Why the "Hetzer"? Why not Stugs? 

except it was the last major German JagdPanzer to be developed in the war so that's totally backward. Also the StugIII in WoT only really fits after the Hetzer because they let you put a long 75mm gun on it. Otherwise, the two would be largely equivalent.

@@j.f.fisher5318 I think this refers to war thunder, where the JagdPanzer IV, JagdPanther, and JagdTiger all come after the hetzer.

Imagine having to need the padlock key to you machine before going into action!

@@jefflei215 More likely referring to WoT because the Hetzer in WT comes after the last StuG.

@@weirddudes5543 they literally said in the video that the stug is more of an assault gun rather than a tank destroyer. The *real* German tank destroyers came after the hetzer, those being the jagdpanther, jagdtiger and jagdpanzer

Maybe Bernhard is such a celebrity now, he has a stalker who automatically downvotes anything he uploads?

Russian bias! 😅

They didn’t choose stug life, stug life chose them

@@johanrunfeldt7174 probably they got HETZED.

StuG life: don't Hetz the player, Hetz the game.

actually not, there is a report of the time, where a Higher Up refered to them as Hetzers by mistake, thats kind of how it came to the strange name

And because it's a good name. Jumbles of letters and numbers contain no character to the average Tommy or for people just getting into history, especially in a foreign language or odd translation. A cool, German sounding name for the bad guys' kit works a treat better. Hence 'Spandau,' 'Messerschmidt,' 'Schmeisser,' 'Stuka,' 'Hetzer,' 'Stig,' 'Stug,' 'Mauser,' etc etc. So much cooler and fits conversations, advertisements, memoirs and fictions so much better hence why people are still coming up with new ones today like 'Skiddiff' and 'Peasy'. :)

Peter, thank you for sharing your fathers experience, he must of had nerves of steel. Prior to commanding JP 38t, was he a crew member of any other types of assault guns/panzers, for either training or combat? My uncle was a tank commander in Germany during the 1950's. He would always say the Soviets armor outnumbered NATO many times over, and the Soviets (at that time) had some superior designs. My uncle later said they would have been in trouble should the war turn "hot". Your father, and all armor personnel of that era, were extremely brave. Unlike my uncle, your father had to experience combat against those overwhelming odds.

The Prague Uprising, that's chilling.

@@ArcticTemper to be fair, it's military equipment, not a car, Although the Germans use a similar naming scheme for their cars as well. But thats due to European language barriers, a statistical description is often better than a name, which may carry different meaning in other countries. (Like the ford... ugh... "escort") No idea why I made this comment but I hope you enjoyed the info dump.

They know their audience

Want to bet 90% of the times during the "question" part people are going to ask "Why is it called Hetzer?" or "How fast is it?". At some point somebody will put 1&1 together. And im pretty sure they do some research on tank games to know where they can "start with their potential audiance" because these games are so popular. It is the same with movies and every other museeum. Peoples "starting knowledge" is often based on media and a good museeum has to know that so they can work based on that and dont be confused if somebody asks "Why were the spartans all nearly naked only armed with a shield, spear and shield during the battle of the Thermoply?" IT is the same in school. You have to know where your students get their basic historical knowledge from so you can worked based on that/with that in your mind :)

Ralf & Bernhard X HETZER= Legendary Video!!!!

Well a Hetzer _has_ gotta Hetz.

In some of their many German videos the director actually said that they sometime cooperate with games like War Thunder or World of Tanks.

You must admit that it will most undoubtedly sound stupendous is German

@@colbyuetake130 To be fair, everything does sound more badass in German.

**Spy from TF2** noises

Hunter in the sense of ambush killer is perfectly accurate though. In the sense of a pursuit predator though, it's not exactly accurate.

Shorter.

In Australia the locomotive works were the only factories capable of producing large castings. The country had no works capable of producing roller steel armor

@@binaway I believe initially in the US and Britain the same was true also.

@Edgar Miller All true, my point was when the Allies were rapidly ramping up tank production, the first industries they turned to were ones with sufficient existing infrastructure, such as the locomotive builders.

