In its early guise, the vehicle sported rounded frontal corners at the superstructure but this was dropped on production vehicles which adopted a sharper, angled armor approach. Sloped armor added inherent ballistics protection and did away with the shot "trap" encountered with the vertical facings on vehicles such as the earlier StuG III assault gun series. "Zimmerit" anti-magnetic mine paste was applied to the hull superstructure to combat the effects of "sticky bombs" but this feature was not always seen in late-war production tanks.
The Jagdpanzer IV series saw vital work by Vomag engineers begin in late-1942 and, in March of 1943, the left-front machine gun port was deleted. In May of that year the design was shown to Hitler and approval was forthcoming for serial production which began in January of 1944. In time the muzzle lost its large brake assembly as a new, larger recoil mechanism was introduced. Late-war vehicles also lost a track return roller at each hull side and "spark-arresting" mufflers became standard at the hull rear face during September of 1944.
The JagdpanzerIV's saw combat service almost as soon as it was introduced - such was the need for tank-killers going forward. It saw first-battles in the Italian Front and was present during the Normandy invasion of northern France. From there it was deployed throughout the East Front and saw considerable combat in the Battle of the Bulge (December 1944 - January 1945) where about 137 of the tank-killers were present. As tank-killers, particularly when operating as defensive set-pieces, the vehicles were lethal foes but their value dropped considerably when relied upon as dedicated assault guns or called upon to directly engage enemy tanks one-on-one.
Production of Jagdpanzer IVs spanned from December 1943 until April 1945 and some 2,000 units were delivered. By April 1945, only 285 of the type remained in service. The "Befehlswagen" was a command version of the vehicle with additional communications equipment and an extra crewmember.
The Panzer IV/70(V) and Panzer IV/70(A) were related Jagdpanzer IV offshoots developed by Vomag and Alkett respectively. These fitted the PaK 42 L/70 anti-tank guns instead but were limited in production totals (940 and 278 respectively).
Content ©MilitaryFactory.com; No Reproduction Permitted.