page_title: Tank destroyer
section_title: Germany
hierarchical_section_title: Tank destroyer / 20th century / World War II / Germany
caption_attribution_description: English: Jagdtiger at Bovington Tank Museum
context_page_description: A tank destroyer, tank hunter, or tank killer is a type of armoured fighting vehicle, armed with a direct-fire artillery gun or missile launcher, with limited operational capacities and designed specifically to engage enemy tanks.
  Tanks are armoured fighting vehicles designed for front-line combat, combining operational mobility and tactical offensive and defensive capabilities; tanks perform all primary tasks of the armoured troops. The tank destroyer on the other hand is specifically designed to take on enemy tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles. Many are based on a tracked tank chassis, while others are wheeled.
  Since World War II, gun-armed tank destroyers have fallen out of favor as armies have favored multirole main battle tanks. However, lightly armored anti-tank guided missile carriers are commonly used for supplementary long-range anti-tank work.
context_section_description: The first German tank destroyers were the Panzerjäger ("tank hunters"), which mounted an existing anti-tank gun on a convenient chassis for mobility, usually with just a three-sided gun shield for crew protection. For instance, 202 obsolete Panzer I light tanks were modified by removing the turret and were rebuilt as the Panzerjäger I self-propelled 4.7 cm PaK(t). Similarly, Panzer II tanks were used on the eastern front. Captured Soviet 76.2 mm anti-tank guns were mounted on modified Panzer II chassis, producing the Marder II self-propelled anti-tank gun. The most common mounting was a German 75 mm anti-tank gun on the Czech Panzer 38(t) chassis to produce the Marder III. The Panzer 38(t) chassis was also used to make the Jagdpanzer 38 casemate style tank destroyer. The Panzerjäger series continued up to the 88 mm equipped Nashorn.
  German tank destroyers based on the Panzer III and later German tanks were unique in that they had more armor than their tank counterparts. One of the more successful German tank destroyers was actually designed as a self-propelled artillery gun, the Sturmgeschütz III. Based on the Panzer III tank chassis, the Sturmgeschütz III was originally fitted with a low-velocity gun, and was assigned to the artillery arm for infantry fire support. Later, after encountering Soviet tanks, it was refitted with a comparatively short-barreled high-velocity anti-tank gun, usually with a muzzle brake, enabling it to function as a tank destroyer. The Sturmgeschütz III from its 1938 origin used a new casemate-style superstructure with an integrated design, similar to the later Jagdpanzer vehicle designs' superstructure, to completely enclose the crew. It was employed in infantry support and offensive armored operations as well as in the defensive anti-tank role. The StuG III assault gun was Germany's most-produced fully tracked armoured fighting vehicle during World War II, and second-most produced German armored combat vehicle of any type after the Sd.Kfz. 251 half-track.  
  Although the early German Panzerjäger carried more effective weapons than the tanks on which they were based, they were generally lacking in protection for the crew, having thinly armored open-topped superstructures. The "open-topped" design format of the Panzerjäger vehicles was succeeded by the Jagdpanzer ("hunting tanks"), which mounted the gun in true casemate-style superstructures, completely enclosing the crew compartment in armor that was usually integral to the hull. The first of these Jagdpanzers was the 70-ton Ferdinand (later renamed Elefant), based on the chassis, hulls, and drive systems of ninety-one Porsche VK4501 (P) heavy tanks, mounting a long-barreled 88 mm cannon in an added casemate, more like the earlier Panzerjägers had with their added-on armor shielding for the gun crew, but in the Ferdinand completely enclosing the gun and firing crew in the added casemate, as the later purpose-built Jagdpanzers would. However, the Ferdinand was mechanically unreliable and difficult to maneuver, and once all ninety-one unturreted "Porsche Tiger" hulls/drive systems were converted, no more were built. The German Army had more success with the Jagdpanther. Introduced in mid-1944, the Jagdpanther, of which some 415 examples were produced, was considered the best of the casemate-design Jagdpanzer designs. It featured the same powerful PaK 43 88 mm cannon used on the unwieldy Elefant, now fitted to the chassis of the medium Panther tank, providing greatly improved armor-penetrating capability in a medium-weight vehicle.
  Facing an increasingly defensive war, the German Army turned to larger and more powerfully armed Jagdpanzer designs, and in July 1944 the first Jagdtiger rolled off the production line; it was the heaviest German armored fighting vehicle to go into active service.  The Jagdtiger featured a huge 128 mm PaK 44 cannon and heavy armor protection. Only 88 Jagdtiger vehicles were produced, barely matching the total number of the earlier Ferdinand/Elefant vehicles. They were first deployed to combat units in September 1944.
  The
caption: Jagdtiger
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