Canada manufactures nothing, wouldn't want to contribute to climate change!🤣

That would make the most sense in any country. The only other factories which could do so would be car factories, but they're usually not prepared for such heavy loads at that time (closest you could get in terms of weight would be buses and trucks, and even those would be pretty light when compared even to light tanks), then shipyards but those are a bit overkill and they usually work with slightly different parts (lots of relatively thin plates, not nearly enough milled of forged parts to be efficient at making tanks), and then weapon factories for artillery but those would need some new tools as well. Locomotive factories are just the best fit apart from dedicated tank factory. Btw. nice to see that someone still uses word ''locomotive'' just recently I was thinking that I don't hear it that often and that its' use is dying out as most people just say ''train'' (same goes for my native language).

What a life hey. He lived more in that 3 days than most do in a lifetime. Hence why he went grey!

@@todcarter110 Thanks for your reply! Although he smiled and laughed when he told me his story (because I mentioned that I am a scale modeler of WWII aircrafts and a few tanks) I could feel that it was not fun at all. He cut my hair way beyond his 80ies. :-) His son just noted that he thinks he was in idiot to volunteer at 16 and that late in the war! :-)

@@Bernd109 Who isn't an idiot when they're aged 16 haha. I'd hop in a Hetzer. Geez i'd have been sold on the German helmet design alone. Lol. Either way he lived to tell his story and have children. Also to give you good haircuts!

@@todcarter110 Exactly! :-)

@@todcarter110 why don't you pop up to Inverness and try it, do a Claire Randall. When you've had a faceful of spall from a 75mm round tell me it's fun. Or maybe play catch with a butterfly bomb because you didn't know what it was - and watch a preteen girl get blasted in half - like my neighbour did when she was a child. Don't talk such fucking nonsense. As for the volunteering - possibly - but at best it was volunteering under duress and at worst it was Machiavellis Rule - give me a child until he is 7 and he'll be mine for life, the timing and age would be perfect.

Jagtpanzer -> a Tank that hunts Panzerjäger -> someone who hunts tanks The last Word is the proper noun the ones before are additional descriptors. This thing is technically a tank that hunts tanks that's why both terms apply. I'm not sure what kind of primary sources mr Raths (the director here) is drawing from but everything I read had a preferential treatment to calling the vehicles Jagtpanzer and the crews and troop segments the vehicles were assigned to as Panzerjäger.

@@DeHerg it's referring to a panzerjager as in the open top vehicles as stationary in ambush and the jagtpanzer as mobile and hunting

Not permanently destoryed though. But to stop this production stop from happening again they decided to increase the TD Modells and spread out TD production. If the Stug factory gets bombed again the frontline will at least still get hetzers....any usuable TD is better then no TD at the frontline. It is partly the same reason they started to build Panzer 4 TDs as well to diversify the production to different places so no matter what happens a certain amount of basic TD production of varies models would always get to the frontlines.

@@noobster4779 I understood that the factories were all destroyed in 1943. But that couldn't be because the amount of stugs fighting in 44 into 45. The stug iv at least I knew it was meant to hamp up production, but I didn't know about the factories being bombed and so forth.

@@TheStugbit Often when they say Destroyed doesn't mean it cannot be rebult, the main Tiger and Panther factor was down for 12 months however this wasn't all at one time, somtimes production of some parts of the tank could still take place.

A Hetzer wouldn't have been much of an upgrade given its paper thin side armor and cramped interior. Someone has a video, possibly The Chieftain, showing a cut open Hetzer and just how little room there actually was inside of them.

@@TheStugbit The factories were not destroyed, but production plummeted quite a bit for a time. The Alkett factory in 1943/44: September - 205 October- 255 November - 145 (Two RAF raids on Berlin) December - 25 January - 77 (bombed again by RAF) February - 59 March - 144 April - 194 May - 255 Assuming a steady production of 250 a month, instead of the 1500 tanks that could have been produced those 6 months, only 644 were made. A pretty significant loss. MIAG factory in 1943/44 November - 150 December - 150 January - 150 February - 137 (bombed) March - 120 (bombed) April - 100 (bombed) May - 80 June -145 Source: www.alternatewars.com/BBOW/Stats/WW2_GER_Tank_Monthly.htm

I cannot count the times I have watched and rewatched this magnificent episode.

