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I like tanks, but I love tank destroyers, and I've always had a special place for the Hetzer. I was wondering if Flames of War or another historical game represented them favorably. Obviously it isn't the biggest or nastiest gun on the field, but it has a certain charm. What kind of support would it need in Flames of War (or whatever system) at an average game size? Can you give me a brief run down of its relative characteristics?

I don't mean to seem power-gamer-y, but when I get some Hetzer minis it'd be nice to know I could build an army around them, even if there is no one to play against around here.

Hetzer-Five!

I love the little bugger too. Unfortunately, the lists where it can be included are very limited right now, but battlefront will soon release an eastern front compendium, and I would guess it is likely that the hetzer will be available for more lists then. As it is now, it is available to german lists in the "Hammer & Sickle" briefing. These lists are unfortunately quite limited, you can have them in a schwere panzer list (1 platoon), in an ersatzpioneer list (2 platoons) or in a sperrverband list (2 platoons).

You could probably also use them as stand-ins for stuG G or jagdpz IV, it isn't that different from them, and they are available to almost all late war german lists.

In Flames Of War the Hetzer is Fully-tracked with Armour Front 7, Side 2, Top 1. It is armed with Hull MG and 7.5cm PaK39 gun. The 7.5cm PaK39 gun has a range of 32”/80cm, ROF 2, Anti-tank 11 and Firepower 3+.

It also has some neat special rules, it is even better at shoot-and-scoot then regular germans in certain conditions. It is overloaded though.

Illumini wrote:As it is now, it is available to german lists in the "Hammer & Sickle" briefing. These lists are unfortunately quite limited, you can have them in a schwere panzer list (1 platoon), in an ersatzpioneer list (2 platoons) or in a sperrverband list (2 platoons).

Thanks for the reply.

I'm vaguely aware that Flames of War is divided to maintain historical accuracy, and so I wonder what I'll be able to play a Hammer & Sickle briefed army against. Does the book cover both sides of a conflict, and I'm restricted to playing the opposition, or is it more like an expansion and is an addition to the late-war (?) armies?

Could you be more specific regarding the list archetypes? How many tanks is a platoon, and what is in each of the lists?

If memory serves, there is a hungarian or romanian list out there that allows a lot more of them.

Books are by time period. Some have only one side of a conflict (ie, Turning Tide and Earth & Steel, allies & Germans in Normandy respectively.) whereas some books are by location, like North Africa, or Hellfire & Back. So any list taken in its relevant time period can face any other, even if not historical.

So in a game, my 21.Panzerdivision guys, which are done up in Normandy style camo, could fight vs Eastern Front Soviet lists, even if not historical. Think like 40k.. would Ultramarines ever REALLY fight Blood Angels? probably not, but you see that match up often.

Hetzers are 2-4 each platoon I believe. Can't really add too much to what I've said, as I don't own the briefing. In short, I think the following is accurate:
Schwere Panzer = Tiger company, probably pretty few support options
Ersatzpioneer = Infantry company, pioneers, probably decent support options, rated confident trained
Sperrverband = Infantry company, probably decent support options, rated reluctant veteran

The eastern front compilation should come out quite soon as said earlier, so I would wait for that, hopefully the hetzer will get more options for use then.

They're very similar to StuGs rules wise. In the lists they are in they have a special ambush rule.

The rules are probably close enough that they could be proxied as StuGs in other lists.

Forged in Battle do a nice platoon pack of four.

Thanks for the replies. The best plan seems to be grab Hammer & Sickle, form a very general army and wait for the Eastern Front. With Hammer & Sickle taking place on the Eastern Front, my paint scheme would be the same.

Eastern front german compilation "Grey Wolf" comes out dec. 17th

George Spiggott wrote:They're very similar to StuGs rules wise. In the lists they are in they have a special ambush rule.

The rule applies to the Veteran Tank Hunter unit, and not the vehicle itself. The RSO self-propelled AT guns that are available as an alternate choice for that unit get the rule as well. Without that rule, it's basically a slightly less effective StuG G.

If memory serves, there is a hungarian or romanian list out there that allows a lot more of them.

It's a Hungarian list. The Hungarians got all the cool toys from Germany, including Panthers and Tigers. The Romanians had Mark IVs, StuGs, and prototypes of the Marasel, which was the Romanian-developed tank hunter that apparently inspired some of the features that ended up in the Hetzer.

