Hetzers!

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**Adam LongWalker**

Illumini wrote:Hetzers are certainly not mid-war, it's a 44-45 vehicle. BF's are nice too, but the ones mentioned above are from forged in battle

A variant of the Hetzer G-13, was in the Swiss Army until 1970. Tells you how reliable the vehicle is. I've always like the Hetzer and it would be cool to see it in the game in a official manner.

**infinite_array**

Eumerin wrote:
Shotgun wrote:And to try to bring this back to topic, I don't think FoW is the venue for a realistic difference between the hetzer and the StuG/PJIV. It just doesn't distill the game down on a fine enough scale to reach the differences and just really puts the gun and armor in the "category" that fits based upon the metric. For example look at the StuG and the PzIVH. Operationally and tactically they are an were different animals, but in the game system FoW you are looking at a difference of a point of armor and a machine gun.

And the turret.

Unfortunately, to help keep things simple, FoW doesn't adequately portray the difficulty in lining up a shot with a hull-mounted main gun. But there's always a trade-off between streamlined play and simulated realism and every game needs to pick it's dividing line. FoW streamlines alot - which is probably one of the reasons why it's so popular.

Actually, I'd argue that it does, if only a bit. Tanks that need to rotate act as if they had moved, so that's only 1 shot as opposed to 2 (I believe). Meaning that getting behind a 5-tank StuG platoon means a maximum of 5 shots, as opposed to as many as 10 from a Panzer IV platoon.

**Eumerin**

infinite_array wrote:
Eumerin wrote:And the turret.

Unfortunately, to help keep things simple, FoW doesn't adequately portray the difficulty in lining up a shot with a hull-mounted main gun. But there's always a trade-off between streamlined play and simulated realism and every game needs to pick it's dividing line. FoW streamlines alot - which is probably one of the reasons why it's so popular.

Actually, I'd argue that it does, if only a bit. Tanks that need to rotate act as if they had moved, so that's only 1 shot as opposed to 2 (I believe). Meaning that getting behind a 5-tank StuG platoon means a maximum of 5 shots, as opposed to as many as 10 from a Panzer IV platoon.

Yes and no.

If you rotate during the movement phase, then yes, you have a reduced rate of fire. If you rotate during the shooting phase, then your rate of fire isn't affected. And a vehicle can rotate to shoot at any target that's in front of it (front being defined by a straight line across the front of the vehicle instead of using 90 degree wedges as is done in 40K). The vast majority of the time, this isn't going to be an issue. In fact, it's uncommon enough that the most commonly encountered situation when a turret is useful is when you're being assaulted from the flank or rear, and the StuG can't fire defensively because the hull MG is out of arc (whereas the coax MG on the turret can rotate to face that direction).

**mwnciboo**

I would like to see a Platoon of Hetzer's from FOW for no other reason than I like adding armour to my growing Collection. I recently bought 3 x Platoons of Panthers for £85. I will never field these units in normal games due to points cost, but it makes for a fun, afternoon with friends doing a Viller-bocage with 3000 points a side, because it allows for Large Tank forces and masses of full Battery Artillery.

**Brotherjulian**

Eumerin wrote:All German units in Flames of War get what's referred to as a Stormtrooper Move. Any unit that isn't rated as immobile can attempt a Stormtrooper Move during their assault phase instead of launching an assault. The unit performs a skill check, and if it passes then the figures in the unit can move 4". So you sometimes see German units popping out of cover during the movement phase to take a shot, and then disappearing back into cover during the assault phase to keep the enemy from shooting at them. The drawback is that moving during the movement phase reduces your Rate of Fire during the subsequent shooting phase. So your teams are protected from return fire, but can't put as many rounds into the enemy teams.

The Veteran Tank Hunter rule allows you to pick a single piece of terrain on the table for your Veteran Tank Hunter platoon. So long as a given model in the platoon is moving in that terrain (or moving up against that terrain, in the case of linear terrain such as a wall), then the Rate of Fire of that model is not affected by movement. So your Veteran Tank Hunter Hetzers could move up to the edge of the woods, fire at their full rate of fire, and then use their Stormtrooper Move to move back into the woods where they'd be protected from enemy fire. And then on their subsequent turn, they could do it again.

It should be noted, of course, that Hetzers have the Overloaded trait. And the Overloaded trait increases the chance that Bad Things(tm) will happen when moving through difficult terrain. So you need to be careful about how you use the rule. Terrain that blocks line of sight but doesn't impede movement - such as walls (since you only need to move up against a wall to shoot past it, and not move through the wall) - works best.

I really like the 38t APC that was designed but never built. I've often wondered why the Czech's never built them after the war.

I would imagine that their Soviet masters weren't interested in letting any of the members of the Warsaw Pact rely on anyone other than the Soviet Union for their military vehicles. The weapons purchases would pump money into the Soviet economy, and the reliance on Soviet equipment meant that the Soviets could both make certain that the local military wasn't getting too powerful and also that the Soviets could cut off the supply of things like spare parts and ammunition if necessary.

