1.
Tank destroyer
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The tank destroyer on the other hand is specifically designed to take on enemy armour. Many are based on a 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. Dedicated anti-tank vehicles made their first major appearance in the Second World War as combatants developed effective armored vehicles, 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. Except for most American designs, tank destroyers were all turretless and had fixed or casemate superstructures, the turretless design allowed accommodation of a more powerful gun, typically a dedicated anti-tank gun that had a longer barrel than could be mounted in a turreted tank on the same chassis. The lack of an increased the vehicles internal volume, allowing for increased ammunition stowage. Eliminating the turret allowed the vehicle to carry thicker armor than would otherwise be the case, sometimes there was no armored roof to keep the overall weight down to the limit that the chassis could bear. Variants of the Polish TKS and TK-3 tankettes up-armed with 20 mm gun were operationally deployed in the invasion of Poland and they were used as an anti-tank component of the reconnaissance units. Due to the defeat of France, few French vehicles were built. The Laffly W15 TCC was an attempt to build a light tank destroyer by mounting a 47 mm SA37 anti-tank gun onto a lightly armored Laffly W15T artillery tractor. Other French tank destroyers were being developed, including the SOMUA SAu-40, ARL V39, 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. 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 chassis to produce the Marder III, the Panzer 38 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 an artillery gun. Based on the Panzer III tank chassis, the Sturmgeschütz III was originally fitted with a low-velocity gun, 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 superstructure with an integrated design similar to the later Jagdpanzer to completely enclose the crew. It was employed in support and offensive armored operations as well as in the defensive anti-tank role
2.
Nazi Germany
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Nazi Germany is the common English name for the period in German history from 1933 to 1945, when Germany was governed by a dictatorship under the control of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Under Hitlers rule, Germany was transformed into a fascist state in which the Nazi Party took totalitarian control over all aspects of life. The official name of the state was Deutsches Reich from 1933 to 1943, the period is also known under the names the Third Reich and the National Socialist Period. The Nazi regime came to an end after the Allied Powers defeated Germany in May 1945, Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by the President of the Weimar Republic Paul von Hindenburg on 30 January 1933. The Nazi Party then began to eliminate all opposition and consolidate its power. Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934, and Hitler became dictator of Germany by merging the powers and offices of the Chancellery, a national referendum held 19 August 1934 confirmed Hitler as sole Führer of Germany. All power was centralised in Hitlers person, and his word became above all laws, the government was not a coordinated, co-operating body, but a collection of factions struggling for power and Hitlers favour. In the midst of the Great Depression, the Nazis restored economic stability and ended mass unemployment using heavy military spending, extensive public works were undertaken, including the construction of Autobahnen. The return to economic stability boosted the regimes popularity, racism, especially antisemitism, was a central feature of the regime. The Germanic peoples were considered by the Nazis to be the purest branch of the Aryan race, millions of Jews and other peoples deemed undesirable by the state were murdered in the Holocaust. Opposition to Hitlers rule was ruthlessly suppressed, members of the liberal, socialist, and communist opposition were killed, imprisoned, or exiled. The Christian churches were also oppressed, with many leaders imprisoned, education focused on racial biology, population policy, and fitness for military service. Career and educational opportunities for women were curtailed, recreation and tourism were organised via the Strength Through Joy program, and the 1936 Summer Olympics showcased the Third Reich on the international stage. Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels made effective use of film, mass rallies, the government controlled artistic expression, promoting specific art forms and banning or discouraging others. Beginning in the late 1930s, Nazi Germany made increasingly aggressive territorial demands and it seized Austria and Czechoslovakia in 1938 and 1939. Hitler made a pact with Joseph Stalin and invaded Poland in September 1939. In alliance with Italy and smaller Axis powers, Germany conquered most of Europe by 1940, reichskommissariats took control of conquered areas, and a German administration was established in what was left of Poland. Jews and others deemed undesirable were imprisoned, murdered in Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps, following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the tide gradually turned against the Nazis, who suffered major military defeats in 1943
3.