(the Marasel was a two-man self-propelled AT vehicle that never actually saw combat; it hadn't entered mass production by the time the Romanians switched sides, and the Soviets seized the prototypes as part of their general "set things up so that our Communist puppets can take control more easily after the war" policy)

Eumerin wrote:

George Spiggott wrote:They're very similar to StuGs rules wise. In the lists they are in they have a special ambush rule.

The rule applies to the Veteran Tank Hunter unit, and not the vehicle itself. The RSO self-propelled AT guns that are available as an alternate choice for that unit get the rule as well. Without that rule, it's basically a slightly less effective StuG G.

That was the intent if not a clear reading of what I wrote. I'm not that familiar with the Bagration books.

PaK40 RSOs are IIRC very similar to Marders game wise.

When December rolls around I may have to pick up Grey Wolf.

George Spiggott wrote:

Eumerin wrote:

George Spiggott wrote:They're very similar to StuGs rules wise. In the lists they are in they have a special ambush rule.

The rule applies to the Veteran Tank Hunter unit, and not the vehicle itself. The RSO self-propelled AT guns that are available as an alternate choice for that unit get the rule as well. Without that rule, it's basically a slightly less effective StuG G.

That was the intent if not a clear reading of what I wrote. I'm not that familiar with the Bagration books.

PaK40 RSOs are IIRC very similar to Marders game wise.

When December rolls around I may have to pick up Grey Wolf.

The Pak40 RSOs are slow, iirc, so on a pure stat-based basis, they're not quite as good as a Marder. Still, the Veteran Tank Hunters rule does encourage your models to stay within a relatively small area of the table. So their speed isn't as big of an issue as it could be.

I don't own Stalin's Europe, but I do own all three of the Bagration books. Unless there's something new in Stalin's Europe, the Hetzers are only available to the Germans in the Veteran Tank Hunter unit right now. So yeah, all of the German models get the special rule. That will presumably change, though, as the time line advances and they become more widespread - for instance, I would expect to start seeing them in platoons without special rules when Bulge starts its release in early 2012.

I don't know if the Hungarian Hetzers have any special rules.

I don't play flames but I do love the Hetzers so i kit bashed.

Hetzers are okay, but by late war there are alot better TD's out there jagdPanzer IV's, STuG G's, and finally jagpanzer IV/70. Not to mention the Jagdpanthers and the heavier stupid TD's.
Hetzer is Mid-war and East front (in the main) and as George Spiggott wrote the Battlefront ones are nice (except for the moulded on base...grrrrrr).

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

They were 44-45 but the concept from Heinz Guderian was definitely out of time. It was outclassed by all the other TD's during the late war period. It was a concept that took to long to come to fruition and the world had moved on.

mwnciboo wrote:They were 44-45 but the concept from Heinz Guderian was definitely out of time. It was outclassed by all the other TD's during the late war period. It was a concept that took to long to come to fruition and the world had moved on.

It wasn't that, so much as the fact that the Germans needed to get as many armored hulls out as they could. Like the Marder it replaced, the Hetzer was a way to take advantage of resources that they had that wouldn't otherwise have been used - i.e. the old Czech T-38 chassis. The StuG G was a better vehicle, but a Hetzer was better than nothing. And only so many Panzer III hulls could be built for StuG G production. So the Germans built Hetzers.

To add to this, the StuG III factory was bombed so StuG III superstructures were built onto Panzer IV chassis.

Thus the StuG IV.

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.


This is a GHQ 6mm model of one.

The detail on that 6mm model is incredible. I agree it has a certain charm, a true full tracked APC rather than the front wheeled German and US variants.

IIRC Heinz Guderian was against the STuG based on the fact that it was too large and unfit for purpose and would have preferred a greater production run of Hetzer's. This was because he felt that this vehicle fit more with the doctorine of being a "Hull Down ambushing Tank hunter".

The Flammpanzer 38 was an interesting concept but a bit delicate. The modified 75 mm StuK 40 L/48 gave the Hetzer a reasonably powerfu gun for such a small unit and had the advantage of a smaller profile and smaller crew. But it was a light Tank Destroyer so that sloped armour pretty much was papier mache against later medium and heavy tanks.

Two thoughts occurred to me: why does the Hetzer, who's name is 'Baiter' and is designed to lie in wait, have a scoot and shoot rule?

The other being: Hetzer's real designation is E-10; how does it relate to the standardized E-25, 50, 75, and 100 that were in development at the end of the war? Now that I think about it, they are aesthetically similar, with sleek, sloped armor.

