Why do tank destroyers (particularly in WW2) not feature a turret?

Question

Is this a feature or a bug?

I would guess that it allows to house a higher caliber, higher velocity gun.

Is this correct and is this all there is to it?

Answer 1

a bigger gun = a bigger turret
this was the problem that the Germans had on there panzer 3 ( also the Russian army on some older designs ) . It wasn't possible to put a bigger turret on this chassis and so it was decided to put a solid construction where the larger gun was placed in .

Answer 2

I once had a friend that is now deceased that was a platoon leader of Sturmgeschuetz III's in the German Army during World War 2 on the Russian front. Stug III's were turret-less tanks mounting the 75-mm.
He stated the positive features of the Stug III was:
Easy to build
mechanically reliable
Easy to train a crew on.
Excellent transportability by rail.
He stated that more Stugs should been produced and that Tigers were a waste of resources for all of the above reasons.
The first key to putting the turret less Stug III on an enemy target was a good reliable driver.
During the course of the war his tank was knocked out three times: By a Lend-Lease Sherman, twice by Russian 76-mm.
He had over 29 kills mostly T-34's, countless trucks and anti-tank guns. Even against latter model T-34's the Stug III could hold its own.

Answer 3

There are many contestants here, mainly most being German. They did not have many tank destroyers at the early stages of the war. Only at the end dedicated tank destroyers were produced like the hetzer, and jagdpanther. The first tank destroyer would be the panzerjager 1 which mounted the 47mm skoda(czech) AT was horrible mainly due to low armour. After the Germans invaded Russia at saw the T-34 and KV1 for the first time, they understood that they needed better AT weapons. Then comes the Marder series. The marder 1 was made almost purely from captured French and Polish tanks and a 75mm Pak40 or captured 76.2 russian F-22 1936 field guns(a ton were captured in the early stage of Barbarossa) were mounted as the armament. The Marder II was the same with the exception that it used panzer 2 chassis. Lastly there was the Marder III , the only difference was that it used the czech 38t chassis, and it had the same armament, but some more armour. One notable improvement was the commander finally did not have to actually be involved firing the gun, there was a gunner and a loader. This increased crew efficiency. It would be phased out in exchange for the closed structured vehicles like the jagdpanther and stug. Other panzerjager tanks like the Nashorn (88mm gun)did well, but not many were produced. The next tank destroyer was the stug..It initially started with the panzer 3 chassis and a short barreled 75mm gun. It would be upgunned with the high-velocity 75 mm StuK 40 L/43 main gun (Spring 1942) and later – the 75 mm StuK 40 L/48 (Autumn 1942) which performed excellently against enemy armor. The vehicle had a completely closed compartment(crew protection) and frontal armour was good(up to 80mm). It's was harder to hit in combat since its was about a little taller that a man(at most 7 or 8 ft). It was very cost effective(you could make nearly 4 of these for a single Tiger tank) it could also be produced and supplied quicker since production is speeded up when you remove the turret. The Stug IV was the same exact thing as the Stug III with the exception of the use of the panzer 4 chassis(by Krupp) in order so Krupp could bolster production. They are both the same vehicle. Other specialized tank hunters like the jagdpanther were formidable(88mm gun) and tougher to knock out but it couldn't be produced in sufficent numbers. The Hetzer was small and effective(very hard to hit because it was a tiny vehicle)due to its 75mm gun, and it could easily set up an ambush. Others were a waste(Jagdtiger). I like the Marder 3 a lot more, too bad it was phased out....The Jagdpanther had the best design and better suvivability than the stug, but low production numbers But the best tank hunter was the Stug 3 & 4. Collectively Stug units accounted for nearly 20,000 knocked out enemy tanks by 1944. It was one of the most produced vehicles. It also had other roles to fullfil. The Panzer divisions did not want the Stug early in the war because they would have to supply them. The infantry did not want it either. So it was given to the artillery branch. Stug crews were considered the elite amongst the artillery corp, their vehicles were mobile artillery guns and they were also pressed into combat against armor. They would always have infantry and artillery support as their main objective but as the war dragged on they would be pressed into the tank destroyer branch. "they would always answer the infantry's call to bring up the guns." It goes to the flexibility the Germans had with their vehicles. The Stug served its roles form infantry support to artillery fire, and to the Tank Hunter role as well as the defensive role. As a result it was a very successful vehicle that was used after the war.

Answer 4

You've just about answered your own question.

The nature of the gun needed to kill another tank made a turret an extra item not needed in the field.

The Germans would develop tank killers that were little more than tractors mounted with the biggest weapons they could field.

Such weapons were deployed in stationary locations and as far out of action as practical. Lateral movement could be achieved by moving the whole tank when needed.

Answer 5

At the expense of quality, ie turrets, the Germans opted for quantity since they were on the short end of the resources.... The calibre of the cannon was not the contributing factor, since the later models of Mark IV had 75mm cannons, and of course the Tigers and Panthers had 88s...how much more fire power could a tank killer produce? It was just a matter of economics as far as the Germans were concerned.

Answer 6

Mostly it was the Germans and the Russians that utilized this style of design (turretless) and yes, it was to simply address the higher recoil and also make for a lower profile to enemy fire.
The other benefit was that it was simpler to maintain.
The down side is a single firing arc and required much more skill tactically to deploy.

Answer 7

I think one reason is that they used heavier guns, the sherman firefly tank killer needed to apply lot of counterwight to the back of the turret to compensate for the weight of the larger gun for ex.

Answer 8

Well throwing this out there, tank destroyers had to be fast. They needed to out manuever their more armored prey and deal death as fast as possible. Maybe they used high explosive grenades etc to beat the heavy german armor and used speed to get out of the way of return fire.