Panzerfaust
The German experiences on the Eastern Front created a situation where massive Russian tank forces confronted German ground forces. Limited numbers of towed antitank weapons were available, forcing the Germans to improvise. It became apparent that while these improvised systems required heroic bravery on the part of the infantryman, they had a limited operational effectiveness. A better way was sought.
As the standard German antitank weapons proved ineffective against the Russian T34, light howitzers as well as captured Russian 76-mm. guns were used as direct-fire weapons against tanks. In addition, hand grenades and mines were produced locally and used as makeshift antitank weapons. During periods of position warfare, the engineers prepared large quantities of wooden-box mines. The bodies were made of impregnated wood and the mines were fired by pressure.
The introduction of the Panzerfaust - a recoilless antitank grenade and launcher, both expendable - completely superseded previous improvisations in the field of antitank weapons. The defense against armored vehicles (tanks, armored personnel carrier) requires grenades with a weight of several kilograms; due to the large muzzle momentum (mass times speed), it can only be fired from heavy weapons. To ensure that the individual, unprotected soldier can still be equipped with such projectiles, there are so-called portable recoilless anti-tank weapons, in which the muzzle momentum is compensated by an equally large one opposite the shooting direction.
Technically, this is achieved with weapons simultaneously firing the grenade and ejecting a similarly heavy mass at a similar speed opposite the direction of fire (principle of the so-called Davis gun). To accelerate a projectile without recoil, the rocket principle can also be used, in which a gas jet streams out to the rear at very high speed, thus canceling the recoil momentum acting on the shooter. In both cases, behind the weapon, i.e., behind the shooter, arises an area of deadly danger, in which it is forbidden to stay while firing. This area depends on the weapon system and can be several 10 m in length.
The Panserfaust was developed by designers of the Leipzig company HASAG - Hugo Schneider AG ( Hugo Schneider AG ). Unlike the "Ofenror" and "Pantsershrek", the anti-tank grenade did not have a cruise rocket engine: the "Panzerfaust" was based on the dynamo-reactive principle, that is, the entire accelerating powder charge burned out in the pipe before the grenade took off, similarly to the "Bazooka M1".
As an anti-tank weapon the Americans had the bazooka, which required a two-man team. The Germans had the panzerfaust, a "Davis gun" operated by a single soldier and far superior as a tank-buster. Even when the Army's Ordnance Corps persuaded Army Ground Forces to adopt the shoulder-fired, antitank rocket--the Bazooka--AGF standardized a 2.75-inch design inadequate for piercing the frontal armor of already-fielded German tanks, a fact that led American troops to prize captured Panzerfaust launchers and rockets, a robust weapon that could do the job.
Given their early use of shaped charges, German industry developed a shaped charge which was a “type of hollow charge that added an important ingredient: a metal liner between the warhead’s explosive and the cavity. When the warhead was detonated, the explosive blast was focused on the metal liner, compressing it into a hypersonic stream of metal particles that could penetrate a great deal of steel armor.” This lethal shaped charge became the warhead for the panzerfaust.
The development of this grenade launcher was started by the HASAG company (chief designer - Dr. Langweiler) in the summer of 1942, and mass production was organized in the summer of 1943 (20,000 "Faust cartridges" were initially ordered). The first 500 grenade launchers were delivered to the troops in August of the same year. The grenade launcher had a very simple design and consisted of two main parts. Grenades and launchers. In factory conditions, the launch tube was equipped with a pear-shaped supercaliber cumulative grenade (of different power depending on the modification). The grenade consists of a composite body with a bursting charge and a cumulative burst, as well as a tail part with a detonating device, a detonator, and a tailpiece.
The starting pipe is steel, open at both ends. The tube of the shock mechanism with the aiming post is welded to the front part of the barrel. Inside the pipe channel are a plastic gasket and a reactive ejecting charge of smoke powder. The latter is placed in a cylindrical cardboard case. The case is in the tube, opposite the ignition hole and is fixed with a screw.
The percussion mechanism consists of a tube, a striker, a mainspring, a spring-loaded trigger, a stem with a screw, a return spring and a bushing with an igniter capsule.
A primitive aiming device is a bar on a hinge, with one or three holes, next to which numbers indicating the distance in meters are printed. - in grenade launchers of late release; the lower one is marked with the number "30", the middle one is "50", the upper one is "75". The front sight is the largest diameter (rim) of the mine.
To prepare for a shot, it is necessary to: pull out the check in the front part of the tube and raise the aiming bar to failure; lower the striker (send the stem forward and sharply release it - the striker must be held by the trigger, the striker remains on the fuse, the head of the stem screw is located on top); remove the shock mechanism from the fuse, for which turn the stem by the screw head to the left until failure (by 90 degrees); set the RPG in a combat position so that the trunk is under the armpit, and its rear end protrudes back; aim and press the trigger button.
