DAK Marder III (7.62cm)

After looking at my Marders that I painted several years ago and deciding that their paint job didn't do they justice, I stripped them down and repainted them. Since I've been using my DAK army a lot lately, I wanted to add them to my force (since this specific model was used in North Africa).  The paint scheme needed to match that period, not to mention my current DAK theme, so Desert Yellow was called upon once more.

History

Even in the early stages of Operation Barbarossa, the Wehrmacht felt the need for a more mobile and more powerful anti-tank solution than the existing towed anti-tank guns, such as the Pak 36, or self-propelled tank destroyers such as the Panzerjäger I. This need became urgent in 1942, when anti-tank shells failed to penetrate the armor of new Soviet tanks such as the T-34 and KV-1.

As an interim solution, it was decided to use captured French vehicles, such as the Lorraine (Marder I), obsolete tanks, such as the German Panzer II (Marder II), and Czech-supplied Panzer 38(t) (Marder III) as the base for makeshift tank destroyers. The result was the Marder series, which were armed with either captured Soviet 76.2mm F-22 Model 1936 divisional field guns, or German 7.5 cm PaK 40 anti-tank guns for later versions. Due to weight and space constraints of these small chassis, the Marder series were not fully armored. Thin upper armor protection against just shrapnel and small arms fire was provided only for the front and sides. All Marder series had open tops. Some were issued with canvas tops to protect the crew from the elements. In this regard, the Marder was more of a gun carriage than a proper Panzerjäger that could exchange shells with enemy tanks.

In Flames Of War

The PaK 36(r) comes with decent punch, AT 11, ROF 2 and FP 3+, making them the ideal  solution to the Soviets heavily armored KV and T-34 Tanks encountered in 1941 during operation Barbarossa.

And a few pictures...