StuG III - In The Movies

Remember: you didn't choose the StuG life. The StuG life choose you!

Michael Wittmann, the German tank ace, started the war in a Stug III, the knowledge he gained in the vehicle carried over into the Tiger where he would rotate the whole tank over just rotating the turret, this gave him a fast turn radius and presented the most heavily armored section of the tank to the enemy.

The Stug III is my favorite German AFV in WW2. I do you like the low silhouette of the Stug because it was much easier to conceal to knock out unwary allied tanks, although it must’ve been very cramped for the crew inside.

I love the contrast between the gritty and realistic film scenes and Girls Und Panzer's racecar with a gun

The Germans did an excellent job with mass producing assault guns to fill in the gaps of tank production. We tend to focus alot of attention towards the later models of German heavy tanks but the Stug 3 actually killed more Allied armored vehicles and was used everywhere German soldiers fought. From Russia to Africa to western Europe the Stug 3 was the main anti tank weapon for Germany. Actually when you think about it since Germany had limited resources when it came to oil and manpower building alot of cheaper inferior tanks wouldn't have helped them much because it takes time to train combat troops and again oil was hard to come by later in the war also the limited soldiers was a constant problem. Having tanks and assault guns with very effective guns and being easy to hide in villages and forests makes alot more sense than just producing thousands of medium tanks with weaker armor and main guns like the Sherman or T34. Especially if you're on the defensive trying to stop the Allied forces from advancing into your territory. Another common misconception was that even though the Allied air forces were gaining air superiority they really had a difficult time try to spot German tanks on the battlefields because the Germans were very good at hiding them and more times than not bombing raids over German positions did little effect at destroying German armored vehicles because the aircraft at the time had limited success at dropping bombs accurately. So when M4 Sherman's or T34s did advance into combat zones they were met with alot of fully intact armored divisions of German tanks and assault guns firing at them from heavly defended camouflaged areas.

2:15 Tali-Ihantala 1944 is mostly realistic movie of tank warfare. Soviet had 600 tanks and Finns few and some StuG III. Panzerfaust was unpracticed new weapon. Most effective was Gefechtsverband Kuhlmey`s fighterbombers who got hundreds kills in air and ground.

hi Johnny, have you ever seen the 1946 French war film 'La Bataille du rail/The Battle of the Rails'? It's probably best known for using a lot of weaponry and equipment captured during the war, most impressively a real German armoured train. Maybe check it out sometime, or if you do an episode about military trains in cinema/TV.

Hilarious scene from Indiana Jones. The look Hitler gave after slamming the journal into his chest 😂😂😂

Random details StuGs were part of the artillery branch. Stugs as indeed do direct fire support but from time to time may offer indirect fire support, they are artillery pieces. Even with the longer 7.5cm gun, they are and will always be considered an Assault gun "capable" of doing a tank destroyers role. This is because StuGs are primarily organized into independent battalions which can be attached or detached to other battalions, brigades, or divisions. It was I usually planned for every infantry division to have one or two Assault Gun Battalions. This was because the StuGs primary role was to provide heavy fire for the infantry. Assisting the infantry with assaults and breakthroughs yet not doing the assault or breakthrough themselves due to their vulnerabilities like a lack of a rotating turret. The StuG while not a tank destroyers did intact substitute for tank destroyers because it was capable of doing so. Tank destroyers battalions occasionally replaced it's loss units with StuGs. In some cases entire tank destroyers battalions created with StuGs did occur but rarely. There are many StuG variants but the most important is the StuG III Ausf. G, this was the most produced and would stem the other important variant. The StuG III Ausf. G stood for the Sturmgeschütz III or assault gun as it is known, it utilized the 7.5cm StuK 40 L/48 gun based of the Pak 40 but not being a Pak 40, the gun designation also tells the role of the tank. Based if the StuG III Ausf. G was the StuH 42, this stood for the Sturmhaubitze 42, the name meaning assault howitzer. This used the 10.5cm leFH or 10.5cm leichte Feld Haubitze translating to light field artillery. This vehicle was meant specifically to go bunker busting, though it also worked in some basic StuG roles. It was mostly built of the G chassis rather than F. About 1300 were built. StuGs will often be seem with the basic mantle that's quadrilateral in shape but occassioanly the saukopf mantlet "pig head" may be seen As a random thing, screw the Panzer IV and StuG IV, those are ugly as hell, lack of symmetry, just looking off, etc. Panzer III and StuG III superiority.

The scene in band of brothers shows a rare underbelly shot. An extremely rare occasion, but portrayed in a physically possible way. The bottom being the thinnest armor, but no one would expect a shot there. Very exciting!

NEVER a disappointing episode; keep 'em coming!

Authentic StuG Ausf G’s from Finland are seen in “The Eagle has landed” on a train bound for the eastern front during the SS confrontation

the StuG III’s last combat action was in the Six Day War of 1967 where it was used by the Syrians as a mobile artillery and you can see some of them in the war museums in Israel alongside other WW2 German tanks such as the Panzer IV and Jadgpanzer IV. Here’s a video from Mark Felton: https://youtu.be/MbgW9C9G0H4

Great job. You have the ability to make your points quickly and not boring your audience. As for the StuG: it was a means of giving precise firepower to hard targets that were identified by those who needed it most(front line infantry). It was served by artillery units and was highly sought after by artillery men as the ability to gain recognition, promotion and medals. The opportunity offered in SuG units was FAR superior to that of those serving traditional artillery guns. When Germany was ascending, and on the offensive, the StuG fulfilled the role of Assault Gun. When Germany was on the defensive(say after Summer of ‘43) the need for Tank Destroyers became a priority. After the switch from Assault Gun to Tank Destroyer, I’m not sure as to artillery units crewed StuG’s or more traditional Panzer troops.

I'm always impressed by the variety of footage you have in these video.

The StuG is probably one of my favourite ww2 tanks!

Stug3 will always be in my heart. The soft factors of it makes it really nice. Instead of waiting around for a Tiger or something rare, a Stug is common enough that it is more often supporting infantry in the attack. I dont know about you, but i rather going in with a stug support over hoping a allied tiger can come over.

Stug 3 is an excellent tier 5 TD

Mr Bean and Girls und Panzer? Masterpiece. 10/10

You know that feeling when you've been fighting hard from beginning to end but get absolutely overshadowed by your overly popular teammates that barely did anything useful? Yes, that's how it feels like to be a StuG.