To be fair it is THE PERFECT vehicle for the swiss. Park it in a mountain pass and put support fire/at guns left and right on the mountains while the Hetzer covers the low ground. Under those circumstances there is literally only "the front" to worry about which is its strenght. also it is so small you can easily hide it everywhere and because it is small it can use most "dirt roads" and small bridges so the military can blown up the bigger ones to deny them to the enemy because they themselfs dont need them. Additionally i suspect that the HEtzer is do to its size a rather low maintenance vehicle by german standarts. Dont need heavy specialized equipment, average industrial cranes would propably do the trick as well or "nomral" field repair cranes. Just imagine a Panther driving up a mountain......the transmittion is going to be recked ion minutes... Or hiding a sherman.....it would stick out like a giant arrow sign Where here in the big box" And the fact that the Hetzer was pathetically slow wouldnt be a problem eather if you are on the hardcore defense with good positions every 5 meters prepared for decades for this moment :D

It was also used by Czechoslovakia after the war.

Thank you!

Well, artillery splinters

Wonder whether “shrapnel” is German for “splinter”.

@@russianbotfarm3036 in in sense yes.

Meanwhile in world of tanks when I try to kill a hetzer it bounces 45mm shells from everywhere but the rear

@@russianbotfarm3036 The German word for "splinter" is "Splitter". But "Schrappnel" is sometimes used synonymus for a splinter that flies thru the air with dangerous speed like debris during / right after a crash or explosion

@@lostalone9320 i see that as an absolute hell

If you can't stand up for 13 minutes you need to seriously reevaluate your lifestyle choices (barring any disability/injury ofc)

@@WozWozEre aint easy bein Merican, son!

lindybeige fuels my tank addiction too

Yeah I was really interested in their videos on the East German stuff.

Its a good looking tank imo. When i see it my brain just thinks "yeah that should work pretty well". But i love non-turreted tanks. bee lined up all the non turreted lines in world of tanks, after 1st unlocking the obligatory Tiger of course.

@@ausaskar Actually, I find that to be quite interesting myself. I wonder if the Munster museum has any rare captured Soviet tanks (that had been modified with German weapons)? I doubt it, its extremely rare; however, I believe the Germans put a 75mm Pak 40 on a KV-1 (could just be an urban legend)

@@redhammer92 I'm a fan of casemate tanks myself, god the German TDs sure look sexy! I play Fly ACEs High and War Thunder myself. War Thunder has a different damage model than WOTs I believe. However, the Hetzers crew has the "human centipede" situation. Suffice to say, penetrating the right front plate will take out the driver, gunner and commander lol. Still a bad ass tank (for everyone but the uncomfortable crew lol)

and what happened to it?

The guy who owned it sold it to a collector.

The Hetzer may be at Camp Mabry.

Hetzer is my biggesssssst love ❤ 😍 😍🤩❤❤

Hetzer is my biggesssssst love ❤ 😍 😍🤩❤❤

Wasn't that a Donald Rumsfeld line about US problems in Iraq?

Like the military style channel designation!

@@SteamCrane 👍

Cranes are an especially common bottleneck in many economies. The USA didn't like the M26 tank because the typical ship-loading cranes were just about able to handle 30 tons of Sherman, but the majority of cranes were not rated for the 45+ tons of M26 Pershings, which limited where you could ship them from and to. Same for North Africa: a lot of people say that the Axis should have just sent more supplies to Rommel, but they tend to not know that the Axis-held ports in North Africa were mostly small affairs with few large cranes, already operating beyond their designed capacity, and so Rommel was basically as well supplied as he could have been because even if more ships had arrived, they couldn't move the cargo off them any faster.

Can someone explain me why "hetzer", I didn't got it, even after watching the whole video 😭

@@karmat710 You mean why they used the hetzer or why it is called the hetzer?

@@collectibletaco7797 why is it called like that yeah :(

I’m always amazed that engines with such low HP and torque numbers could even move these behemoths, especially over rough terrain. No wonder the engines/transmissions were always breaking down.

