The Panzerjager-Treibwagen was described as a "tank destroyer car" and its configuration did not disappoint. The long, rigid single-piece metal body sat atop a wheeled railcar chassis and featured angled sides for basic ballistics protection. Various areas were fitted with vision ports and machine gun slots for local awareness as well as hatches for crew entry/exit. At midships was a raised cupola structure bookended by turreted platforms. The complete turrets of the PzKpfW IV Ausf. H series medium tank were installed at either end of the car providing considerable on-call firepower against line-of-sight targets (High-Explosive or Armor-Piercing shells could be used, depending on the target in the crosshairs). Machine guns were fixed about the design to provide protection against infantry and soft-skinned vehicles. In many ways this railcar mimicked the capabilities of a battleship offering a full broadside of two potent guns if the vehicle could be angled "just right" along its track set.
Construction of what was to become a fleet of five such armored train cars began in December of 1944 by which point the situation for Germany had deteriorated to the point that it now fought an exclusively defensive-minded war. However, only three of the series were ever completed and these arrived much too late in the war to be put to use.
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