0:01 imagine being crammed into a metal box
0:03 the size of a walk-in closet with three
0:06 other sweaty and probably horrified men
0:08 you can barely see outside and your only
0:09 Escape is a single hatch that's
0:11 partially blocked oh and anything more
0:13 powerful than a standard rifle can punch
0:15 through your side armor like it's made
0:17 of cardboard welcome to the life of a
0:19 heter crew The Men Who operated one of
0:21 the famous tank destroyers of World War
0:23 II becoming known as a nightmare on
0:25 tracks among many Infamous tanks of
0:27 World War II there's a smaller deadlier
0:29 and far more disturbing vehicle that
0:31 deserves our attention the yaged Panza
0:34 38t better known as the hetza might look
0:36 cute and compact in your video games but
0:38 for the men inside it was anything but
0:40 adorable hetza translates roughly to
0:42 Chaser A fitting nickname for a small
0:44 aggressive tank destroyer designed to
0:47 Ambush and harass enemy armor by 1943
0:49 Germany was in serious trouble as new
0:51 Soviet tanks emerged that were better
0:53 than almost anything Germans had the
0:55 tide of War had turned against them and
0:56 they desperately needed something that
0:58 could be mass-produced while still being
1:00 able to threaten the enormous production
1:02 of Allied tanks to make the most of what
1:04 they had the Germans began repurposing
1:06 older tank designs turning them into
1:08 something new if they had some hulls and
1:10 guns they would put them together to
1:12 make the best use of both and that's how
1:14 mder and nasorn tank destroyers were
1:16 born however their High Silhouettes and
1:18 thin armor made them too vulnerable so
1:20 the Germans wanted something to fix this
1:23 or at least to try the heter was built
1:24 on the chassis of the Czechoslovakian
1:28 designed 38t tank just like the ma 3 but
1:29 with a completely different design
1:31 German Engineers essentially took this
1:33 outdated light tank took off its turret
1:35 slightly widened the hull and mounted a
1:38 fixed caseate with a powerful PK 3975 mm
1:41 anti-tank gun the gun was actually one
1:43 of the best anti-tank guns of the war
1:45 and under 1,000 M it could destroy most
1:47 of the Allied armor besides the rare
1:49 heavy tanks however the gun could
1:52 Traverse only 5° to the left and 11 to
1:54 the right anything beyond that required
1:56 moving the entire vehicle which risked
1:57 giving away its position but we'll come
2:01 to that development began in 1943 with
2:03 mass production starting around April
2:07 1944 by War's end approximately 2,500 of
2:08 these weird machines had rolled off the
2:10 assembly lines but the real story is
2:12 about the men who had to fight inside
2:14 what was called a mobile coffin the
2:16 first thing that strikes you about the
2:18 heter is its absurdly small size at
2:20 around 7 ft tall the heter was still one
2:22 of the lowest profile tank destroyers of
2:24 the war making it ideal for ambushes
2:26 hiding behind hedge RS or in forests to
2:29 surprise advancing Allied tanks but that
2:31 low silhouette came at a horrifying cost
2:33 for the crew four men were crammed into
2:35 a fighting compartment barely big enough
2:37 for two the driver was in the front of
2:38 course and the Gunner and loader in a
2:40 row behind him squeezed on the same side
2:42 of the cannon this Arrangement made
2:44 operating the vehicle in combat awkward
2:46 as loader and Gunner were one beside
2:47 another although the usual Arrangement
2:49 would be loader on one and Gunner on the
2:51 other side so both could function better
2:53 imagine trying to load a shell while
2:54 practically sitting in your colleague's
2:56 lap the loader also had some of the
2:58 rounds stored on the opposite side of
2:59 the gun breach and had to reach over the
3:01 The Recoil guard after firing grab a new
3:04 shell and then load the gun but the
3:05 cramped quarters were just the beginning
3:07 of the crew's problems the real horrror
3:09 was the near tootal blindness they
3:12 operated in although all World War II
3:13 tanks didn't have the best visibility
3:15 from inside the hetzer took it to a new
3:17 level you're inside a vehicle designed
3:20 to hunt and Destroy enemy tanks and your
3:21 life depends on seeing threats before
3:23 they see you but your visibility is
3:25 limited to a few tiny Vision slits and a
3:27 single Periscope there are no side
3:30 Vision ports no Commander Cupa no way to
3:31 see if infantry is approaching your
3:33 flanks the driver peered through a tiny
3:35 Vision port at the front the Gunner had
3:37 only his gun sight and the loader
3:39 couldn't see outside at all and the
3:40 commander who was responsible for
3:42 identifying targets and directing the
3:44 vehicle had just a small scissor
3:45 Periscope through his partially blocked
3:48 hatch one heta veteran described the
3:50 experience as fighting while wearing a
3:52 blindfold and E muff simultaneously the
3:54 crew depended almost entirely on the
3:56 commander to be their eyes but he could
3:57 only see properly when standing up
4:00 through his hatch completely exposed
4:01 this made the heter exceptionally
4:04 vulnerable to infantry attacks if enemy
