A photo from the NARA, College Park.

III-SC 202780, Credit NARA.


Dave

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Looks dangerous.

It was. Although not as dangerous as the bazooka, i think.

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To the German Commander-- Nuts.

-- The American Commander

the panzerfaust was better than the bazooka...

Panzerfaust

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ray w.

The panzerfaust was more powerful than the bazooka but definitely not a safer weapon. It was known to occasionally blow up in the tube instead of firing, killing the user.

Being built mainly by slave labour wouldn't have helped

ps, The Panzerfaust was a different type of weapon to the Bazooka. The Bazooka was a rocket launcher, while the panzerfaust was a crude form of recoilless gun, as it used an explosive charge to throw the bomb at the target

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if in doubt....Panic!!!!

Only in penetration. The biggest drawback to the panzerfaust is that you had to get really close to the target. For most panzerfaust this meant you needed to be about 20 yards or less from your target to score a hit. A bazooka had about 500 yards range and was generally effective to at least 200 so the firer had more options about targetting and remaining in cover before firing.

the hitler youths used to carry them!

Volkstrum, young kids, old women. the design was simple and very effective for a one shot/one person firing weapon, thousands produced and too many Allied/Soviet tanks put into destruction

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Rip it up !

It is the type of weapon perfect for a city defense like Berlin, which is why so much damage was done with them.

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that is actually very true

About 70% of Soviet tanks in Eastern Europe were destroyed or damaged by panzerfausts. Incredible alternative to the lack of heavy anti-tank weaponry.

The Germans also tried developing something called the fliegerfaust which was meant to shoot down low flying aircraft. That didn't turn out too great though.

The panzerfaust was also effective at indirect fire support.

With a range of 60 yards or less?

There's a wartime training vid showing how to use it like a mortar. It had a several pounds of explosives in the warhead. That's better than the 8cm mortar round. Ranges are extended when dealing with static targets.

I don't know about being effective at the indirect fire support role. Even if you could get it to travel in the right direction hitting your target would be an amazing feat in itself as well as the fact that you would need a lot of men and panzerfausts available at one time and with enough ammuntion to make something resembling an artillery battery worth it.

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Wholly unlikely. Statistics show that most tanks were killed by anti-tank guns, followed by other tanks and finally infantry. Despite the millions of Panzerfausts and other hand-held infantry AT weapons produced by Germany during WWII, they only awarded 18,500 silver tank destruction badges (destruction of a tank by a hand-held weapon) and 400 gold tank destruction badges (destruction of 5 tanks by a hand-held weapon). That's in any theatre.

Ah you're right. What I meant was 70% in urban combat in Eastern Germany. Although I'll leave you to correct that as well.

Have you ever served in the military? Several pounds of explosives beyond hand grenade range has a devestating area effect. Today's 40mm HEDP grenade is "supposed" to render a squad ineffective with less than 1lb of explosive. Nobody said it was perfect but the Germans were creative at last ditch efforts. Afterall, no one thought the Flak 18 could ever put a dent in armor...

There are several problems using it as an indirect fire weapon here:

First, the round must strike a solid hard surface to detonate. This is due to the use of a pezio-electric fuze (it was designed to go off after hitting a tank...).

Next, the use of a shaped charge reduces the blast effect directing most of it forward.

Then there is the problem of fragmentation. A panzerfaust round has only a light metal casing. It produces little fragmentation on detonation. Against a soft target it will have only a very reduced effect and then only at close range.

And, the panzerfaust has extremely limited range. Typical launchers in use had either a rated maximum range of 30 or 60 yards when fired against a tank as designed. You might get one to go a bit further firing it at 45 degrees but without alot of accuracy.

The Germans did prototype a high explosive / fragmentation warhead for the Panzerfaust but it was not accepted for production.

I've heard that the Russians were so impressed with the Panzerfaust that it was the basis for thier post-war RPG program. Is this just popular hearsay or is it actually true?

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Best Regards, Hufflepuff

Look up RPG-2.

The lineage is the Soviet RPG series grew out of the Panzerfaust 150M and its successor the Panzerfaust 250M that didn't get beyond development stage during the war. Post war the 250M became the RPG 2.

In West Germany the Panzerfaust was resurrected in the Panzerfaust 3 as well.

Are you guys afraid of research? I don't know what your hang-up is. I never said it was perfect. It was done. Watch the '45 wochenschau vids of Großdeutschland units fighting (IIRC in East Prussia). You'll see the technique in use. Wait-- maybe they are firing at really, really, really low-flying aircraft and the missed rounds happened to impact the ground near enemy units! But how do you explain the training video... gross translation errors?

BTW panzerfausts were rated for further distances. Look at the aiming ladder of the much touted 60m. The 60m window is in the middle. What's the distance for the top window? Anyone?

Slightly off-topic, but another example of indirect usage of man-portable AT weapons in the period, as fitted to a Loyd Carrier by the RCE and deployed as a battery weapon (I'd love to see some film of them all firing at once) :

There are also after-action reports of commonwealth troops using PIAT as an indirect heavy support against houses etc. I know it ain't a panzerfaust, but it does reinforce the 'any old port in a storm' usage of anything handy that goes bang.

(BTW, I've got the '60' faust as capable of about 80m at full elevation?)

~A