When the trigger button was pressed, the striker was released, impaling the igniter capsule, which ignited the powder projectile charge. Under the action of the generated powder gases, the mine flew out of the barrel, at the same time the blades of its stabilizer opened, and the detonator was placed on the combat platoon. Upon contact with the target, the grenade exploded. After the shot, the tube could not be reloaded in the field and was thrown away.
During the Second World War, the Germans improved the design of the grenade launcher. During the war, several modifications of the Panzerfaust were released, all of which were similar in design and identical in use.
- Panzerfaust 30 (m) (August 1943) – the first modification with 100 mm. super-caliber cumulative grenade. There is no sighting device - aiming at the target was carried out along the largest rim of the grenade, the actual aiming range of fire is 30-40 m;
- Panzerfaust 30 (autumn 1943) - RPG with a 149 mm grenade, an increased diameter of the launch tube and, accordingly, a more powerful projectile charge. The grenade launcher was equipped with an aiming device; the actual firing range is 30-40 m;
- Panzerfaust 60 (September 1944) – RPG with an increased projectile charge, as a result of which the range increased from 30 to 75 meters. The grenade remained unchanged.
- Panzerfaust 100 (November 1944) is the most powerful of all released Panzerfausts with an even more powerful two-section projectile charge and a heavy 149 mm grenade. The actual firing range increased to 100 meters.
The German infantryman now possessed a hand-held antitank system that could permit him to engage a tank. Improvements in range and accuracy followed. During the Second World War, three versions were used by the Wehrmacht: The Panzerfaust 30 was delivered from August 1943. The "30" indicated the range in meters. The Panzerfaust 60 and Panzerfaust 100 followed later. Given the limited resources available to German industry, production of the panzerfaust initially failed to meet demand. Eventually, the Germans were able to produce eight versions of the panzerfaust. These improvements to the panzerfaust gradually increased the effective range of the system from 30 meters to almost 100 meters, with a penetrating capability of between 140 and 200 millimeters.
While range was an employment limitation in open areas, the close French bocage fields encountered by the Americans coming out of the Normandy beachhead offered ideal terrain for employment of the panzerfaust. However, for every German action there was an equal Allied counter-action. There are no known accounts of who came up with the idea of using sandbags as a field-expedient method for defeating the panzerfaust.
Interestingly, while the American Seventh Army employed a wide variety of sandbag and cement defensive measures, Third Army forbid any such modifications to their tanks. However, action during the December Battle of the Bulge led to widespread complaints about the poor armor protection of the M4. Instead of sandbags for protection, Third Army cannibalized armor plating off derelict German and American vehicles as a means of offsetting the panzerfaust.
Allied industry also proposed several solutions, including development of a plastic armor system. Unfortunately, this added some three tons of weight to the turret and four tons to the hull area. This and other fabrications roved to “be too great a challenge.” Tactical units, therefore, continued to rely on developing and improving a host of field-expedient methods to counter the shaped charge.
In urban combat conditions, a small distance allowed the use of weapons with high (albeit later greatly exaggerated) effectiveness, which was especially noticeable in the Battle of Berlin. The use of panzerfaust did not require high skill for a soldier, therefore, at the end of the war, both elderly Volkssturmists and young people from the Hitler Youth easily managed it.
An even greater concentration of "Faust cartridges" should have been achieved in the area of operations of the division of tank destroyers, the formation of which began in January 1945. The battalions that were part of it consisted of groups of tank destroyers led by front-line lieutenants who had experience in fighting tanks with close combat. "Faust cartridges" were the main weapon of these groups.
Due to the exceptional ease of operation, "Panzerfaust" could be used even by civilians who had never picked up a weapon. The Panzerfaust is considered to be the most successful example of a hand-held jet weapon, due to its manufacturability and ease of manufacture, storage and operation. It was possible to learn how to use Panzerfaust in a few simple lessons. It was thanks to them that the German infantry managed to partially neutralize the overwhelming superiority of the Allies in tanks.
Soviet tank troops suffered significant losses from "Faust cartridges". In the battles on the approaches to Berlin in the spring of 1945, losses in tanks from them amounted to 11.3-30%, and in street battles in Berlin - 70%. The best assessment of the effectiveness of weapons is examples of their mass use by the enemy. During the final battles of 1945, entire units of the Soviet Army were armed with trophy Panzerfausts. In street battles and when organizing anti-tank defense, they turned out to be much more effective than standard Soviet anti-tank rifles PTRD and PTRS.
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