As we, most of the time, talked about the tanks. Now lets talk about its killer. My vote will go for a ISU 122, animal killer, as the russians called it. it was capable of beating most german panzer from a distance away.
My personal favourite out of the selection is the Jagdpanther. Although it did not have the biggest of guns, it was devasting to allied tanks. An honourable mention must go to the Hetzer whose compact design made it lethal.
I had a hard time deciding so here's my take on things: The Su 85 and 100 had only decent armor protection and the 85mm gun wasn't very effective against German armor. The 100mm gun was an excellent design but was limited by the lack of a turret. That was a major deficiency of many tank destroyers because the entire tank would have to rotate to hit a flanking target. The ISU 122 and 152 were not tank destroyers and they shouldn't be on the list. They are self propelled artillery. The Elefant was an ineffective tank destroyer as proved at Kursk by Soviet infantry. It lacked a defensive machine gun and was susceptible to infantry assault. The Hetzer was a great design. Although it lacked a turret it was small, relatively fast, packed a punch with its 75mm gun, and presented a very low profile. The Marder was a good stopgap design but better TDs could be found. However, at the time it was the Germans only defense against the T34. The Nashorn was another stopgap design. A PzKpfw IV chassis lengthened and fitted with an 88mm PaK 43. It lacked sufficient armor and presented a very high profile. The Jagdpanther was an excellent design. It boasted the wonderful 71 caliber 88mm gun, very thick armor, and decent speed and manueverability. Best of the German TDs. The Jagdtiger had great armor and a great gun but was slow, and prone to malfunction like the Tiger and Tiger II. This was due to its weight. The Stug series was really an assault gun or infantry support vehicle. It could be pressed into service as a TD but could be made short work of by a Sherman. The Jagdpanzer was a waste of resources because other than having a lower profile it did nothing better than the PzKpfw IV that it was designed from. The Archer lacked armor, was slow, and was susceptible to infantry attack due to the open top. Its saving grace was the excellent 17 pdr gun. The M10 had a good 76mm gun but lacked armor. It did have good speed and manueverability as it was derived from the Sherman. The open top did leave the crew vulnerable to grenades, shellbursts, mortars, etc. The M18 was a great design, lacking only with the open top and light armor. The gun was good and at 55 mph it was a hard target to find and hit. The M36 was the best of the American TDs. The 90mm M3 gun when loaded with HVAP ammo could knock out any German tank at most combat ranges and it boasted 32-102mm of armor. Other than the open top, which could be covered with thin armor, it was an excellent TD. My vote resides in a tie between the M36 and Jagdpanther.
(Gnomey @ Oct 24 2005, 05:48 PM) [post=40572]My personal favourite out of the selection is the Jagdpanther. [/b] I must admit , even though it was unreliable, my favourite is the Jagdpanther. an excellent gun and excellent armour. My choice of Allied T/D would be the Isu 122 </div><div class='quotemain'> An honourable mention must go to the Hetzer whose compact design made it lethal. [/b] I consider this T/D to be over-rated, its compact design while useful from a defensive point of view, also made it difficult to operate in combat , and almost impossible to bale out of if hit. Its thin armour and the fact its gun was also under-powered when facing the heavier Soviet tanks, also doesn't impress me either
I've always liked the Panzer IV/70, which had a gun powerful enough to stop just about anything, and with sufficient frontal armour to survive encounters with main battle tanks. GarandGuy Regarding the Elefant This vehicle had poor maneuvrebility, but was never intended for assaults anyway. When used properly, as a long-range mobile anti-tank gun, it was exellent. During Kursk, the 89 Ferdinands claimed more than 500 vehicles destroyed (which would usually mean about 250 actually destroyed) for the loss of 30-some vehicles. These were mainly destroyed by mines, tanks and anti-tank guns, not by Russian infantry. Jagdpanzer 38 Armed only with the 7,5 cm Pak L/48, the Jagdpanzer 38 lacked the punch of a tank destroyed (which is not so surprising, considering it was designed as a Sturmgeschütz, as a replacement for the Sturmgeschütz III). It lacked armour protection overall, and its interior was very cramped by German standards. Nashorn Being armed with an exellent anti-tank gun, it worked well as a long-range mobile anti-tank gun. It wasn't nearly as tall as people are making it, being only 15 cm. taller than the Marder 38T and 7 cm shorter than the Jagdpanther. Its thin armour prevented it from engaging in close combat, though. Jagdtiger The main reason why the Jagdtiger had problems was because of the lack of a turret, which meant frequent rapid movements by the runnig gear, leading to damages - the Tiger and Tiger II weren't more prone to malfunction than most other tanks, and the general breakdown frequency was similar to that of modern tanks.
I'd agree with Christian in that Elefant has been given unnecessarily poor reputation partly for sub-standard literature and for the years of internet "sub-standard" discussions with people copying each others opinions. And Elefant really has gotten far worse reputation it should have. It had it's problems but for the least extent were they related to the points usually brought up as decisive. Legacy of the Elfant falling prey to infantry assaults is largely a common myth, as in reality only one notable exaple of soviet infantry destroying these vehicles during Kursk battles is evident, and it was made possible only by the fact that attacking Elefants lost their infantry support by enemy fire that pinned them down. What comes to that particular, and single, event, any other fixed-mount assault gun would have fared similarly. Lack of a single mg has been made to seem as one decisive point for so called "failure" of elefants, whether for StuGs for example no one seems to note that early models too lacked any kind of mg weaponry while it's praised to be one of the finest examples of turretless vehicle... For the same context I'd even like to say that in the other end, praising of Jagdpanther has gone too far too. It's offensive firepower was no doubt possibly the finest of all TD's, representing considerable long-range hitting capability (but so did Nashorn for example too) but also to some extent suffered from final drive failures common to heavy TD's as well as being quite a big vehicle for hide/ambush TD role. This was to some extent compansated by it's fairly competent armour, though it neither could prove Jadgpather a total invulnerability to incoming fire, even from frontal arcs (in fact, IIRC, I have seen pictures of one being taken out frontally by even 6 pdr /57mm/ gun). For the biggest note, I think opting for Panther production only instead of going for fairly complex Jagdpanther too would have served German war effort much better. For other vehicles, in the better half, I'd rate at least JgdPzIV and StuG both being in the later stages of war derivatives of otherwise more or less obsolent tanks chassis for which existing production lines remained and both being simple and straighforward enough, yet effective (StuG of course more for infantry gun, JPIV more for TD). Also SU100, though appearing quite late in the war, was very competent vehicle - surely one of the very top TD's of the war. ISU122 falls easily in this cathegory of better TD's too though hindered by rather slow rate of fire among other things and it's extensive size, making it more like a direct fire artillery assault pillbox. ISU152 really wasn't TD at all, but rather an assault gun, though capable enough at both roles. Hetzer, though very compact, takes the reduction of size really too far being only too difficult to operate at the size it was. StuG or JgdPzIV would be easily preferrable option. Marders were only mounted a/t guns and as such ok to give an arty much higher mobility, as vehicles only stopgaps as nothing better was there at required numbers. US vehicles with rotating turrets are much harder to compare, as they were something in between of tank and AG/TG. But as the advantages of rotating turret are evident, they must be given some credit, without going further into details. Also, while comparing allied TD's to German equivalent it must be recalled how different war they were fighting in late war 44-45 period and what requirements those conditions emphasized on armoured vehicles.
i voted for the elefant. ok, so it might not be the best, but it would be my favourite. sure they were a little unreliable, but the kill to loss ratio is good and they did have fine armour and AT ability.