Casemate
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A casemate, sometimes erroneously rendered casement, is a fortified gun emplacement or armored structure from which guns are fired. Originally, the referred to a vaulted chamber in a fortress. In armoured fighting vehicles that do not have a turret for the main gun, the word comes from the Italian casamatta, the etymology of which is uncertain. Others think that it comes from the Arabic word kasaba, transliterated to kasbah, menagio speculated that it came from the Greek word for pit, khasma, the plural of which is khasmata. Hensleigh Wedgwood thought that it came from the Spanish casa and matar, others take matto in its archaic Italian meaning of dark, equivalent to the English matt, as in opaque, making a casamatta a dark house. Casematte were also used as prisons, making use of their lack of light to add to the punishment. This explanation seems to be the most agreed upon, a casemate was originally a vaulted chamber usually constructed underneath the rampart. It was intended to be impenetrable and could be used for sheltering troops or stores, with the addition of an embrasure through the scarp face of the rampart, it could be used as a protected gun position. In the early 19th century, French military engineer Baron Haxo designed a free-standing casemate that could be built on the top of the rampart, casemates built in concrete were used in the Second World War to protect coastal artillery from air attack. In warship design the term casemate has been used in a number of ways, the most famous naval battle of the war was the duel at Hampton Roads between the Union turretted ironclad USS Monitor and the Confederate casemate ironclad CSS Virginia. Casemate ship was a term for central battery ship or center battery ship. The casemate was a box that extended the full width of the ship protecting many guns. The armoured sides of the box were the sides of hull of the ship, there was an armoured bulkhead at the front and rear of the casemate, and a thick deck protecting the top. The lower edge of the casemate sat on top of ships belt armour, some ships, such as the Alexandra, had a two-storey casemate. A casemate was a room in the side of a warship. A typical casemate held a 6-in gun, and had a 6 front plate, with armour plates on the sides and rear, with a protected top and floor. Casemates were similar in size to turrets, ships carrying them had them in pairs, the first battleships to carry them were the British Royal Sovereign class laid down in 1889. They were adopted as a result of live-firing trials against HMS Resistance in 1888, the use of casemates enabled the 6-in guns to be dispersed, so that a single hit would not knock out all of them
4.
MG 34
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The Maschinengewehr 34, or MG34, is a German recoil-operated air-cooled machine gun, first tested in 1929, introduced in 1934, and issued to units in 1936. It accepts the 7. 92×57mm Mauser cartridge, and is considered the worlds first general-purpose machine gun. The versatile MG34 was arguably the most advanced machine gun in the world at the time of its deployment and its combination of exceptional mobility – being light enough to be carried by one man – and high rate of fire was unmatched. It entered service in numbers following Hitlers repudiation of the Versailles Treaty in 1936. Nonetheless, the design proved too complex for production, and was supplemented by the cheaper and simpler MG42. The MG34 was based on a 1930 Rheinmetall design, the MG30, the Swiss and Austrian militaries had both licensed and produced the MG30 from Rheinmetall shortly after patent. The MG30 design was adapted and modified by Heinrich Vollmer of Mauser Industries, Vollmer modified the feed mechanism to accept either drum magazines or belt ammunition. He also increased the rate of fire, the MG 34s double crescent trigger dictated either semiautomatic or fully automatic firing modes. In the field, the weapon could operate in offensive or defensive applications, the offensive model, with a mobile soldier, used a drum magazine that could hold either 50 or 75 rounds of ammunition. In a stationary defensive role, the gun was mounted on a bipod or tripod, belts were carried in boxes of five. Belt lengths could be linked for sustained fire, during sustained fire, barrels would have to be changed at intervals due to the heat generated by the rapid rate of fire. If the barrels were not changed properly, the weapon would misfire, changing barrels was a rapid process for the trained operator and involved disengaging a latch and swinging the receiver to the right for the insertion of a new barrel. Accordingly, stationary defensive positions required more than one operator, the MG34 was the mainstay of German Army support weapons from the time of its first issue in 1935 until 1942, when it was supplanted by the next generation Maschinengewehr 42 or MG42. For its successor, the MG42, the Germans instead used mass production techniques similar to those that created the MP40 submachine gun, however, the Germans nevertheless continued widespread production of MG 34s until the end of the war. The MG34 was used as the primary machine gun during the 1930s. The MG34 was intended to replace the MG13 and other machine guns. It was designed primarily by Heinrich Vollmer from the Mauser Werke, changes to the operating mechanism improved the rate of fire to between 800 and 900 rpm. The new gun was accepted for service almost immediately and was liked by the troops
5.
