Jeep Willys (other names: Willys MB, Jeep) is an American off-road car from the Second World War and the post-war period. The first prototypes of the car were built in 1940, and serial production was carried out in 1940-1945. Nearly 650,000 copies of it were created in its course! The weight of the cart was about 1.1 tons, with a length of 3.36 meters and a width of 1.57 meters. The drive was provided by a single engine with a power of 60 HP. The maximum speed was up to 105 km / h.
The Jeep Willys was developed to order and demanded by the US Army, which in 1940, faced with the war, asked for a completely new 4x4 passenger car with a load capacity of up to 250 kilograms, which could be mass-produced. It is worth adding that initially the American Bantam Car with the Bantam BRC was the clear favorite in the tender. However, the US Department of Defense, striving to ensure the best possible car design and trying to ensure trouble-free series production, handed over the plans for the Bantam BRC to the Willys and Ford plants. Based on these plans, Willys developed a Jeep that had a much better power unit than the original Bantam BRC, as well as being mechanically more perfect. Ultimately, it was this car, the Willys Jeep, that won the tender for the US Army. The presented car was actually mass-produced and went to almost all Anglo-Saxon armies fighting in World War II, and thanks to the Lend-and-Lease program, also to the Soviet Union. He took part in hostilities in North Africa, Italy, Northwest Europe and the Pacific. It is often assumed that the Jeep Willys is one of the symbols of American triumph in World War II.
The StuG III (Sturmgeschutz III) was a German armored gun from the Second World War. The first prototypes of the vehicle were built in 1937, and serial production continued in the period 1940-1945, ending with the production of about 10,300 vehicles. The StuG III in the E version was powered by a single Maybach HL 120 TRM engine with 300 hp. It was armed (version E) with a 75mm short-barreled cannon. and 1 MG34 machine gun cal. 7.92 mm.
The StuG III was created as a result of an initiative undertaken by Erich von Manstein, who in a letter to General Beck in 1935 signaled the need to create assault artillery for the advancing infantry within the mechanized units of the Wehrmacht. Ultimately, the order to design a new vehicle was commissioned to Daimler-Benz, which in turn used the chassis of the PzKpfw III Ausf. B. Several versions of the StuG III gun were produced during series production. Chronologically, the first was the A version, armed with the 75mm Stuk 37 L / 24 gun and based on the chassis of the PzKpfw III Ausf tanks. F and G and produced from the beginning of 1940. Soon after, version B was created - the first one to be produced on a large scale, which differed only slightly from the version A. In 1941, version D, which had better armor and sights, entered the production. The E version was quickly created, which was the first to receive additional armament in the form of the MG34 machine gun. At the beginning of 1942, the StuG III underwent a major modification to become actually a tank destroyer by installing a long-barreled 75mm StuK 40 L / 48 gun. The designation of the car was also changed to StuG 40. In the period 1940-1945, the StuG III served on almost all fronts on which the German army fought. It turned out to be a very useful weapon, cheap to produce and, most importantly, effective. It is estimated that different versions of the StuG were responsible for the destruction of approximately 20,000 Soviet tanks and armored vehicles in 1941-1945.