German operations in the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s showed Wehrmacht General Heinz Guderian that his country’s tanks were vulnerable to enemy attack in forests, urban areas, and other confined spaces, making them unsuitable tools for tactical troop support. This convinced him to develop an armored infantry transport vehicle—a sign of his preference for mechanized warfare. Introduced in 1939, the Sd.Kfz . 251, half truck, half tank, was designed to be fast, maneuverable over a variety of difficult terrain, and inexpensive to produce.

The 251 was an impressively adaptable beast, spawning nearly two dozen official variants. The model pictured here, the 251/1 (Ausf. C), served as a simple personnel carrier, usually carrying a 10-man Panzergrenadier squad; the 251/6 was a communications base for the High Command and typically also carried a famous “Engima” machine; the 251/8 served as a mobile armored field hospital, while the 251/16 served as a flamethrower. Like many German tactical weapons of the war, most 251 half-tracks were scrapped after 1945.