Panzerfaust
This article is on the German disposable rocket launcher of World War II. For alternative meanings, see Panzerfaust (disambiguation) |
4 Panzerfausts in the original casing, displayed in Helsinki Military Museum |
The
Panzerfaust (plural:
Panzerfäuste, literally: "gauntlet", "armor fist" or
tank fist) was an inexpensive, recoilless
German anti-tank weapon of
World War II. It consisted of a small, disposable preloaded
recoilless gun - not rocket propelled, as commonly believed. It replaced the earlier
Faustpatrone in service, and survived to the end of the war in various versions. Parts of the Panzerfaust concept can be considered to be the pattern on which the
RPG-7 was designed.
Development began in
1942 on a larger version of the
Faustpatrone. The resulting weapon was the Panzerfaust, a very simple weapon weighing only 5-10 kg. The body was a tube of low-grade
steel, around a meter long and a 4-6 cm in diameter. Attached to the upper-side of the tube were a simple rear sight and trigger. There was no front sight, the edge of the warhead was used. Inside the tube was a small charge of
black powder for propellant. Fitted to the front of the tube by its wooden tail stem and metal fins was an oversized warhead, 15 cm in diameter and weighing 3 kg. It contained around 800 grams of explosive.
The Panzerfaust often had warnings written in large red lettering on the upper rear end of the tube, the words usually being "Achtung! Feuerstrahl!" (Beware! Fire Jet!). This was to warn soldiers to avoid the backblast. After firing, the tube was discarded, making the Panzerfaust the first expendable anti-tank weapon. The weapon was often fired from the crook of the arm and the
shaped charge could penetrate up to 200 mm of steel, enough to defeat any contemporary
armoured fighting vehicle.
In an urban setting where the short sight lines allowed the weapon to be easily used it proved particularly deadly, and knocked out large numbers of Soviet armored vehicles during the
Battle of Berlin. The construction was so simple that they could be made in the city while it was under siege, allowing wheelbarrow loads of Panzerfausts to be delivered to the defenders.
Many Panzerfausts were sold to Finland, which made good use of them because it lacked anti-tank weapons that could compete with the toughest Soviet tanks, the
T-34 and
KV-1.
It was produced in several versions as the technology improved.
The "Panzerfaust 30" was the original version, first delivered in August,
1943. The "30" was indicative of the nominal maximum range of 30 meters. It had a 4.4 cm diameter tube containing 95 g of propellant which launched a 2.9 kg projectile carrying 800 grams of explosive. The projectile travelled at just 30 meters per second. The complete weapon weighed 5.1 kg.
|
A German soldier preparing to fire a Panzerfaust. |
This was the most common version, and production started in August,
1944. It had a much more practical range of 60 meters, although with a muzzle velocity of only 45 meters per second it would take one and a third of a second for the warhead to reach a tank at this range. To achieve the higher velocity, the tube diameter was increased to 5 cm and 134 g of propellant used. It also had an improved sight and trigger mechanism. The weapon now weighed 6.1 kg.
This was the final version produced in quantity, from November
1944 onwards. It had a nominal maximum range of 100 meters. 190 g of propellant launched the warhead at 60 meters per second from a 6 cm diameter tube. The sight had holes for 30, 60, 80 and 150 meters, and had luminous paint in them to make counting up to the correct one easier in the dark. This version weighed 6.8 kg.
A Panzerfaust 150 was deployed in limited numbers near the end of the war, and was a greatly modified design. It had the same amount of propellant as the Panzerfaust 100 but a redesigned warhead and two stage propellant ignition gave it a higher velocity of 85 meters per second and the increased armor penetration. It was intended to be reused for up to ten shots, and production started in March
1945, two months before the end of the war.
A Panzerfaust 250 was planned to enter production in September
1945 but the war ended before development had been completed.
A related weapon is the
Bazooka-like
Panzerschreck, which could be reloaded.
During the
Cold War, the
West German army was issued with a completely new rocket propelled grenade launcher which was named a
Panzerfaust 3.
In broader popular culture it is generally seen as one of the more recognizable World-War II era weapons, especially as a Nazi weapon. In the
manga Hellsing, for instance, neo-Nazi soldiers are seen using panzerfausts in addition to other WWII-era gear. In the
Gundam universe, a large scale Panzerfaust weapon is made for Mobile suits by the fascist Principality of Zeon. It can first be seen on the prototype mobile suit
MS-18 Kämpfer in the series
Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket, which used the weapons as disposable anti-mobile suit weapons. Later, in
Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory, the same large scale "Sturm Faust" disposable anti-mobile suit weapons can be seen in the hands of rogue Zeon fleets.The Panzerfaust also made a brief appearance in the animated movie
Jin-Roh, though it was ironically used by a guerilla fighter, not by the heavily WWII-German-influenced Cerberus troops.
The Panzerfaust features as a weapon in several
first-person shooter computer games, notably
Return to Castle Wolfenstein,
Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory,
Call of Duty,
Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30,
Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood,
Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45,
Hidden and Dangerous and
Forgotten Hope.
*
Panzerfaust 3*
Shoulder-launched missile weapon*
List of common World War II infantry weapons*
List of Axis firearms of WW2*
A personal website with an extensive list of links*
U.S. Intelligence Report on German Hollow-Charge Weapons
