Reconstructing the elusive Sturmgeschütz E-75

Today we will try to shed some light on one of the most mysterious german paper panzers, an assault gun based on the E-75 chassis.
A project with such little detail that is often dismissed as modeler kit bash, the stug E-75 is possibly the most elusive E-series project discussed by Ernst Kniepkamp’s team.

This gives a very ambitious project with a hefty engineering challenge.
For comparison, the Jagdtiger had a 12.8cm L/55, a gun just above 7m at 704cm.

Below, Krupp’s rejected proposal of arming Jagdtiger with a 12.8cm L/66:

At almost 8.5m long, the project was deemed unpractical as it would severely reduce maneuverability and likely gun traverse, changing it from a tank destroyer to armored artillery in Wa Pruef 6′s words.
At 7.8m, a 150mm L/52 would be halfway between the two guns in length although likely close to the latter in weight.

Assuming a relatively low recoil cannon (at this stage of the war HEAT would have been the preferred piercing warhead rather than hypervelocity APCR, especially at such high caliber) firing at no more than 600-700 m/s it’s likely casemate size requirements wouldn’t change from what would have been needed to house the 12.8cm Pak 44 and given that size would be very similar to the Jagdtiger (even the marginally longer Weserhütte plans gave out just enough room to allow rear transmission), meaning anything larger would be highly unpractical.

Assuming minimal engineering and base chassis modification efforts would be allowed (this is the E-series we’re talking about, so anything hampering ease of production would be likely avoided), this leaves us two possible possible configurations, one based on the aborted Jagdpanther mit 12.8 Pak 44 and the other being the classical Jagdtiger.

Using Doyle’s designs from Panzer Tracts 20-1 we obtain mixed drawings that might look a bit closer to what german engineers had imagined:

The former has the advantage of being closer to the original goals involving rear transmission, although a front casemate design with a long gun would present a large gun overhang, something that was considered undesirable with the long 128mm Jagdtiger proposal, although in this case the rear transmission pack would possibly provide more balance and avoid making the vehicle too nose heavy.

The Jagdtiger-like casemate closer to the center would instead provide better balance as advantage and be closer to historical production reality as it would require relatively less production changes from the design already in the assembly lines.

All in all, given the war ended before even the early suspension tests on a Tiger II hull could be completed this represents mostly an exercise in speculation, although one extremely interesting for the historically minded war-game fan.

About Zarax

Wot: Zarax999 (EU Server)

56 thoughts on “Reconstructing the elusive Sturmgeschütz E-75

  1. Do we need more paper panzer when the Brits and French are still lacking several, real, mass produced and iconic tanks? This game is becoming boring with all those paper panzer made up by WG (E-50M, JagdPanther II, T25/2…) while we still don’t have a motherfucking Firefly or an S35 without nazi insignia…

      • About “Don’t play those tanks”

        Why do WG put useless tanks into game. Do they want a good game or more whiners?

      • Isnt T110E4 a fucking fantasy tank? and T28 Proto too? would love another german TD line with Sturmgeschütz E-75 at T9 and JagdMaus at T10.

        • Sturmferdinand would be a better tier IX for the Jagdmaus line as it’s based on Porsche designs.

    • I write about german tanks so the paper-to-production ratio is going to be pretty low, plus anyways it’s not like I have any influence on WOT development…

    • I on the other hand like prototpyes. It gives the game more flavour, and actually lets us learn something new for a change :P. Not to say I do not like real tanks as well, I love em, but I prefer having both. MOAR TANKS= BETEERH

      • Prototypes (both actually built and blueprints) are one thing, hypothetical tanks based on vague infos, or even simple assumptions, are another thing.

        • Unfortunately all we have on E-series based TDs are only vague mentions, on which one has to work with speculations.

          This is why I intentionally leave any reconstruction very crude so that it is clear it’s not 100% historical.

      • Even when its quite a good guess as to what they were going to be? Even when they make senese from a gemplay progression perspective?

    • That one is a mix of the E-75 hull and the casemate of the Jagdpanther mit 12.8 cm, if I am reading your mind. The drawings are made by Zarax contemplating what the StuG E-75 would look like.

