As far as i knew, no, however in this link there is a hetzer with a muzzle brake. its the one with the guy sitting on it.

http://www.detektorweb.cz/index.4me?s=show&i=3394&mm=1&vd=1

I think it is a Swiss G-13, now how it got there looking like that is beyond me. To my knowledge, the Germans did not have muzzle brakes on their Hetzers.

There were a few hetzers fitted with a 75 mm KwK 42 L/70 in '45. Who knows?

Vinnie

Probably a G13, the other G13 recognition feature - the greasing points on the final drives aren't visible though.

The greasing points are visible on the unrebuilt G13 here, someone has kindly painted them red

http://www.vmmv.org/tanktk/hetzer/hetzer.htm

I'd suggest not basing decisions on one photo. Do we actually know that this is a pic of a wartime or post-war Hetzer?

War-time field modification? There are some modifications which can be made in the field certainly.. Adding a muzzle-brake when they were originally removed is not IMHO particularly credible. I'm convinced it's post-war...Jim

I was looking through Kliment's "Czechoslovak AFVs 1919-1948" and the info there shows the installation of the Pak39 L/40 7.5cm starting on the Hetzer prototype and going into production. This was the same cannon used in the Jadgpanzer IV. The large weapon could be mounted in the Jadgpzner IV and the Jdpzr 38(t) Hetzer due to an innovative cannon mounting, a frame fixed to the front wall.

Stavka is right in that some unfinished Hetzer chasses were utilized at war's end. However, given that the Swiss G-13 was known to have had a muzzle, I'd say that takes first assumption before speculation of a "one-off field mod" -- which would take quite a bit of work.

Also, the muzzle is cropped out of the picture, right? DOes the text confirm that the next two pictures are from that vehicle? Why are we assuming that? I would agree that the final two pics REALLY look like a 7.5cm Pak 40 gun tube and muzzle. But from its dimensions, I don't think it was pulled off of the Hetzer with the fellow sitting on it.

My two cents.

The swiss G13 is produced by skoda after the war,it was in development in the last year of the war and they are fitted with a pak 40.there where two [hetzer's] G13 in germany in 1945 for visual examination and evaluation brought there by railtransport from czechoslovakia.this transport stranded while the german goverment/regime was dissolved,and so the two went in storage and where later on sold off to a collector who restored them as being a late model german hetzer.and so they ended up in the reenactment scene and on display's.
my source is the modellers guide to jagdpanzer by Jim Henslev [if this story is true is up to you to decide

greetings jeroen

Cool information! Possibly a Pak 40 barrel after all! Nice info Jeroen.

Handling that long round inside that hull must have been awful though!

Hi All,
The vehicle shown COULD be a German WW2 variant. As stated in MMiR's guide to the Jagdpanzer: some very late hetzers were armed with the PAK 40 (for testing, IIRC) that did have a muzzle break. Interestingly enough, one of the vehicles that had this was one of the protoypes sent to Switzerland as a demo for a possible constreuction contract. When Germany surrendered and effectively ceased to exist, the vehicle was interned. It now belongs to a collector and has been restored. HTH.
Regards,
Georg