This is just only a recent chasm, though, at least the scope... we thought the same thing about these war machines 25 years ago, “My goodness, how underpowered and heavy....” But in a relative sense. The cars of the ‘80s and ‘90s were not nearly as powerful as today. A 3500lb. sport sedan with 160bhp would have been “class leading” circa the late ‘80s- or the high end of the power spectrum, whereas today that seems anemic. In the ‘80s there were still many sub-100bhp cars, and 200+ was downright exotic. For any driver that worked then, it is a bit astonishing how strong engines are today, with their computer fuel maps and valves. The muscle cars of 20 years before that made big horsepower from sheer displacement (i.e., “There is no replacement for displacement” was a normal saying... and nowadays that is not true at all...).

@@WitchyWagonReal In the 60s and 70s a 'sports sedan' with 120 hp would be considered perfectly appropriate. Regular sedans, wagons and other 'normal' vehicles, as you stated had less than 100 hp. The muscle cars of the 60s and 70s were not nearly as impressive as people today think of them, the suspensions were archaic, the tires were pretty poor performers (driving a 'sports car' with bias-ply tires could be terrifying) and while the transmission were actually pretty good the cars of the era could be questionable performers.

@@WitchyWagonReal My favorite saying on this is a quote by David Ricardo during WW2, at the time in reference to aircraft engines: "We must think of an engine's power not in terms of its displacement, but in terms of the volume of air per unit time which it may be made to efficiently consume." Maximizing peak chamber pressure and minimizing pressure at exhaust valve open while maintaining control of ignition is perhaps the best distillation of engine efficiency and its limits.

Transmissions were always problematic on German panzers. As often happened, the vehicle would be designed and tested, and then "upper management," would demand more armor be added. The Panther's weakest point was its transmission. Supposedly this was resolved in the Jagdpanther, and the plan was to use the same transmission on the Panther going forward, but by then (1945) things were too desperate to make any changes to the manufacturing.

they would have to admit, that without czechnology, they would lose the war 2 years sooner.

​@@Pyrochemik007 you ever seen a panzer 38t? It has no sloped armour either.

That wasn't hard to do since all of the parts for the 38(t) were made close to the assembly plants. The turreted 38(t) became popular with crews and armor commanders due to being very reliable, fuel efficient and easy to repair and maintain. 1,400 turreted models were produced before the lines switched over to producing 1,500 Marder 3 versions. The Jagdpanzer 38(t) was designed to replace the Marder 3 which lacked frontal armor and crew protection.

Kinda helped that czechs were slaving in these factories.

Lindybeige misses a lot of points, and is ultra UK biased in his opinions.

Glad you enjoyed it!

Thats a false dilemma fallacy, one doesnt necessary exclude the other. You can have constant changes and improvisations, but still have a lot of regulations, rules and a fable for lists. And if the others do worse than you, you can still be the order-loving one. So no, its not a myth, it depends on the perspective

I’d imagine that has to do a lot with knowing how to effectively position the vehicle, accounting for terrain, cover, concealment, etc

And the drivers themselves were usually the most experienced crew members as it was also critical that they have mechanical awareness on the limits of their machines.

That's stRange in the US army it goes loader->driver->gunner->commander

Mareșal ,not Marasel !

what is the source for that claim?