Tiger II
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Tiger II is the common name of a German heavy tank of the Second World War. The final official German designation was Panzerkampfwagen Tiger Ausf, B, often shortened to Tiger B. The ordnance inventory designation was Sd. Kfz and it is also known under the informal name Königstiger, often translated literally as Royal Tiger, or somewhat incorrectly as King Tiger by Allied soldiers, especially by American forces. The Tiger II was the successor to the Tiger I, combining the latters thick armour with the armour sloping used on the Panther medium tank, the tank weighed almost 70 tonnes, and was protected by 100 to 185 mm of armour to the front. It was armed with the long barrelled 8.8 cm KwK43 L/71 anti-tank cannon, the chassis was also the basis for the Jagdtiger turretless tank destroyer. The Tiger II was issued to tank battalions of the Army. Development of a tank design had been initiated in 1937. Another design contract followed in 1939, and was given to Porsche, both prototype series used the same turret design from Krupp, the main differences were in the hull, transmission, suspension and automotive features. The Henschel version used a hull design with sloped armour resembling the layout of the Panther tank. The Porsche hull designs included a turret and a mid-mounted engine. The suspension was the same as on the Elefant tank destroyer and this had six road wheels per side mounted in paired bogies sprung with short longitudinal torsion bars that were integral to the wheel pair, this saved internal space and facilitated repairs. This method of propulsion had been attempted before on the Tiger and in some US designs, the Porsche suspension were later used on a few of the later Jagdtiger tank destroyers. Another proposal was to use hydraulic drives, dr. Porsches unorthodox designs gathered little favour. Henschel won the contract, and all Tiger IIs were produced by the firm. Two turret designs were used in production vehicles, the initial design is often misleadingly called the Porsche turret due to the belief that it was designed by Porsche for their prototype, in fact it was the initial Krupp design for both prototypes. This turret had a front and steeply sloped sides, with a difficult-to-manufacture curved bulge on the turrets left side to accommodate the commanders cupola. Fifty early turrets were mounted to Henschels hull and used in action, the turrets were designed to mount the 8.8 cm KwK43 L/71 gun. Combined with the Turmzielfernrohr 9d monocular sight by Leitz, which all but a few early Tiger IIs used, it was a very accurate and deadly weapon
6.
Armoured fighting vehicle
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An armoured fighting vehicle is a combat vehicle, protected by strong armour and generally armed with weapons, which combines operational mobility, tactical offensive, and defensive capabilities. AFVs can be wheeled or tracked and it is not uncommon for AFVs to be simply referred to as armour. Armoured fighting vehicles are classified according to their role on the battlefield. This classification is not absolute, at different times different countries will classify the vehicle in different roles. For example, armoured carriers were generally replaced by infantry fighting vehicles in a similar role. Modern armoured fighting vehicles are the realization of an ancient concept, War machines with rudimentary armour have been used in battle for millennia. These designs historically struggled between the paradox of exposed-mobility, effective-firepower and cumbersome-protection, Siege engines, such as battering rams and trebuchets, would often be armoured in order to protect the crews from the defenders. Very large movable siege towers, helepolis were developed by Polyidus of Thessaly, the idea of a vehicle with a tortoise like cover has been known since antiquity. Frequently cited is Leonardo da Vincis 15th century sketch of a mobile, protected gun platform, the machine was to be mounted on four wheels which would be turned by the crew through a system of hand cranks and cage gears. Leonardo quoted I will build armored wagons which will be safe, there will be no obstacle which it cannot overcome. Modern replicas have demonstrated that the crew would have been able to move it over only short distances. The war wagon were medieval weapon-platforms developmed during the Hussite Wars around 1420 by Hussite forces rebelling in Bohemia. These heavy wagon were given protective sides with firing slits and heavy firepower from either a cannon or a force of hand-gunners and crossbowmen, supported by infantry using pikes, heavy arquebuses mounted on wagons were called arquebus à croc. These carried a ball of about 3.5 ounces, the first modern AFVs were armed cars, dating back virtually to the invention of the motor car. The Motor Scout was designed and built by British inventor F. R. Simms in 1898 and it was the first armed petrol engine powered vehicle ever built. The vehicle was a De Dion-Bouton quadricycle with a mounted Maxim machine gun on the front bar, an iron shield offered some protection for the driver from the front, but it lacked all-around protective armour. The armoured car was the first modern fully armoured fighting vehicle, the first of these was the Simms Motor War Car, designed by Simms and built by Vickers, Sons & Maxim in 1899. The vehicle had Vickers armour 6 mm thick and was powered by a four-cylinder 3. 3-litre 16 hp Cannstatt Daimler engine giving it a speed of around 9 miles per hour
7.
