Marder

Not to be confused with the Marder Infantry Fighting Vehicles of Team Yankee.

"Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!"

– Enviromentalists everywhere.

The Marder series of tank destroyers/assault guns were largely a series of obsolete and captured tank chasses that were converted to carry large fuckoff guns. There were three main variants of the Marder, the most recognizable of which is the Marder III.

IRL

If one thing, the Marder (Marten) series stands testimony to the adaptability of the German industry during WWII. In the early stages of the war, Blitzkrieg tactics wrecked other European armies, and the necessity of dedicated Panzerjägers was not really looked into. Sure, the French heavy B1 Bis and the British Matilda and Churchill were heavy hitters and rough opponents, but they were few in numbers and better organization and communications, higher mobility, some close air support, or if all else failed a really big gun dealt with those lumbering behemoths just fine.

Fast-forward to late 1941: the German armies are advancing toward Moscow, and suddenly their superior Aryan butts are getting ravaged by the latest Soviet üntermensch deployment: the T-34. Faster, better armored and with a gun that allows one to engage both tanks and infantry, it was a superior machine; and there were lots of them! Really, really, really lots of them! Only three things prevented the Russians to stop the Germans for good right there and then: their own winter (yes, the Germans suffered from the exceptional cold, but even more so the Russians), so-so mechanical reliability and fucked-up logistical lines that meant T-34's couldn't be deployed optimally but often joined the fight piecemeal, and poorly trained crews unable to play to their machine's strengths.

Fast forward again to 1942: the Germans have stabilized the front and want to go on the offensive again, but they need ways to deal with the always larger amounts of T-34's coming at them, and they need them like yesterday. But, dedicated solutions like upgunned Panzer IV's, Stug III's and Tigers take a lot of time to be manufactured/upgraded, so High Command looks for so-called Zwischenlösungen or interim solutions in order to keep going. One of these interim solutions were the different models of Marder tank hunters, which married a chassis of an obsolete tank with either a German 75mm gun or a captured and adapted Russian 76mm gun. They were in order:

• The Marder I was largely developed by Major Alfred Becker (an ingenious German guy who liked to make new things out of obsolete ones) and the Alkett weapons firm. They the bright idea to strap a PaK 40 to a French Tracteur Blinde 37L (and a few other light tanks), of which they'd captured a couple hundreds but were otherwise useless. Rushed into service, it was the least efficient version; but it nevertheless offered a more than welcome improvement in mobility for the PaK-40.
• The Marder II was a branch off of this design, also by Alkett, except it used the Panzer II chassis as base that was more standardized and easier to maintain than captured French materiel. Early versions had rechambered Soviet At-guns, but they were later replaced by the German PaK-40. Decent, but the Panzer II chassis quickly showed its limits.
• The Marder III was the final in the series and was based on the proven and larger Panzer 38(t) chassis. It gained a reputation for being mechanically reliable and even saw service in Africa. The best version of the three, that was produced until mid-1944 (where Stug and Hetzer production overtook them) and used right until the end of WWII.

Generally speaking, the Marders were not very good designs: slow, cumbersome, too tall, too visible and underamoured for their job. They paled in comparison to their bigger cousin, the Nashorn with its ridiculous kill range or their purposefully-designed brother, the long-barrelled Stug III with its much lower silouhette and fully enclosed fighting compartment. And yet, they are fondly remembered and served exceptionally well, because for all their 'interimness', they were the right tool at the right time, and up until the very end provided defensive and overwatch fire to the beleagered Wehrmacht.

Interestingly, the name Marder would be resurrected after WWII by the new Bundeswehr for their line of Infantry Fighting Vehicles, that with their ability to carry Anti-Tank Guided Missiles could be considered in some small way successors to the Marders of WWII.