15cm sIG 33 B Sfl

15cm sIG 33 B Sfl

Sd.Kfz.221 (s.Pz.B.41)

15cm sIG 33 B Sfl

Sd.Kfz.221 (s.Pz.B.41)

Germany

I Rank

Battle rating:

AB	RB	SB
1.0	1.0	1.0

Class:

Tank destroyer

Research:2 900

Purchase:700

Show in game

Description

The 15cm sIG 33 B Sfl is a rank I German tank destroyer with a battle rating of 1.0 (AB/RB/SB). It was introduced in Update 1.67 "Assault". Based on the Panzer II chassis, it mounted a 150 millimeter cannon and was used during the North African campaign.

General info

Survivability and armour

The Sturmpanzer II does have enough armour to stop low BR tank rounds, however it should not be relied upon to stop High Velocity or High Penetration rounds, especially from other SPGs. It is an open topped vehicle, and since it has no machine guns, it is very vulnerable to air attack.

Despite having very little armor, it does have a lot of empty space in the tank to resist multiple penetrating hits before being destroyed. However, it is hull-breakable against 75mm or larger guns with sufficient AP velocity or HEAT capability.

Mobility

The Sturmpanzer II can go up to 45 kph, but due to the low Power/Weight ratio of 17.04 hp/ton in AB and 9.74 hp/ton in RB, the practical top speed is significantly less. Reverse speed is decent, up to 8.4 kph.

Armaments

Main armament

The Sturmpanzer II mounts an S.I.G. 33 Infantry Support cannon, which can fire HEAT or HE rounds. The shell velocity is very slow (240m/s), so slow that it can be awkward to target moving targets or those at long ranges, especially with HE rounds. The calibre of the gun is 15 cm (150 mm/5.9 in). The Sturmpanzer does not have any other weapons.

The J.Gr.38 HE shell penetrates 65 mm against vertical armour and 60 mm against armour sloped back 60 degrees from vertical (30 degrees from horizontal), due to it having similar mechanics to naval Guns of the same calibre. The 8.6 kg explosive mass ensures that anything that gets penetrated is instantly knocked out or is so badly crippled that a follow-up shot is guaranteed.

- Note: the HE on this is so powerful that it can even one-shot top rank tanks reliably, but due to the huge mobility disadvantage, this is not recommended unless you know exactly what you are getting yourself into.

The J.Gr.39 HI/A HEAT shell penetrates 185 mm against vertical armor and still has a 4.16 kg TNT equivalent of explosives behind it, giving it effectively 40-45 mm penetration from the explosion splash on top of the HEAT superplastic copper jet penetration. In one of the minor updates of the game, 120mm and larger HEAT rounds were altered to act more like HE shells to benefit top rank vehicles - tanks such as the Sturmpanzer are unintentional beneficiaries of this change.

Usage in battles

The Sturmpanzer has no air defence weapons, so sticking with an SPAA tank at the back of the map is a good idea. If you want to close-range brawl with low tier tanks, then sticking with another tank is a good idea since the long reload will cause you trouble if you get swarmed by lots of tanks. It has the capability to knock out much higher BR tank, so if you're up-tiered, it's not the end of the world. However shoot before your opponent shoots, because if you come across a higher tier tank, you will be eliminated almost instantaneously. The best thing to do is to fire, then fall back to reload in a safe haven.

Due to the huge HE splash ability and sheer calibre of the gun, it can even be used to hull break high-rank IFVs - BMP-1s at 7.3 are especially common to encounter. It does the same thing to BMP-2s, M3 Bradleys, Warriors, Centauros, and many other vehicles. The HE splash, however, is strong enough that it can one-shot the light, but non-hull-breakable vehicles such as the M41A1 Bulldog, any AMX-13 variation, Crusaders in lower ranks, and many others. Purposely up-tiering it can be a very effective way to earn Silver Lions with the "God Mode!" award - destroying an enemy vehicle 5.0 BR ranks higher (BR 7.0+) than you which nets 20,000 Silver Lions.

Pros and cons

Pros:

• Has the most powerful gun in the game at its rank
• Excels when up-tiered, only starts to become obsolete when newer main battle tanks arrive
• Can survive hits it will take from rank 1 tanks
• Can make a fair turn at speed when driving along
• Low profile and small front make it easy to hide and easy to camouflage with bushes
• Speedy for its size and gun calibre

Cons:

• Reload means it is inadequate for close-range combat without allied support
• HE and HEAT are both stopped by various soft debris found on most maps such as fences, concrete blocks, brick walls, wood objects, etc.
• Open-topped and very vulnerable to aircraft as a result
• Very slow at turning
• Limited firing arc

History

Describe the history of the creation and combat usage of the aircraft in more detail than in the introduction. If the historical reference turns out to be too long, take it to a separate article, taking a link to the article about the vehicle and adding a block "/ History" (example: https://wiki.warthunder.com/(Vehicle-name)/History) and add a link to it here using the main template. Be sure to reference text and sources by using <ref></ref>, as well as adding them at the end of the article with <references />. This section may also include the vehicle's dev blog entry (if applicable) and the in-game encyclopedia description (under === Encyclopedia Info ===, also if applicable).

Media

Excellent additions to the article would be video guides, screenshots from the game, and photos.

See also

Links to the articles on the War Thunder Wiki that you think will be useful for the reader, for example:

• reference to the series of the vehicles;
• links to approximate analogues of other nations and research trees.

External links

Paste links to sources and external resources, such as:

• topic on the official game forum;
• encyclopedia page on the tank;
• other literature.