![]() Sturmgeschütz III with long barrelled gun The absence of a turret meant that tank destroyers could be manufactured significantly cheaper, faster, and more easily than the tanks on which they were based, and they found particular favor when production resources were lacking. Sometimes there was no armoured roof (only a weather cover) to keep the overall weight down to the limit that the chassis could bear. ![]() Eliminating the turret let the vehicle carry thicker armour, and also let this armour be concentrated in the hull. The lack of a turret increased the vehicle's internal volume, allowing for increased ammunition stowage and crew comfort. The turretless design allowed accommodation of a more powerful gun, typically a dedicated anti-tank gun (in lieu of a regular tank's general-purpose main gun that fired both anti-tank and high explosive ammunition) that had a longer barrel than could be mounted in a turreted tank on the same chassis. When a tank destroyer was used against enemy tanks from a defensive position such as by ambush, the lack of a rotating turret was not particularly critical, while the lower silhouette was highly desirable. An example of the development of tank destroyer technology throughout the war are the Marder III and Jagdpanzer 38 vehicle, that were very different in spite of being based on the same chassis: Marder was straightforwardly an anti-tank gun on tracks whereas the Jagdpanzer 38 traded some firepower (its 7.5 cm Pak 39, designed to operate within the confines of a fully armoured fighting compartment, fires the same projectiles from a reduced propellant charge compared to Marder's 7.5 cm Pak 40) for better armour protection and ease of concealment on the battlefield.Įxcept for most American designs, all tank destroyers were turretless vehicles with fixed or casemate superstructures. Some were little more than stopgap solutions, mounting an anti-tank gun on a tracked vehicle to give mobility, while others were more sophisticated designs. The resurgence of expeditionary warfare in the first two decades of the 21st century has seen the emergence of gun-armed wheeled vehicles, sometimes called "protected gun systems", which may bear a superficial resemblance to tank destroyers, but are employed as direct fire support units typically providing support in low-intensity operations such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.ĭedicated anti-tank vehicles made their first major appearance in the Second World War as combatants developed effective armoured vehicles and tactics. However, lightly armoured anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) carriers are commonly used for supplementary long-range anti-tank work. Since World War II, gun-armed powerful tank destroyers have fallen out of favor as armies have favored multirole main battle tanks. Many are based on a tracked tank chassis, while others are wheeled. While tanks are designed for front-line combat, combining operational mobility and tactical offensive and defensive capabilities and performing all primary tasks of the armoured troops, the tank destroyer is specifically designed to take on enemy tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles. To that extent the IID was a good tank killer, but I wouldn't fancy my chances flying one in the ETO in 1944/5, and of course nobody did.A tank destroyer, tank hunter, tank killer, or self-propelled anti-tank gun is a type of armoured fighting vehicle, armed with a direct fire artillery gun or missile launcher, designed specifically to engage and destroy enemy tanks, often with limited operational capacities. It has also been shown in numerous trials and experiments that cannon and machine guns were by far the most accurate weapons that fighter bombers carried when compared to dropped ordnance (bombs, napalm etc) or rockets. The IID had the advantage of carrying armament specifically to destroy the vehicles it would encounter in 1942. That might not seem many in the context of total German losses, but is pretty good going for a relatively few aircraft (never more than four squadrons, with low operational rates). I don't remember the total, nor can I find it, but a figure of about 40 seems to be lurking in my memory. Nonetheless the North African squadrons were credited with some tank kills. It does mean that even firing all 30 rounds at a target (unlikely) they'd struggle statistically for a hit. HE ammunition was more accurate, probably something to do with its trajectory being closer to that of the sighting machine guns.
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