@@MilitaryHistoryNotVisualized Wikipedia: Hetzer page (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hetzer#cite_note-2): "British historian Mark Axworthy suggests that the design for the Hetzer was likely rooted in the Romanian Mareşal tank destroyer. In November-December 1943, a Romanian commission ordered from Germany and German-occupied France several components which could not be made in Romania and this drew German attention to the Mareşal. Hitler approved the development of the Hetzer on 7 December 1943. That same month, Marshal Antonescu (Conducător of Romania at the time) commended the Mareşal project to Hitler. Soon afterwards, on 6 January 1944, Hitler was presented with the plans of the Mareşal M-04 prototype. Axworthy notes that the Hetzer'"s armament, armor and broader hull were very similar to those of the M-04. He also reports that in May 1944, German Lieutenant-Colonel Ventz (a delegate of the Waffenamt) admitted that the Hetzer had followed the Romanian design solution.[2] American historian Steven Zaloga writes that "The Germans were impressed with the overall layout of the Mareşal, and it is credited with being the inspiration for the German Jagdpanzer 38(t) tank destroyer."[3]" and the sources mentioned there are the following: [2] Axworthy, p. 229 [3] Zaloga, p. 31 The Mareshall Tank Destroyer page : "Two German representatives observed the testing of M-04 and were impressed by its maneuverability. According to British historian Mark Axworthy, it was a German Lieutenant-Colonel by the name of Ventz who, in May 1944, acknowledged that the Hetzer was created along the lines of the Mareșal.[8]" and the sources mentioned here are the following: [8] Axworthy, p. 229 and in the Romanian variant: "Acesta a fost inspirația pentru crearea distrugătorului de tancuri german Panzerjager 36 poreclit Hetzer" "Testele prototipului M-04 au fost evaluate și de 2 reprezentanți ai Înaltului Comandament German, care au fost impresionați de manevrabilitatea și mobilitatea originalului vânător de tancuri." which is translated into: "This was the inspiration for creating the German tank destroyer Panzerjager 36, nicknamed Hetzer." "The tests of the M-04 prototype were evaluated as well by two representatives of the German High Command , whom were impressed by the maneuverability and the mobility of the original tank destroyer" (probably referencing the M-00 variant, although that is debatable)

Course is "Kurs" in German. German and English have a great deal of shared roots in vocabulary, but not syntax or grammar at all. I make the same mistake often when I say a similar sounding English word in a German sentence. It *is* funny and fitting though.

👍👍

You see hits on the front? I seen it in Munster. Someone's earS would've been ringing/Bleeding. But worse would be the poor bastards who shot at it, only to get a hit and have it bounce off! Some of the hits are like an Inch deep. It has many indents around the Gun sight from a heavy MG.

@@todcarter110 During the battle of Kursk one Tiger survived getting hit over 60 times and the crew managed to get the tank back to German lines drawing a long line of oil and fuel behind them since their tanks got ruptured by the hits. I can't imagine how taxing this was on their ears.

@@Athrun82 The tiger crew probably is as deaf as an old man in a retirement home

@@Athrun82 I imagine your whole body and brain would be a bit shaken up. Massive Steel rounds pinging off solid steel! Not sure if you've seen this vid but imagine the sound and impact of the 88 Firing inside the tank! Let alone getting hit so many times! This guy mentions he ''feels like someone has punched him in the sinus'' ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-CMm-k26qMaA.html Had to be tough as fuck to fight and survive!

But angling it pretty much doubles it's effectiveness, no matter how thin it is.

@@tomservo5347 hes talking about side armour. who cares

The Weight of straighter side armor with a wider roof was considered and rejected due to the weight issue.

thanks, I was trying to find some proper information there, but was not that successful. Do you can recommend a source that covers this?

@@MilitaryHistoryNotVisualized These days you can get this stuff even from the Wiki, and for visual references and more data Anthony Williams' website (quarryhs.co.uk) is the way to go. Even Wehrmacht teaching aide posters are available online. As for the books, I think you should check the usual suspects (Jentz & Doyle, Chamberlain & Gander, Hogg, etc) first and foremost. There are some German authors on this topic like Wolfgang Fleischer, Karl Pawlas, Joachim Engelmann and Horst Scheibert, but I'm not familiar with their works at all.

@@F1ghteR41 I checked pretty much all of that, but that detail I apparently missed it, probably because I was mainly looking at what the Pak39 actually is / how it differs from the Pak40.

Glad you liked it!

