Sd.Kfz. 251  1/16

The Sd.Kfz. 251 (German: Sonderkraftfahrzeug 251) was a German half-track vehicle of World War II, developed from the Sd.Kfz. 11. The vehicle was developed under the supervision of Heinz Guderian, a German pioneer in mechanized and armored warfare. He had learned from the Spanish Civil War that soldiers in forests and urban areas were vulnerable in their tanks.[1]

The vehicle's purpose was to transport a group of up to 10 infantrymen to the battlefield while protecting them from enemy fire. The vehicle has no roof, making the crew vulnerable to enemy curved-trajectory guns such as mortars. The test models and the first examples were assigned to the 1st Panzer Division, which used them during the Polish Campaign in 1939.

The vehicle is actually a "three-quarter track"; unlike the American half-track, the Sd.Kfz. 251 had no front-wheel drive. The length of the track gave it better off-road performance than its American counterpart. There were four models (A-D) and many variants, both official and unofficial. The standard model was equipped with a 7.92 mm MG 34 or MG 42 machine gun, mounted on the front of the open roof. The vehicle was also equipped with ports to fire MP 40 rounds.

Some variants were built for specific purposes, such as rocket launchers, anti-aircraft defense, and reconnaissance vehicles to identify targets for Panther tanks.

After the war, the Sd.Kfz. 251 continued to be produced in Czechoslovakia until the early 1960s.