One of the first things that the Soviets did when the Romanians switched sides was to confiscate all of the prototypes of the Romanians' Maresal tank destroyer. The Soviets had no grounds to do so, as the Maresal was a home-grown design that the Romanians had developed themselves. But doing so ensured that the Romanians would be less able to resist when the communist takeover of the government took place.

Actually the Soviets reclaimed all of the Maresals because they were built from Soviet 76mm guns mounted on Soviet T-60 hulls.
The Czechs did keep German halftracks in production (OT-810) and used them in preference to the Soviet BTR-152 wheeled APCs. Czechs kept up an independent streak and used a lot of home grown weapons in preference to the Warsaw Pact equipment. For instance they never used AK-47's, keeping their own VZ-58 design. Although they did rechamber it to share the AK's 7.62x39 ammunition

**Eumerin**

Brotherjulian wrote:Actually the Soviets reclaimed all of the Maresals because they were built from Soviet 76mm guns mounted on Soviet T-60 hulls.

That wasn't the Maresal. That was the Tacam T-60. Some T-60 components were used in the original Maresal prototype M-00 (the main gun was a Soviet 122mm gun, and not a 76mm gun). Prototype M-04 was the last to use any T-60 components, and the only thing it used was modified (widened) T-60 tracks. Starting with this model, the main gun was the home-grown Resita 75mm anti-tank gun (generally considered to be the best 75mm ATG of the war). The subsequent model, M-05, had no Soviet parts in it whatsoever, and was to have been the model for the first 200 vehicles produced (which, due to delays from the American bombing raids, was scheduled to start in November 1944). Subsequent new production would have followed the design of the final prototype, M-06.

The reason for the Soviet seizure of a home grown tank hunter is self-evident. Romania directly bordered the Soviet Union, and it wasn't a Slavic nation (unlike most of their neighbors, Romanians are not Slavs). Therefore, according to Russian thinking, it was a possible threat (Russian has always been a bit paranoid about bordering nations). Following that line of reasoning, it was imperative that Moscow ensure that "friends" ended up in control of the capital in Bucharest. If one side (say, the Communist side...) controls the tanks, and the other side (say, the nationalist side...) does not, then any coups launched by the former become signficantly easier (and the communists did just that shortly after the war ended). The Maresal, as a vehicle designed expressly to destroy tanks, represented a direct threat to the Soviets' intent to put Communist puppets in control of the country.

A similar outlook could be seen in the way that the Soviets treated the remaining Romanian armor. It was ground down over the last few months of the war. Any tanks or assault guns that were damaged were immediately confiscated by the Soviets without any opportunity to attempt repairs. Aside from the one-time gift of a handful of captured German tanks to the Romanian 2nd Armored Brigade, no replacement armored vehicles of any sort were available to replace losses. Any captured German armored vehicles (including Panthers and Tigers) were confiscated by the Soviets rather than allow the Romanians to refurbish them and use them. The infantry didn't fare much better, as the Soviets did their best to bleed the Romanian infantry formations white.

**Brotherjulian**

my bad, you're right. That 38t APC is pretty cool looking though, I never saw that before

**Illumini**

Warning, lots of hetzer-related images incoming

Didn't know there existed hetzer conversions:

15cm SiG hetzer - 30 built

Flame-tank hetzer - 20 made for Ardennes offensive

Prototyped Aufklärungspanzer with 7,5cm hetzer

Prototyped Aufklärungspanzer with 2cm Flak hetzer

Bergepanzer Hetzer - 170 built

I think I need to build a german army totally based on the 38t chassis, maybe "what if army" with awesome stuff like these badboys:

**Eumerin**

Don't forget the Bayeux Hetzer...

http://www.flamesofwar.com/Default.aspx?tabid=126&aff=6&aft=525274&afv=topic

(scroll down)

**Big P**

The Hetzer at Bayeux is an ex-Swiss G13, not a WW2 Hetzer.

You can tell by the screw thread on the end of the gun barrel where they have removed the G13 muzzle brake.

Still a nice museum though.

**mwnciboo**

BIG P is what you might call an SME....Subject Matter Expert.

I bow down to your incredible level of knowledge.

**Eumerin**

Big P wrote:The Hetzer at Bayeux is an ex-Swiss G13, not a WW2 Hetzer.

You can tell by the screw thread on the end of the gun barrel where they have removed the G13 muzzle brake.

Still a nice museum though.

Big P -

Your comment suggests that you didn't check the link. I think you might want to despite your apparent familiarity with the armored vehicles on display at Bayeux.

**Big P**

But you have to register with a silly forum...

**Eumerin**

Doh. Forgot about that.

Try here - http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg105/fingolfen/BayeuxHetzer.jpg

**Big P**

LOL!

Excellent! Im showing that one to a few people!!!

**mwnciboo**

That is friggin brilliant +1 for finding that.