End of World War II in Europe
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The final battles of the European Theatre of World War II as well as the German surrender to the Soviet Union and the Western Allies took place in late April and early May 1945. Allied forces begin to take large numbers of Axis prisoners, The total number of prisoners taken on the Western Front in April 1945 by the Western Allies was 1,500,000. April also witnessed the capture of at least 120,000 German troops by the Western Allies in the last campaign of the war in Italy, in the three or four months up to the end of April, over 800,000 German soldiers surrendered on the Eastern Front. In early April, the first Allied-governed Rheinwiesenlagers were established in western Germany to hold hundreds of thousands of captured or surrendered Axis Forces personnel, Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force reclassified all prisoners as Disarmed Enemy Forces, not POWs. The legal fiction circumvented provisions under the Geneva Convention of 1929 on the treatment of former combatants, by October, thousands had died in the camps from starvation, exposure and disease. Liberation of Nazi Concentration Camps and refugees, Allied forces begin to discover the scale of The Holocaust, the advance into Germany uncovers numerous Nazi concentration camps and forced labor facilities. Up to 60,000 prisoners were at Bergen-Belsen when it was liberated on April 15,1945, Four days later troops from the American 42nd Infantry Division found Dachau. Allied troops force the remaining SS guards to gather up the corpses, due to the prisoners poor physical condition, thousands continue to die after liberation. Captured SS guards are subsequently tried at Allied war crimes tribunals where many are sentenced to death, however, up to 10,000 Nazi war criminals will eventually flee Europe using ratlines such as ODESSA. Germans leave Finland, On 25 April 1945, the last Germans were expelled by the Finnish Army from Finland, Mussolinis death, On 25 April 1945, Italian partisans liberated Milan and Turin. On 27 April 1945, as Allied forces closed in on Milan, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was captured by Italian partisans and it is disputed whether he was trying to flee from Italy to Switzerland, and was traveling with a German anti-aircraft battalion. On 28 April, Mussolini was executed in Giulino, the other Fascists captured with him were taken to Dongo, the bodies were then taken to Milan and hung up on the Piazzale Loreto of the city. On 29 April, Rodolfo Graziani surrendered all Fascist Italian armed forces at Caserta, Graziani was the Minister of Defence for Mussolinis Italian Social Republic. Upper Inn river to the American General Jacob L. Devers, hitler appointed his successors as follows, Großadmiral Karl Dönitz as the new Reichspräsident and Joseph Goebbels as the new Reichskanzler. However, Goebbels committed suicide the day, leaving Dönitz as the sole leader of Germany. In the document, the Germans agreed to a ceasefire and surrender of all the forces under the command of Vietinghoff at 2pm on 2 May, German forces in Berlin surrender, The Battle of Berlin ended on 2 May. On that date, General der Artillerie Helmuth Weidling, the commander of the Berlin Defense Area, on the same day the officers commanding the two armies of Army Group Vistula north of Berlin, surrendered to the Western Allies. Lehrter Bahnhof is close to where the remains of Bormann, confirmed as his by a DNA test in 1998, were unearthed on 7 December 1972, the number of German land, sea and air forces involved in this surrender amounted to 1,000,000 men
8.
