Today, Xiaobian wants to ask you a question for the tank elite: Do you remember which car the first warrior got it on? Is it a level 5 KV152? Or the SU-85 of the 107 guns? In the previous extremely unbalanced era, the power of the "father-in-law system" was not lip service! However, Xiaobian's first warrior was obtained on a humble German Class 4 car, the "Hunter". Let's study it together today
Research the Type 38 tank destroyer
It should be pointed out that the original name of the "Hunter" we are familiar with is "Hetzer", this name is actually prepared for the E-10 tank destroyer, perhaps revealed in small talk with the factory personnel, the armored soldiers who came to receive the tank to falsely claim this name on the Type 38 tank destroyer (Jagdpanzer 38), Guderian did not think so much, simply in the December 4, 1944 to Hitler report also called the Type 38 tank destroyer "Chaser". finish. Early domestic translations of "Hetzer" were not uniform, for example, hero Company was translated as "Heather", and the original meaning of the word hetzer was similar to that of "churning stick"/"demagogue"... But the etymology refers to a way of hunting for hunters: chasing after their prey until they are exhausted. Pursuit - Hunting, so the translated name of this "hunter" is also Sindaya, and I would like to pay tribute to the unknown translator who proposed this translation!
origin
38t tank, German captured version of the LT-38
At present, most of the information believes that the chassis of the "Hunter" comes from the 38(t) light tank, in fact, its chassis is actually from the Pz.38 nA light tank designed by the Czech BMM company in 1940, which is correctly the German 4-level car "Sanbana". The BMM company was also miserable enough, after germany annexed the Czech Republic it was incorporated into the military production system of the Third Reich and became a company owned by Alkett. By 1943, the Allied strategic bombing blew up the No. 3 assault gun production workshop of The Arcett Company near Berlin, and the No. 3 assault gun, a cheap and easy-to-use product (once a five-level money-fighting artifact), could not drop the chain, but the production capacity could not be restored in a moment and a half, so under Hitler's instructions, BMM began to design a 13-ton tank destroyer as an alternative.
A wooden model of the Hunter prototype car
Time is tight, the task is heavy, and they can only try to find ready-made things to make up, but the designers of BMM are risking losing their heads to do this, thinking about it or using the LT-38 light tank morphing vehicle they are most familiar with and the most successful , the 38 nA as a chassis. Ordered in December 1943, Hitler saw the design drawings presented by BMM on January 17, 1944, and a month later, on February 24, the full-size wooden model of the tank was made, and by March three prototypes had been produced for testing! 4 months to design a car, what an amazing speed!
Hitler inspected the hunters
On April 20, 1944, Hitler's birthday, BMM cleverly put the hunter's car display on this day as a "gift" to the Head of the Reich. The hunters at the auto show were well received by the attendees, and Hitler, who loved heavy tanks, himself considered the trolley a "practical product."
Hitler gleefully believed that the Hunters could produce 1,000 units a month, which was just a pipe dream for the industrial manufacturing capacity of the Third Reich, and in mid-1944 Skoda also began to produce Hunters, but the company only produced 10 in the first month, but the mosquitoes were meat no matter how small they were. The Hunter's production peak was in January 1945, when Skoda and BMM were at full capacity, producing a total of 434 units, but in February the Prague factory was bombed.....
The Hunter's body is 4.83 meters long, 2.59 meters wide and 1.87 meters high, counting the remote control machine gun on the roof of the car is 2.1 meters high. The total combat weight of the chariot is only 15.7 tons, and there is no need to think about the bearing capacity of the bridge like a tiger and leopard, how to drive and how to drive. The armor on the front of the hull is 60 degrees inclination and 60 mm thick, and the head is 40 degrees and 60 mm thick. The armor on the sides and tail of the hull is only 20 mm, which can only withstand small arms fire.
The bombed wreckage of a chaser
In addition, "Panzer Tracts" chief writer Hilary Doyle said: "In order to increase the production of self-propelled guns in addition to the production of tanks, Germany used armored steel from foreign countries (referring to the Czech Republic) in the production of self-propelled guns, which was of relatively poor quality, and the hunters used such steel." Although the Pursuer's side and frontal armor are 20mm and 60mm thick, respectively, the defensive power is only equivalent to the German armor plates of 10mm and about 30mm, respectively. However, this allowed the Pursuers to mass-produce, and even with poor armor quality, the level of protection was still much better than that of open-top self-propelled anti-tank guns. ”
In terms of weapons, the hunter used two kinds of artillery: the 75mm Pak 39 L/48 gun or the 75mm StuK 40 gun, both of which had similar technical performance, and could place 41 75mm shells in the hull, and when firing Pzgr.39 hood armor-piercing shells, they could penetrate 81.5mm thick German standard armored steel targets at a 60-degree inclination angle at a distance of 1000 meters, which was enough to kill Sherman, Cromwell, and T-34-85.
The Pursuer's gun was placed on the right side of the central axis of the hull, which gave the gun a firing boundary of only 5 degrees on the left and an 11-degree firing boundary on the right. Moreover, this gun alone weighs 1400 kg, and the shift of the center of gravity also makes the right side of the vehicle travel mechanism, such as the final reducer, lose some of the damage faster than the left side. The cramped interior space is also precious, with the driver-gunner-loader sitting in a straight line, the loader sitting on the right side of the car captain, and behind the captain is the engine compartment. The fight was hot, noisy and stuffy, not to mention how uncomfortable it was (the hunters did not install an air fan).
That's how machine guns operate
In terms of secondary weapons, there is only one MG34 machine gun on the roof of the car, and this machine gun is worth mentioning separately: it is actually a remote control machine gun, with 1200 rounds of ammunition and 50 rounds of drum feeding. The 4-man crew is manned by a loader who will keep an eye on the periscope linked to the machine gun, control the joint handle of the machine gun with both hands, and risk his life to open the hatch to replace the cartridge for the machine gun.
In terms of maneuvering, the hunters have followed the very successful Surin suspension, using a 160-horsepower Prager six-cylinder air-cooled gasoline engine, the maximum road speed can reach 40km/ h, the maximum speed of off-road is also 28km / h, although not very good, but the leather is durable, very reliable
Fighting in the last days of the Empire
The Sentinel in Front of the Hunter
For the pursuers, the Germans did not want to use it separately as a tank fighter battalion like the Tiger Hunter and Ferdinand, but intended to establish a tank fighter company with 14-10 hunters in each division, so that they would not be completely passive in the face of the steel torrents of soviet and Allied forces. However, in July 1944, the German high command established two independent tank fighter battalions, the 731st Battalion and the 743rd Battalion, each with three companies, each with 14 hunters, 1 company headquarters, and 3 battalion headquarters, of which 2 were command hunters.
In the fighting in October 1944, the 743rd Battalion destroyed a total of 57 Soviet tanks, and a company of 14 hunters alone destroyed 20 tanks in a single day. The small size of the hunter in the preset defensive position "black gun" is very cost-effective, even if the loss of a few is not painful.
Hunter captured by the Warsaw rebels
Since entering the army service, the hunter can be seen on both the eastern and western fronts, but because of its poor vision, once it enters the city to play the role of "assault gun", it will be very disadvantageous, and the infantry can easily destroy the hunter by relying on the terrain.
A hunter in "ambush" camouflage
Camouflage painted full of skills large supplies camouflage net
In the game, the hunter must brush up on the camouflage paint, and count the other seven seven eight eight attribute bonuses, which can reach the best concealment value in the game - 1028! Surprise the children across from you!