EDIT: Also, does anyone know when or where I can mount my Hetzers with 10.5cm guns?

Double EDIT: Scratch that second bit. I was misinformed.

hmm the 10.5cm were planned but never built. Did you get the idea from "World of Tanks?" because that was the 1st time I came across them. They look badass and I would definitely field them if they had a 10.5cm Option. Hell, in friendly games I would have no problem with you fielding them, it's all about the enjoying the game.

Aye. Introduced to the Hetzer in Company of Heroes, then years later got to drive one in World of Tanks. The 105 and angled plating made my day, and I've regretted advancing to the StuG ever since. It wouldn't be any effort at all to put muzzle brakes on a platoon, then I could import the stats for the 105 whenever I wanted.

But that leaves my other question: why can the Hetzer scoot and shoot, when the StuG is the faster, more maneuverable of the two? Hell, why can it scoot and shoot when that's not how the tank was designed to operate?

It is a rule connected to the "veteran tank hunter platoon", which can have either hetzers or PAK40 RSO tank hunters, so the rule is not really connected to the hetzer itself, more to the skill/tactics of those particular units I believe.

So what's it do in layman's terms; why is it nice for the Hetzer to have?

As a military Officer, the Swedes are the master of this tactic (during the Cold War). They use a TD called the S-Tank (Stridsvagn 103 ), usually in prepared positions dug out by bulldozers. The trick is to be hull down, ambush, fire 3-5 rounds, fire hull mounted smoke and reverse out the position whilst continuing to face the enemy (hence shoot and scoot). Get away from the Enemy positions, then setup another ambush and repeat. Trading Land, for time and stringing out the enemy supply lines and REMF before you crack their over extended front and smash through their rear echelon. The good old manoeuvrist approach. Good in theory, I wouldn't have like to enacted it in the Cold War versus the Russkies.

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.

mwnciboo wrote:Good in theory, I wouldn't have like to enacted it in the Cold War versus the Russkies.

Probably the only opponent it wouldn't have worked on. Speaking of which, is it possible to go hull down or use smoke launchers?

Thank you Eumerin. Other, more meaty, units would be able to shoot at full while still advancing. Interesting. Can you briefly explain what other nations get to compensate? I'm curious.

Every nation has their own special rules.

Big ones for the Germans include the Stormtrooper Move, Mission Tactics (dead platoon leaders get replaced without intervention by the Company Commander), Tiger Aces (your Tiger crews are really good), and Kampfgruppe (you can take parts of your platoons and make a new platoon out of them with the second in command as the leader).
Important special rules for the US include Truscott Trott (infantry double-time 16" instead of 12"), Stablizers (US tanks - and not TDs - can fire at full rate of fire while moving, but with a penalty to hit), Time on Target (artillery rounds are more likely to kill the enemy if you successfully range in on the first attempt), and the ability to use any platoon commander to spot for artillery bombardments.
British special rules include Mike Target and Stonk rules for their artillery, troops that are less likely to break in an assault, and some special rules to encourage the use of early British armored tactics (one of which led to serious problems with the British Armoured Regiment list; BF had to redo the points values in the list to fix it).
Soviet special rules include Quantity of Quality (the big Soviet infantry formations need to be hit more to pin them), Hen and Chicks (Soviet tanks can't move long distances and still fire), Commisars (shoot an infantry team to retake a motivation test; on a 1, the Commisar gets lynched), and the God of War artillery battery, which can mix fire from the different types of guns found in the battery.

This list is by no means exhaustive, but it gives a rundown of some of the more important special rules.

Hull down on S-tank is not quite Hull down on an MBT. Due to the limited of traverse on the weapon, the vehicle itself had a very sensitive steering system allowing the Gunner to adjust the orientation of the tank by small adjustments to the tracks. The Gun being mounted in the Hull means that Hull down is more Prepared positions rather than the traditional Hull down method e.g scooping out a Tank shape hole, parking a tank in the hole leaving only the turret exposed in a low profile.

Not to derail this further, but didn't the S-tank also have some ammount of "lift" on the barrel? Not just elevation and declination, but actually was able to raise the barrel above "normal" for prepared positions firing? Or am I thinking of something entirely else. It's been years since I read a bit about the thing.

Never did like the 10.5 on the WoT Hetzer. I much prefered the penetration and increased fire rate on the 75mm. I will admit, when it hit and lit something up, it was a joy. But more times than not, it was an t-29 or an IS coming around the corner and not a T-1.

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.

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.