Western Front (World War II)
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The Western Front of the European theatre of World War II encompassed Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Germany. World War II military engagements in Southern Europe and elsewhere are generally considered under separate headings, the Western Front was marked by two phases of large-scale combat operations. The second phase consisted of ground combat, which began in June 1944 with the Allied landings in Normandy. The Phoney War was a phase of World War II marked by a few military operations in Continental Europe in the months following the German invasion of Poland. Although the great powers of Europe had declared war on one another, neither side had yet committed to launching a significant attack and this was also the period in which The United Kingdom and France did not supply significant aid to Poland, despite their pledged alliance. While most of the German Army was fighting against Poland, a much smaller German force manned the Siegfried Line, there were only some local, minor skirmishes. The British Royal Air Force dropped propaganda leaflets on Germany and the first Canadian troops stepped ashore in Britain, while Western Europe was in a strange calm for seven months. In their hurry to re-arm, Britain and France had both begun to buy large numbers of weapons manufacturers in the United States at the outbreak of hostilities. The non-belligerent United States, contributed to the Western Allies by discounted sales of military equipment, German efforts to interdict the Allies trans-Atlantic trade at sea ignited the Battle of the Atlantic. However, when the Allies made a counter-landing in Norway following the German invasion, the Kriegsmarine, nonetheless, suffered very heavy losses during the two-months of fighting required to seize all of mainland Norway. In May 1940, the Germans launched the Battle of France, the Western Allies soon collapsed under the onslaught of the so-called blitzkrieg strategy. The majority of the British and elements of the French forces escaped at Dunkirk, with the fighting ended, the Germans began to consider ways of resolving the question of how to deal with Britain. If the British refused to agree to a treaty, one option was to invade. However, Nazi Germanys Kriegsmarine, had suffered losses in Norway. With the Luftwaffe unable to defeat the RAF in the Battle of Britain and these were built in anticipation of an Allied invasion of France. Because of the massive logistical obstacles a cross-channel invasion would face, on 19 August 1942, the Allies began the Dieppe Raid, an attack on Dieppe, France. Most of the troops were Canadian, with some British contingents, the raid was a disaster, almost two-thirds of the attacking force became casualties. However, much was learned as a result of the operation – these lessons would be put to use in the subsequent invasion
9.
Eastern Front (World War II)
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The battles on the Eastern Front constituted the largest military confrontation in history. They were characterized by unprecedented ferocity, wholesale destruction, mass deportations, and immense loss of life due to combat, starvation, exposure, disease, and massacres. The Eastern Front, as the site of nearly all extermination camps, death marches, ghettos, of the estimated 70 million deaths attributed to World War II, over 30 million, many of them civilian, occurred on the Eastern Front. The Eastern Front was decisive in determining the outcome of the European portion of World War II and it resulted in the destruction of the Third Reich, the partition of Germany for nearly half a century and the rise of the Soviet Union as a military and industrial superpower. The two principal belligerent powers were Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, along with their respective allies. Though never engaged in action in the Eastern Front, the United Kingdom. The joint German–Finnish operations across the northernmost Finnish–Soviet border and in the Murmansk region are considered part of the Eastern Front, in addition, the Soviet–Finnish Continuation War may also be considered the northern flank of the Eastern Front. Despite their ideological antipathy, both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union shared a dislike for the outcome of World War I. The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact signed in August 1939 was an agreement between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. It contained a secret protocol aiming to return Central Europe to the pre–World War I status quo by dividing it between Germany and the Soviet Union, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania would return to Soviet control, while Poland and Romania would be divided. I need the Ukraine so that they cant starve us out, the two powers invaded and partitioned Poland in 1939. The annexations were never recognized by most Western states, the annexed Romanian territory was divided between the Ukrainian and Moldavian Soviet republics. Adolf Hitler had argued in his autobiography Mein Kampf for the necessity of Lebensraum, acquiring new territory for Germans in Eastern Europe, Wehrmacht officers told their troops to target people who were described as Jewish Bolshevik subhumans, the Mongol hordes, the Asiatic flood and the red beast. The vast majority of German soldiers viewed the war in Nazi terms, Hitler referred to the war in unique terms, calling it a war of annihilation which was both an ideological and racial war. In addition, the Nazis also sought to wipe out the large Jewish population of Central, after Germanys initial success at the Battle of Kiev in 1941, Hitler saw the Soviet Union as militarily weak and ripe for immediate conquest. On 3 October 1941, he announced, We have only to kick in the door, thus, Germany expected another short Blitzkrieg and made no serious preparations for prolonged warfare. Throughout the 1930s the Soviet Union underwent massive industrialization and economic growth under the leadership of Joseph Stalin, Stalins central tenet, Socialism in one country, manifested itself as a series of nationwide centralized Five-Year Plans from 1929 onwards. It served as a testing ground for both the Wehrmacht and the Red Army to experiment with equipment and tactics that they would later employ on a wider scale in the Second World War
10.
