Overview from Publisher
“By 1944 the German army was on the defensive on all fronts and Allied bombing was putting increasing pressure on the nation's industrial output. Since the earliest days of the war the Germans had experimented with mounting anti-tank weapons on obsolete chassis and one of the most successful of these would prove to be the Jagdpanzer 38, more often referred to today as the Hetzer . Small and unimposing the Hetzers appearance belied its effectiveness. Armed with the powerful 7.5cm L/48 gun, the same weapon fitted to the Jadgpanzer IV, the Hetzer featured armour sloped armour plates of up to 60mm thickness and was capable of a top speed of 42 kilometres per hour. Almost 3,000 examples were assembled. Its low cost and ease of production meant that it was Germany's most important tank killer of the late war period.