Split from 'SPGs / assault gun / tank destroyers' The only assault guns I can think of were German or Russian did the western allies have anythings that would fit into this catagory?
That depends on how you describe an assault gun. Does an SP infantry support gun count as an assault gun, like the Sturmgeschütz? If so, the M8 75mm howitzer (on Stuart carriage) counts as an assault gun.
Right, so that's anything without a turret apart from TDs/panzerjaegers and ideally used for direct fire, infantry support? :-?
No, not anything. SPGs like the M12 were often used in the direct fire support role as well, and the M18 was probably used more to provide fire support than as a tank destroyer. But the M8 was definitely an assault gun, although it doesn´t look much impressive next to an ISU-152.
The British and Americans did have some experimental AFV's resembling the Sturmgeschütz, and especially the SU-100, but since they used tanks for infantry support already, it seems to me there would be little use for these...
I think the SU100, with that huge unwieldly gun barrel, is probably the least useful as an assault gun of all the Russian turretless designs. It is definitely built to fight tanks at long ranges, not to support infantry attacks. Or am I getting this all wrong?
I believe the Soviets called both the SU-85 and SU-100 assault guns, but both were in fact designed to counter the heavy German tanks. The SU-85 was equipped with the 85mm D5S tank gun later fitted to the T-34/85 and the SU-100 mounted the high velocity D10S gun. I´d say they both belong to the Tank Destroyer category.
Sometimes the difference between a TD and an AG is just the way you use it. battlefield.ru about the SU-152: Achtung Panzer about the Stug III:
