Sturmartillerie / Sturmgeschutz [StuG]
The Germans were the first to understand the advantages of self-propelled artillery. And while the rest of the armies were experimenting, they were already forming companies of self-propelled guns, batteries of assault guns and battalions of tank destroyers. As a result of the anti-tank crisis of 1941/42, the assault gun (and with it the assault artillery) was transformed into an anti-tank weapon. The anti-tank defense crisis of 1941/42 then transformed into a general infantry crisis of 1943/44, which could not be resolved by the end of the war. With the assault artillery, the German Wehrmacht took a special route in the development of mobile, direct fire support. Due to disputes over competencies and other armaments priorities, the expansion of this branch of arms fell short of the expectations and demands of the front until the end of the war. This was particularly disadvantageous for the infantry, because without the assault artillery they lacked sufficient anti-tank defense. The infantry, the largest arm of the army, lacked the backbone of a strong anti-tank defense system.
The Sturmartillerie was a key part of Germany's armored arsenal throughout World War II. Its armored assault guns were designed to support the artillery on the battlefield, largely using the purpose-built Sturmgeschütz infantry support gun. Sturmartillerie was the product of efforts designed to support infantry assaults with self-propelled vehicles. It was distinct from the panzers as it was designed to work closely with the infantry. To fulfil this vision, a whole new series of vehicles was designed. The first and most common numerically was the Sturmgeschutz III. Later, other vehicle types such as the StuG IV were added to the ranks.
Vehicles were to be deployed in small numbers; and employ "hit and run" tactics when eliminating enemy defensive positions and armour. Sturmartillerie units were intended to support infantry attacks; act as mobile anti-tank artillery; and perform the indirect fire role in rear positions. This was quite different from the German strategic view of the role for tanks. According to von Manstein, the Panzers were expected to fight as independent strike units against the flanks and rear areas of enemy forces; and as "breakthrough" units against the front lines. In summary, the Sturmartillerie supported the infantry; the Panzers performed the role of the "cavalry". The vehicle needed the firepower to quickly deal with both tanks and heavily fortified defences; sufficient armor to survive contemporary anti-tank weapons; and the mobility to conduct individual surprise attacks.
Parallel development by the tank branch were motivated by the fact that the assault guns were part of the artillery branch. Such parallel developments by the German Tank branch included various armored support vehicles with large guns that were similar to assault guns, like the Sturmpanzer “Bison”, the Sturmpanzer 38(t) “Grille” and of course the “Sturmtiger”? Most were built upon obsolete vehicles, traded firepower for mobility and protection, and used with rather limited success.
The assault gun emerged in the mid-1930s from the experience of the Great War as a special artillery weapon. During the Great War commonly a successful initial attack advanced too far for proper artillery support, as it took too long to move the guns forward. There was a lack of direct fire support, as most guns were unwieldly and the terrain usually quite deformed from artillery fire. These guns were usually not well protected even from small arms fire. In the fighting of the Great war it became clear that machine-gun nests which held down the infantry could only be destroyed by direct fire from the light artillery. The operators of the infantry guns, who positioned their cannons in the fire of the enemy machine guns, suffered great losses. This gave rise to the idea of ??making light infantry guns movable on tracked vehicles.
In the Reichswehr, thought was given to the possibility of infantry support with armored tracked vehicles. In 1927 the Reichswehr Ministry issued a development order for a self-propelled gun with a 7.7 cm cannon on a commercially available full-chain tractor, but in 1932 the tests were stopped because other army motorization projects had priority.
According to the biography of Field Marshal MODEL, it was he who at that time, as head of Department 8 of the Army Office of the Reichswehr, gave the suggestion for the construction of a "motorized, armored infantry escort gun instead of horse-drawn artillery". According to another source, Erich von MANSTEIN is the creator of the new weapon. As head of the operations department at the Army General Staff, he had also called for a "powerful, all-terrain and fire-fighting companion weapon for the infantry". As early as 1935 he submitted a memorandum to the Chief of the General Staff of the Army and the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, which Colonel General Freiherr v. FRITSCH was approved.
In 1935, the von Manstein, at that time Colonel and Chief of the Operations Department of the General Staff, took up the idea and asked the Chief of the General Staff of the Army, General of the Artillery Ludwig Beck, and the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, Lieutenant General Werner von Fritsch, the formation of a "storm artillery."
In the assault gun, in contrast to the actual tank, the cannon was not housed in a fully movable rotating turret. It was stored directly above the vehicle hull. The advantages are a relatively low overall construction and simpler and cheaper production. The latter played a special role for Germany in the arms race, since the most important future enemy states already had large armored forces at their disposal. The disadvantage of the construction of the assault guns consisted mainly in the low directional field of the cannon, which is why the entire vehicle had to turn. The lighter chassis of the Panzer III was best suited. Their ability to fire indirectly at targets was removed. They were restricted to fire in direct line of sight at targets within 4 km using high explosive shells.
