The Sturmgeschutz IV was developed on the chassis of the Panzer IV medium tank to provide the German army with an assault gun capable of effectively serving as a tank destroyer in the later stages of World War II. The Stug IV was equipped with a Stuk40 75mm L/48 high-velocity gun installed in a casemate, protected by armored mantlet, capable of penetrating the armor of major enemy armored vehicles. Distributed to units in the early months of 1944, it supplemented and often replaced the Stug III assault gun, which had experienced a sudden decrease in production in 1943 due to increasingly frequent Allied bomber raids on German industrial areas. Widely employed, the Stug IV was used by armored units and anti-tank detachments of the Wehrmacht, where, thanks to its low profile, it proved to be particularly difficult to identify.