Marder I
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The Marder I Marten was a German World War II tank destroyer, armed with the 75 mm anti-tank gun. From the early stages of Operation Barbarossa the Wehrmacht became aware that their abililty to combat some of the Soviet tanks was inadequate. The lighter tanks then in service, such as the Panzer II. What was needed was a more powerful anti-tank gun that was mobile, the Germans possessed such a gun in the 75 mm PaK40. They also had come into possession of a number of captured Soviet 76 mm F-22 Model 1936 divisional field guns. The Germans had experience in taking the chassis of a tank to provide mobility to a heavier gun. The Panzerjäger I is such an example, where the turret was removed for a conversion to allow the gunners the necessary room to operate the gun. With the shock of having units overrun by new Soviet T-34s and KV-1s, the result was the Marder series, comprising the Marder I, Marder II, and Marder III respectively. These vehicles provided mobility to either the captured Soviet 7.62 cm Pak 36 gun or in later versions the German 75 mm PaK40 anti-tank gun, due to the weight and space constraints of the small chassis, the Marder series were not fully armored. Thin upper armor protection was provided only for the front and sides against shrapnel, all Marder series had open tops. Some were issued with canvas covers to protect the crew from the elements, the Marder series were not a proper Panzerjäger that could exchange shells with enemy tanks. The Marder I was developed in May 1942 by Major Alfred Becker and it carried the 75 mm PaK40 anti-tank gun on a Lorraine chassis. As the gun was relatively large, the crew compartment superstructure was removed to create the space needed to work the gun. This was done at Baustokommando Becker, the gun was then mounted atop the chassis. Alkett, working in conjunction with Becker, produced the angled armour shielding for the crew compartment, the shielding was relatively light, and was open from above. The shielding provided the crew protection from blast and small arms fire. The vehicles primary function was to provide mobility to the anti-tank gun and it was not intended as a replacement for a main battle tank. Between July and August 1942,170 Marder Is were built on the Lorraine chassis, later, several other French and Polish tanks were used as the conversion base for the Marder I, including the Hotchkiss H39 and FCM36
11.
Marder II
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The Marder II was a German tank destroyer of World War II based on the Panzer II chassis. There were two versions, the first mounted modified Soviet 7.62 cm guns firing German ammunition and its high profile and thin open-topped armor provided minimal protection to the crew. Nevertheless, the Marder II provided an increase in firepower over contemporary German tanks during 1942. Only four Marder IIs remain today, during the very first days of Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, the Germans were shocked to encounter Soviet T-34 medium tanks and KV heavy tanks. Although the Wehrmacht succeeded in most operations due to tactics, air support and supply. An urgent need arose for a mobile and powerful anti-tank weapon than the existing towed anti-tank guns or tank destroyers like the Panzerjäger I. Among a series of solutions, it was decided to use light tanks, like the Panzer II, the Marder II came in two major versions. The first version was based on the light Panzer II Ausf, d/E and Flammpanzer II chassis with a new torsion bar suspension featuring four large road wheels and a slack track with no track return rollers. It was armed with captured Soviet 7.62 cm guns, re-chambered to accept German 7.5 cm Pak 40 ammunition and these early Marder IIs had a very high silhouette and thin armor - only 30 mm and 10 to 15 mm. There was no armour on the top or rear, leaving the crew with little protection. Alkett and Wegmann produced 201 Marder II from early 1942 to early 1943, the second version was originally based on Panzer II Ausf. A to C hulls removed from service, but later newly produced Ausf. This Marder II had a fighting compartment and used the German 75 mm Pak 40 anti-tank gun. The silhouette was lowered by about 40 cm to 2.20 m, but the armor was thin, FAMO, MAN and Daimler-Benz produced 576 Marder II conversions from June 1942 to Mid 1943. 75 more were converted from mid 1943 to early 1944 when the last Panzer IIs were taken out of active service, the various Marder IIs fought on all fronts of the war, but especially on the Eastern Front. The Marder IIs were used by the Panzerjäger Abteilungen of the Panzer divisions of both the Heer and the Waffen SS, as well as several Luftwaffe units, the Marders weaknesses were mainly related to survivability. The combination of a silhouette and open-top fighting compartment made them vulnerable to indirect artillery fire, aircraft strafing. The armor was quite thin, making them vulnerable to enemy tanks or infantry
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