Organizationally, the assault guns did not belong to the tank weapon, but to the artillery. The story of its origins therefore begins in the Jüterbog artillery school. From 1937 the 7th battery (mot) of the Jüterboger Artillery Training Regiment (ALR) began with trials of test models. In the same year, the prototype was presented at the Kummersdorf Army Research Center. In 1938/39 there were already association exercises, carried out by the IV Department of the teaching regiment of the artillery school.
The Jüterbog Artillery School remained the center of assault artillery until 1943. Based on the 7th / ALR 2 (mot) as the test battery, the VI Department of the teaching regiment, later the III. Department of Training Regiment 2 (mot) the training facility for the new weapon. Here, together with Inspection IV at the Army High Command, the guidelines for the deployment and the structure were drawn up. The shooting training was carried out by the teaching regiment of the artillery school.
Another peculiarity was the fact that the batteries, departments and brigades were set up on the basis of volunteer reports. Volunteers were also used for the supplement. The gun color of the assault artillerymen was crimson, like that of the rest of the artillery. Initially the assault artillerymen wore a black tank uniform, which later had to give way to the field-gray cloth of the general army troops. Only the cut, the short double-breasted buttoned jacket, was similar to the armored troop.
The most important supporters of a rapid build-up of the assault artillery in the course of the Blomberg-Fritsch crisis had meanwhile been deposed or transferred. For reasons of armament capacities, in particular, many advocates of a strong armored force opposed the assault artillery. The production of the assault gun required the same armament capacities as the tank construction. This particularly affected the standard Panzer III, on whose chassis the assault gun was built. When the war began, numerous agencies had recognized the need for assault artillery, but institutional problems meant that not a single assault gun was ready for use.
Until September 1939, only five experimental guns were available for testing and further improving the new weapon. At the beginning of the war in the Polish campaign they were not yet usable. It was the short 7.5 cm cannon, mounted on the chassis of the Panzerkampfwagen III, version B (Type 2 / ZW). These first five guns in Jüterbog were actually only training devices, as the armored casemate, for example, was not yet made of sturdy steel, but only of fluent iron.
In February 1940 the first pilot series (version A) of 30 assault guns could be delivered for troop testing. They were mounted on the 5 / ZW chassis of the Panzer III, version E. By the beginning of the French campaign on May 10, 1940, there were 40 operational vehicles. Combined in four batteries, they proved their suitability for war in the summer of 1940. Of the total of 24 assault guns used, four were lost to combat operations. The teaching department of the artillery school summarized the experiences made in the French campaign. As a result, in the summer of 1940 a brochure entitled “The Storm Battery - Use and Training Experience” was published.
By the beginning of the war with the Soviet Union, ten self-propelled gun detachments were operational. And their initial successes on the Eastern Front meant that large numbers of new units were deployed, which until 1943 was primarily done by the Jüterbog Artillery School. In the same year the storm artillery school was founded in Burg near Magdeburg. In addition to Jüterbog, other replacement and installation departments of the assault artillery in Schweinfurt, Neisse, Hadersleben, Posten and Deutsch-Eylau provided the supplement for the growing needs of the fronts.
Although the assault guns were originally intended for infantry support, their role changed on the Eastern Front. By 1941/42 they were increasingly used as tank destroyers, because the German anti-tank guns with 37mm and 50 mm medium caliber guns were simply unable to deal with the heavy armor of the Soviet T-34 and KV-1 tanks. In Spring 1942 the StuGs were upgraded to the F version with the long barreled 75mm gun that could deal with Russian tanks. And unlike the dedicated tank destroyers such as the Marder I and II, it was better armored and had a lower silhouette. when introduced the StuG III F was the best German anti-tank weapon. Many StuGs were used in the anti-tank role, but thus were missing for their intended role supporting infantry.
By 1943 the assault artillery became the backbone of the army, which had been forced on the defensive, the bulk of which still consisted of infantry formations. Manstein's conception postulate of dividing assault guns directly into the infantry division began to be implemented.
But with the newly created office of Inspector General of the Armored Forces, occupied by Colonel General Heinz Guderian, the assault artillery developed a strong counterweight. At the beginning of his administration, Guderian demanded the merger of the assault artillery with the tank destroyer force, which of course would become under his aegis. During the following year and a half, Guderian tried in vain to gain control of the assault artillery to get the assault artillery integrated into the tank destroyer units.
The StuGs were the unsung heroes of the German defense from 1943 to 1945, with more kills than the Panthers and Tigers altogether, with 20,000 claimed just in 1944. [ battle reports on the Ostfront were routinely inaccurate propaganda created by either the Nazi or Soviet side - the Wehrmacht reports of Soviet losses routinely don’t report tanks that were damaged but repaired after the battle]
The summer of 1944 brought another turning point, with the appointment of Guderian as chief of staff following the assassination attempt on July 20, 1944. In this position, Guderian limited all plans to expand the assault artillery to 45 departments and finally gained greater control of production. As a result, the assault artillery received significantly fewer guns than in the previous months. The production of assault guns collapsed completely in March 1945, but up to this point it had still been shared with all previous users. In April 1945 the Third Reich and its armed forces collapsed.
