The signal of need of such kind of vehicles extension occurred when the
struggle against the Soviet Union began. Another ones came from North
Africa. In both cases few times turned out that hard-to-eliminate foible
of the units equipped with towed guns was its mobility when the tanks
and short-barreled assault guns, engaged often and often as the antitank
artillery, revealed insufficient firepower. There were self-propelled
guns called Panzerjäger, put into service in the turn of 1942 and 1943.
Despite the fact of being armed with a valuable 75 mm or 76,2 mm main
armament, their crews were not protected effectively - the armor plates'
thickness was merely up to 10 mm.