The Theatre of History Episode 1: The StuG III

thanks for this very interesting article. Keep on making stuff like that

I promise I will Thanks for the feedback ^^

nice , always good to know

And there is still a lot more to learn ^^

Great job!! Thank you

Very cool! Panzerwerfer! KV-2!

They will come

Great job. Hope to see more of this.

Cool to see this featured on the Official coh Facebook page!

approves

Oh yeah I hope they will share the other ones too

Was very fun to read! I'd really like to know if the soldiers themselfes liked the Stug compared to other tanks. E.g comfort, effectiveness etc.
Maybe you know something about that?

About advantages of no-turret build you haven't mentioned to most important one. The main idea was to put 75mm gun on Pz III and here is the problem, turret of this tank is too small for that, and even if they would make bigger turret (like in kv-2) it would probably broke after one or few shots because of the moment of force. But if you put gun on the frontal armour the force is spreaded through the whole vehicle and the problem doesn't exist. That (and the cost) is the reason for creating every single assault gun in history, each has bigger gun than it's tank equivalent.

Well I think this was an important reason, but the ones I mentioned were the important ones ; P

Great read! Wish OKW had a Stug option, loved using Stugs as a Wehrmacht player.

Thanks for taking the time on writing this hope there's more to come!

About advantages of no-turret build you haven't mentioned to most important one. The main idea was to put 75mm gun on Pz III and here is the problem, turret of this tank is too small for that...

Sorry but this is plain and simple false.

The PIII could have been armed with a 7.5 cm L24 guns like the early StuG or the early PIV marks were was carrying. In fact the final model of the PIII the Ausf. N did carry exactly this gun.

It wasn't done unti '42 since the PIII was intended as primary battle tank with the main purpose of fighting other AFVs. The 7.5 L24 is more of a high velocity grenade launcher or howitzer than a real tank gun. Its main purpose it to lob HE shells at soft targets and field fortifications. Its anti vehicle performance is really poor. The "short" L42 5 cm gun easily outperforms it in any regard (exept the payload of the HE shell) while using smaller, less bulky ammo. The 5 cm gun was the originally intended armament for the PIII. It was delayed as a cost saving measure. This is also the reason why the 7.5 cm L24 fits the PIII turret. It was designed for a 5 cm gun right from the start. The 3.7 cm gun is to small for it.
This is why the PIV wich was originally intended as a support tank for the PIII wich was intended as the main battle tank was armed like this.
In 42 it became apparent that the PIII had reached the end of its usefullness as a main battle tank and its final model was used as a support tank. The PIV with the medium velocity 7.5 cm gun taking its place as the main battle tank. Rearming the last PIII until production shut down with 7.5 cm L24 therfore made perfect sense.

The PIII hull was chosen for the StuG because it was big enough and available in sufficient numbers. The turret was omited because the StuG should have a silhoute as low as possible. To be precise the design requirement was hight over all about the size of a standing man. Wich forbade the use of a turret. It also made the vehicle cheaper, reduced the need for complex and limited supply parts (very important bearings for the turret ring) and since the frontal area was smaller it could be armored better while keeping inside the weight limit of the PIII.

"That's why the Panther's KwK 42 L/70 actually has better penetration than the Tiger's KwK 36 L/56, and fired its shell at a higher muzzle velocity."

When making such statements you need to be terrily carefull.

The KwK 42 fires a smaller and lighter shell at higher velocities. That is true.
The intention was to get a smaller gun with comparable armor piercing performance to the 8.8 cm KwK 36.
Its penetration is not better for practical purposes. It has slightly better performance under the ideal conditions of a test range. It must have since this is only theoretical performance since several things are not accounted for. The designer knew that.

For example am effect called "overmatch". Wich plays a huge role in understanding why the 8.8 cm guns were so effective.
A larger heavier shells is also less suceptible to outside influence and less then ideal conditions. Wich means it will work more reliable.

Another important drawback of the 7.5 cm shell is the smaller bursting charge. About ~20 g compared to ~60 g. The bursting charge is what makes a penetration effective.

The higher velocity of the KwK 42 improves the hit ratio though.

The KwK 42 is intended as a rapid fire, high accuracy anti armor gun capable of effectively engaging all medium tanks up to 2000 m.

The KwK 36 is a powerfull all round gun wich is effective against any target in excess of 2000 m.

Also the change from the L43 to L48 barrels of the KwK40/StuK40 was not because of an improvement in performance. The actual performance increase is more or less neglectible. It had primary technical and manufacturing reasons.