a retaining clips in the pins to keep the tracks in place. Instead of fixing the problem and adding a pin, they just welded a block of metal to the side of the frame that was wedged and would push the pin back in place as it moved. If the Germans would have produced tanks cheaper and quicker, they might have been able to surround Moscow and have enough extra forces to finish off Leningrad and/or Stalingrad and then move those forces towards the factories in the Ural mountains or possibly to one of the other cities to finish it off. The Shermans weren't a factor in the war until Russia had already beaten the German army back. It would be nearly a year after Moscow that the allies invaded Morocco, 2 years before the allies invaded Sicily, and another year after that before Normandy.

for around 30 years i trusted the narrative of the ferdinands in-efficiency - the first fact-based & detailled analysis of their battlefield performance i found was made in Roman Toeppels book Kursk - he reported they were not knocked out by molotov-throwing brave russian infantry-men but by mines and artillery and for their role as breakthrough-STUG they worked out well (despite the general german problem of under-powered heavy-weights and technical "divas" in the later war)