quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:
(Edit: This was in response to your deleted post, joel...)

Deleted the post, because I was worried about thread drift. Well, that ship has sailed - apologies to the OP - but thanks for the info!

quote:

The model you inquired about is the earliest one (plain "Marder III"), as described above.

I have never seen photos of the plain Marder III version before. The Ausf H's profile is quite distinctive and is consistent with the photos I've seen of Marders in my WWII history books. I wonder how many plain ones got built?

Anyway, thanks again- now I get to go research the plain Jane! The Marders are one of my favorites in World of Tanks.

344 total Marder IIIs
275 total Marder III Ausf. Hs
942 total Marder III Ausf. Ms

Those little 38t chassis look silly with that big gun, but the Germans were chronically short of armor, and especially armor with guns that could penetrate later Allied armor. There were many versions of similar vehicles.

They were the masters of utilizing beutewaffen (literally "booty weapons", or less literally "looted weapons"), putting any and all useful captured enemy equipment - from small arms to artillery to trucks to tanks to aircraft - back into use wherever needed, and frequently using it to cobble together mish-mashes like these in order to fit specific needs.