4:05 got close to the sides of the vehicle
4:07 the crew had no way to see them no way
4:09 to depress or turn the main gun to fire
4:11 at them and no defensive weapons except
4:13 for a single remote controlled machine
4:16 gun on the roof remote you may ask
4:18 speaking of that it's an engineering
4:19 solution so absurd it almost seems like
4:22 a practical joke played on heta Cruz the
4:25 vehicle had an mg34 mounted on the roof
4:26 that could be fired remotely from inside
4:29 via a system of cables and pulleys in
4:30 theory this gave the crew some
4:32 protection against infantry attacks
4:34 without exposing themselves in practice
4:36 it was almost useless the gun couldn't
4:38 be aimed with any accuracy and also it
4:39 couldn't be reloaded from inside the
4:42 vehicle once you'd emptied the 50 or 75
4:44 round drum someone had to open the hatch
4:46 and climb onto the roof to reload you
4:47 can imagine doing that in the middle of
4:50 combat the het's armor layout was just
4:51 as contradictory as the rest of its
4:54 design the front armor was impressively
4:57 thick at 60 mm and well sloped making it
4:58 capable of deflecting direct hits from
5:01 many Allied tanks or anti-tank guns this
5:03 gave Crews a sense of security until
5:05 they realized the sides were only 20 mm
5:09 thick and the top a paper thin 8 mm that
5:10 means the sides could be easily
5:12 penetrated by Soviet anti-tank rifles of
5:14 which they had over 2 million and even
5:16 heavy machine guns would go through like
5:18 the American 50 caliber the top armor
5:20 could barely stop standard rifle rounds
5:22 a direct hit from any Allied anti-tank
5:24 weapon to the side would go through as
5:26 if there was no armor and remember with
5:28 their limited visibility heter crews in
5:29 close quarters fighting couldn't even
5:31 see if they were being flanked as if
5:33 fighting blind in a cramped box wasn't
5:34 bad enough the hetza was also
5:36 mechanically strained to its limits the
5:38 original chassis was designed to support
5:40 a 10-ton light tank but the hetzer
5:42 weighed 16 tons the suspension was
5:44 overloaded especially in early models
5:46 which were visibly sagging at the front
5:47 from the combined weight of the armor
5:49 and gun although Engineers made
5:51 improvements the vehicle was always
5:53 overloaded and underpowered this
5:54 logically made the heter slow and
5:56 cumbersome and it couldn't even keep
5:59 Pace with motorized infantry units just
6:00 when you thought that the hetza couldn't
6:02 get more horrifying for its Cruise
6:04 German engineers said hold my schnaps
6:07 and created the flam Panza 38t a
6:09 flamethrower variant that saw some
6:11 action on the Western Front about 50 of
6:13 these nightmares were produced replacing
6:15 the main gun with a flamethrower that
6:18 could project burning fuel about 60 M if
6:20 the standard hetza was a death trap the
6:22 flam Panzer was a rolling crematorium
6:24 when you add a highly flammable mixture
6:26 to all its problems plus to be effective
6:28 flamethrowers need to get extremely
6:30 close to their targets meaning Crews had
6:32 to drive to within Point Blank Range of
6:34 enemy positions you'll be driving a
6:36 blind box filled with liquid fire toward
6:38 heavily armed enemies who will do
6:39 anything to kill you before you get
6:41 close enough to use your weapon it's no
6:43 surprise that many of these flamethrower
6:45 variants were abandoned intact by Crews
6:47 who simply refused to take them into
6:51 combat during the 1944 warsa Uprising
6:53 polish resistance Fighters captured one
6:55 heter from German forces and used it to
6:57 defend a barricade against German tanks
6:59 although technically impressive in some
7:01 ways especially when you look at it just
7:03 on paper the heter was a nightmare for
7:05 The Men Who operated it it was cheap to
7:08 produce had a powerful gun and a low
7:09 profile that made it harder to spot and
7:11 hit seeming like a reasonable solution
7:13 to Germany's desperate need for tank
7:15 destroyers but military vehicles are
7:17 homes and workplaces for human beings
7:19 who must fight effectively inside them
7:21 and in that most critical aspect the
7:24 heter failed its Cruise spectacularly by
7:25 the time they reached the battlefield in
7:28 significant numbers in late 1944 Germany
7:30 was already losing on all fronts this
7:31 meant hetza Crews were fighting
7:33 defensive battles against overwhelming
7:35 odds however this doesn't mean they were
7:37 completely useless in the right hands
7:40 they destroyed dozens of Allied tanks in
7:42 well executed ambushes however they
7:44 couldn't make a dent against Allied Mass
7:46 tank production and Germany's rapidly
7:49 deteriorating situation today military
7:51 historians and tank enthusiasts May
7:52 admire the hetza for its innovative
7:55 design and impressive production numbers
7:56 but we should never forget the young men
7:58 who suffered and died inside these metal
8:01 boxes not just hetzers but all other
8:03 armored vehicles of the war remember
8:05 behind every impressive statistic and
8:07 Sleek design lies a human story that's
8:09 often far more terrifying than the spec