Warum nichts? It's the best td by far

Simple: Gleiche Logik wie beim Hetzer;´ 1) Fabriken sind die gleichen wie bei Panzer 4, heißt Unterbau kann 1 zu 1 übernommen werden 2) ein nahezu perfektioniertes Design. Der Panzer 4 war der m meisten gebaute und am längsten dienende deutsche Panzer und schon sehr sehr SEHR häufig optimiert und verbessert worden. 3) TD sind billiger als "richtige" Panzer, also können mehr in die Schlacht geworfen werden 4) Strategische Lage entwickelte sich zur Defensive -) TDs werden mehr bevorzugt 5) Besser als der Stug 3, da er zum einen als TD von Grund auf designed worden war und zum anderen das bessere und schwerer Panzergrundgerüst hatte (Pz3 < Pz4) 6) Produktionsprobleme bei dem Stugs durch Bombardierungen wie im Video erwähnt. Produktion der TDs auf mehrere Modellle und Standorte verteilen um Grundversorgung zu erhalten (besser irgendein TD an der Front als gar keiner)

@@noobster4779 Den wichtigsten und ursprünglichen Punkt hast du vergessen: Die lange 7,5 Des Panther auf Panzerjäger zu bringen. Dieser Panzer ist abseits der Panzerspezialisten dennoch eher unbekannt, deshalb mein Vorschlag

Because the germans liked stugs so much they planned to convert all tanks to Stug style tanks. If the war had lasted longer, we would’ve seen Stugtigers.

@@siegfried2k4 "(...) we would’ve seen Stugtigers." It's *'Jagdtiger'* - and they were _in production_ ... ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-xv9QAXPJVSc.html

There's more to the war than Germany, you know. Italians had some heavier gun prototypes of their Semovente line right when the government capitulated. The Russians has the SU 122, SU 152, and ISU 152 among others. The Hungarians had the Zrinyi, a bit outdated but still useful. The Jagdpanther is a great vehicle, but I'd still prefer to be in an ISU 152 if my life depended on it.

@@princeofcupspoc9073 okay but the video is about German TDs so that's why I mentioned them. I'd pick StuG all day.

@@princeofcupspoc9073 The Semovente line was literally a "made in Italy" Stug though :D

Smaller is easier to hide, harder to hit. As long as gun is capable larger is just a waste of resources.

@@princeofcupspoc9073 The ISU is not extremely well armored. Around 80mm on the front was normal for 1944 standard.

Ambush Hunter.....quite useful in an urban environment!

So was the US M4 Medium ("Sherman"). But if you build enough of them, and are willing to accept huge losses in your tank crews (as was the US), then it may work out better than having a few heavier vehicles.

@@princeofcupspoc9073 Except American tank crews didn't suffer great losses

@@princeofcupspoc9073 German armor quality in general suffered as war shortages caused problems: the German jets in particular suffered because of this, but Tigers and Panthers also got knocked out by shots they should have been able to endure simply because too many shortcuts were made for the armor to be reliable.

@@bubbasbigblast8563 I don't think so. The Germans were still rejecting armor based on lack of quality in the last month of the war.

Later years of the war the armor become cheaper as lack of alloys for harded steel

Nope! The Stug factories were almost completely destroyed from allied strategic bombing, so they proposed building them in Czech Škoda factories instead. However, the cranes were not strong enough to haul 24 tonne Stugs, only 16-tonne vehicles. Therefore, they had to base a Tank Destroyer on the 38(t) chassis with this in mind.

@@Mr_Bunk thanks.

​@@Mr_Bunk The Škoda works were building LT 38 models since before the war and it was a good and reliable chassis. The Hetzer was inspired by Romanian Mareșal tank hunter which impressed the Wehrmacht, not a improvised Stug replacement.

You make sausages from a tank? Or stew?

That was how the Finns "killed some Soviet tanks (including the biggest one in existence at the time) during the Winter War. The just dug giant Bear Traps, and kited the enemy tank towards it. If it is stupid, but works ... then it ain't stupid!

@@Grubnar interesting. I never heard or red of "bear tank" traps. Tree stumps and frozen wood blocks are known to work as anti tank obstacles.

@@Grubnar Hmm, nice tank. It would be a shame if it just... fell into a hole.

Sometimes you get the bear, and sometimes the bear gets you! ;)

Being a German, I can tell you that we have the same amount of chaos and lack of thought and organization as in every other country there is. It just depends on the topic and where you look at.

Nice story and background on this, very interesting! What does intrigue me is that they took the effort to design a ‘semi new’ vehicle just because of the lack of lifting capacity. Would a new crane not have been easier?

yes

@@MilitaryHistoryNotVisualized thx, was very well done interview. Wasn't sure if it was just me or if it was throwing off others