          • I intentionally leave the images poorly done to highlight the fact it’s just mixing of different designs and not a proper historical project.

            • Look for the extended cultures Rome total war mod, that’s my texturing on some units

            • RTW mods? Whoa, Nostalgia Alley. Would you believe I was the “unit stats auditor” for Europa Barbarorum for a while?

          • Ah, I worked on the original iteration. Might still have access to the restricted subforum, or at least did the last time I checked out of curiosity (a fair while ago admittedly). Went by the name “Watchman” there – this one’s actually a direct translation I adopted after A Certain Movie led to that nick getting reserved in only too many contexts.

            Now that you mention it, you nick’s starting to ring some bells…

  2. Charcharo approves this.
    This vehicle, at tier 10, after the JagdTiger makes A LOT more sense than the JPZ E-100, from a gameplay perspective. Not a big change of pace or skills in order to drive what is a bigger Jtiger/Jpanther. JPZ E-100 can become an award tank/part of another tree. It aint bad if you have gotten used to it.

    • Yeah JT to JgPzE-75 jagdtiger lookalike makes a lot more sense than JT to JgPzE-100.
      Give it more improved 12,8cm PaK 44/2 L/61 with a bit more pen (up to like 280-288), RoF and aim time and dub it 12,8cm PaK 44/2 L/61 Ausf B.
      It would be a lot lesser stretch than JgPzE-100

  3. Hmmz, to paperpanzer or not to paperpanzer.. There is a shitload of correct tanks they could add (maybe as prem’s) that should bring a lot of fun. The beautifull Firefly, additional and functional sandbag or concrete armor, the M51 SuperSherman, or how about the TauchPanzer (IV) to stroll around with in deep waters. All tier 5-6 tanks, that would make a hell of a lot of fun.!!!!

    • Sand bag and concrete Armour looks nice but makes a tank easier to penn this was tested during and after the war. and several articles were written up on it by the community.

      • Might be reasonably useful against HE, HEAT and HESH though. Adds a lot of woight conversely.

    • >implying kraut tanks (in general) are bad
      It’s totally not like their players are bad, mostly because they’re fanboys who believe that krauts should be invincible.

        • You know, the game has changed and shit, but i used to play krauts on ru-server even before EU went live, and at that time they sucked so much ass that players litterally boycotted the game with the maus. Just sayin…

          • I take it this was around the time bronze was still hot stuff for military hardware?

  4. Kewl as a jewel!! I’m going to take my Trumpeter E75 kit and my old Dragon Jagdtiger kit and create one of these!!! should be interesting…

  5. Gee, that first one looks a lot like the Trumpeter “Krokodil” model… which if you *really* think about it makes the most feasible sense.

    It’s literally just a Jagdpanther cranked up to 11.

    • Unfortunately iirc trumpeter used the jagdpanter casemate as base, which is a bigger assumption than what I would take

    • There’s a number of good reasons the engineers started putting the casemates in the middle or rear of the hull you know…

      • I agree with that but in this case the main requirement was to keep production fast and simple, hence less assembly line changes over design optimization.

        • Seems to me like plunking the superstructure in the place of the turret would achieve that even better, really, since eg. the hull glacis would require no changes as such – whereas the front-casemate design would seem to require fabricating a whole new pattern of very large glacis plate. :/

        • And come to think of it, much of the central superstructure ought to be able to use already existing JagdTiger production facilities to boot.

          • Why? It’s not like the superstructure was going to take too much more hull space or be too much heavier than the turret, right? What with being able to dispense with the basket and traverse machinery and all that.

            Plus you seem to be contradicting yourself a bit now. :/

            • front casemate for rear transmission, central casemate for front transmission.
              They actually tackled on this during jagdtiger development according to spielberger.

              EDIT: I cannot reply further so I’ll write here:
              It was mostly about having to extend the hull in some configuration as both engine and transmission took quite some space.

    • Nah, it’d be way too front-heavy if it were actually built, which is why it’s infeasible, but then again, has that stopped WG before?

  6. From those 2 drawings, the first one looks like a less-mobile JPanther (1) on über-steroids.
    Me likey :P