Jagdpanzer 38 Hetzer

Tank Destroyer · Germany

Small, low and sloped all round, with the StuG's gun: its front shrugs off most medium guns. A cramped casemate means a slow reload and a gun that swings only 5° left and 11° right: ambush from cover.

(the vehicle's description in the garage)

At a glance

History

The Jagdpanzer 38, known after the war as the "Hetzer", was a small, low tank destroyer built on the Czech Panzer 38(t) chassis. It carried the 7.5 cm PaK 39 L/48, the same gun as the StuG and Panzer IV, behind a 60 mm front plate sloped at 60 degrees. More than 2,500 were built from 1944.

It was cheap, easy to hide and hard to hit from the front, but cramped, with a gun offset to the right and a very limited traverse (5 degrees left, 11 right). Hetzers equipped infantry anti-tank units, including the 26th Volksgrenadier Division at Bastogne, and fought in the defence of the Oder in 1945. The game models an October-November 1944 BMM production vehicle with a remote-controlled MG 34 on the roof.

In Armor Heads

Design note: Jagdpanzer 38 "Hetzer": the StuG's 7.5 cm L/48 behind a 60 mm @ 60 deg glacis. The real arc is 5 L / 11 R (README 114; gunArc 8 stays the symmetric fallback).

Compared with the other 34 WW2 vehicles, it is top 5 for turret front armour (#4 of 35); bottom 5 for off-road speed (#33 of 35); bottom 5 for aim time (#33 of 35); bottom 5 for turret / gun traverse speed (#34 of 35).

Survivability

• Hit points: 780. Damage taken multiplier: 1.08 (effective HP 722).
• Tracks: a hit on the running gear breaks a track 45 % of the time (the hit does no damage); the crew repairs it in 9 s.

Real plate: the thickness of the real vehicle's armour there, and its slope from vertical with the line-of-sight thickness in brackets; each zone's multiplier is worked out from it (see how the numbers work). The last column counts square-on hits under 100 m.

Main gun

• Mount: casemate, gun arc 5° left / 11° right of the hull centreline at 12°/s; turn the hull to aim further.
• Elevation +12° / depression -6°, at 14°/s.
• Reload: 5.4 s.
• Damage per minute (AP): 3,111.
• Accuracy: 0.06° dispersion when settled, aim time 1.76 s, move bloom 0.09.
• Gunner's sight: Sfl.ZF 1a, 5x (binoculars 6x / 10x / 15x).

The penetration threshold is the lowest zone multiplier (the thickest armour) the shell still gets through: zones below it stop the shell (10 % damage for AP, 20 % for HE). See how the numbers work.

HE and the crew: every direct hit shakes the crew (slower reload and traverse, a wider aim circle) for about 1.9 s when the plate stops it and 3 s when it bursts through. It is big enough to knock crew members out of their seats even when the plate stops it.

APCR (7.5 cm Pzgr. 40 APCR) is bought in the garage, not issued: 3 rounds for 200 credits, at most 6 carried, from a team stock of 3 per player for the whole match (never resupplied). It gets through far thicker plate than the AP up close but loses its punch quickly with range:

Matchups (AP against the hull front, square-on, under 100 m)

• Its AP gets through the hull front of 28 of the other 34 vehicles. It is stopped by: Panther, M26 Pershing, Tiger II, IS-2, Churchill VII, Jagdpanther.
• 17 of the other 34 vehicles' AP get through its hull front. Safe from the front against: M4 Sherman, M3A1 Stuart, Panzer II Luchs, Panzer III Ausf. L, T-34/76, Cromwell, Churchill VII, KV-1, M32 TRV, M24 Chaffee, Sd.Kfz. 250/9, T-70M, T-60, SU-76M, M3 Lee, 75 mm GMC M3, Stuart V "Honey".
• From the side, 34 of them get through its hull side; from behind, 34 get through its hull rear (every zone is in the table above).

Secondary weapons and equipment

• Roof machine gun: MG 34, the vehicle's own modelled gun on its hull, 13 rounds/s, 1 damage per round, overheats after 60 rounds. It elevates to 70° and can shoot down recon planes.
• Smoke: 1 salvo, each recharges in 40 s.

Mobility

• Running gear: tracks (pivot turns).
• Top speed 40 km/h on roads, 15.2 km/h off-road (38 %), reverse 8 km/h, acceleration 3 m/s².
• Turn rate 34°/s (20°/s at top speed). Mass 15,750 kg. Engine start 3 s.

Special ability (B)

Ammo Drop: a supply crate comes down by parachute just behind the tank and lands 8 s later; every tank of the team (this one too) that drives over it in the next 60 s gets 50 % of its full shell and smoke load back, once each. Ready 30 s after the round goes live, once per round; another use costs 150 credits.

Where it appears

Players can take it on all seven WW2 maps, on either team. The AI fields it on:

• Bastogne 1944, Red (Axis side): 2x in an 8-vehicle line-up (first at position 2).
• Seelow Heights 1945, Red (Axis side): 1x in an 8-vehicle line-up (first at position 4).

Where it ranks (1 = best of 35)

The real vehicle

Sources used for the model: Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hetzer (6.27 / 4.77 m, 2.63 m, 2.17 m, 0.38 m clearance, 350 mm track, production changes); OnWar https://www.onwar.com/wwii/tanks/germany/ge008hetzer.html (6.27/4.87 m, 96 links, 269 cm contact); tanks-encyclopedia https://tanks-encyclopedia.com/ww2/nazi_germany/jagdpanzer-38_hetzer.php (82 cm wheels, 5 L / 11 R traverse, armour angles, monthly changes); onthewaymodels.com (Jentz & Doyle: 825 mm wheels, 350 mm track); historyofwar.org (2.17 m with MG mount, 1.845 m without); blueprint the-blueprints.com 79888 (Saranga four-view, 3.02 mm/px)

In-game model: 6.26 m long (gun included) × 2.62 m wide × 2.17 m high (antenna excluded), 6,035 triangles, built at true scale.

Images

Renders of the in-game model in a plain nation colour (the game paints its camouflage at runtime).