German tank destroyer E-10 Hetzer II

E-10 was a representative tanks a new concept, the design of which was designed to unify production as much as possible. E-10 was considered as a test platform for the entire generation of tanks with index E, primarily engines, as well as transmission and chassis components.

He was supposed to be an easy reckless tank destroyer, as well as a reconnaissance vehicle, designed by Klockner-Humboldt-Deutz from Ulm.

Before the E-10 project, this company had never been involved in the development of armored vehicles. The power plant on the E-10 was supposed to be a water-cooled Maybach HL 100 installed at the rear of the hull, with an HP 400 power. or Argus air-cooled, power 350 hp. After installing fuel injection and an improved cooling system, the engine power from the Maybach HL 100 should have been raised to 550 hp. at 3800 rpm

The combined system of hydrodynamic transmission and steering should have been made by Voith. The system also had to be installed in the rear of the tank, which would simplify its dismantling and maintenance. This layout also allowed to increase the space of the fighting compartment of the tank. The engine compartment and rear armor plates were planned to be made completely removable, so that it was possible to dismantle the engine and transmission in a single block. It was expected that the maximum speed of the tank should have been 65-70 km / h. Although the designation E-10 implied the weight of the vehicle to 10 tons, the topic was no less, the mass of the new tank should have been about 16 tons.

On the tank it was planned to install 75 mm gun Pak 39 L / 48, almost the same thing that was installed on the tank destroyer Hetzer. In the production process, it could be replaced by a rigidly fixed version (Starr) of the same instrument. Suspension on external levers, using Belleville washers as springs.

On each side of the machine, there were 4 external levers, on each of which a steel rubberized wheel was installed with a diameter of 1000 mm. The wheels alternately overlapped each other and were installed in pairs to the left and right of the single-row track teeth. One of the possibilities of the tank was to regulate the amount of ground clearance. This was achieved with the help of hydraulics. The height of the machine could vary from 1400 to 1760 mm. The booking was 60 mm on the upper front sheet, inclined at an angle 60 °, 30 mm on the lower front sheet and 20 mm on all other armor sheets.

E-10 did not go into production, and its role was assigned to a similar in size, but structurally simpler Jagdpanzer 38 (d), based on an elongated version of the old Czech chassis Panzer 38 (t) with a new engine.

Comments

[dred]

Well. Something that the Germans lost a sense of beauty.

[Artemka]

They also suffered from gigantism by the way.

[Dr. FuManchu]

A full UG, somewhere spread the report of the German user of the progenitor of this “wunderwafer” Hetzer, he whimpered that there were no guns that UG full-UGN and UVN, inside there was a cramp, if someone was wounded, do not get out. and pull out, further to the Varalbom somewhere there were Hetzer’s fotos whose sheets of armor were stupidly torn out, judging by the photo most likely with the usual Sherman’s 75-mm shell, the crew think there was without a doubt meat stuffing. In general, was it still ... pain
As for me, all these Hetzer, E-10. Marders and other things are just fulfilling the desire to use to the maximum the possibilities of a good overall and quite massive Skoda chassis from the PTsT-38 by creating any ersatz self-propelled guns on its base in order to give the troops at least something massive of armored vehicles to make up for the ever-increasing losses of tanks in the Wehrmacht