Panzerschreck

The „German bazooka”

Some World War II weapons stand head and shoulders above the rest in terms of distinct appearance. The Thompson submachine gun (The Thompson Submachine Gun), the German MP 40, the M2 grenade or the German Stielhandgranate are easily and immediately recognizable. It’s doubtful, however, than any could match the sheer iconic look of the American bazooka (The Bazooka) and its younger but bigger brother, the German Panzerschreck. Today’s article is about the German anti-tank weapon that was directly copied from the bazooka.

A need for a tank-killer

At the start of World War II, Germany’s primary man-portable anti-tank weapon was the Panzerbüchse (“tank hunting rifle”) 38 and its descendant 39. By late 1942, however, these were growing long in the tooth as they could no longer penetrate the armor of newer tank designs.  

Development began on a new weapon, the 8.8 cm Raketenwerfer (“rocket projector”) 43, nicknamed Puppchen, “doll”. Doing away with the anti-tank rifle concept, the Puppchen was a miniature anti-tank gun towed around on a two-wheeled gun carriage that fired rocket-propelled grenades. The grenades utilized a shaped charge (also called hollow charge) warhead. The warhead has a trigger at the front and a hollow cavity behind it. Behind the cavity is the explosive arranged in a reverse conical shape, separated from the cavity by a liner. Once the trigger hits something, the explosive detonates not directly against the target, but into the cavity, which is shaped so that the shockwave will be concentrated into a narrow but very powerful blast projected directly forward. The advantage of a shaped charged warhead over a traditional shell or solid round is that the penetrative energy depends on the warhead’s detonation, not on the speed and force of impact; therefore, firing at longer range does not reduce penetration.

The Puppchen was quite capable of punching through the armor of Allied tanks, but it weighed 315 pounds (143 kg) and was not very mobile. Only some 3,000 were made, largely because the Germans stumbled on a much better solution – one developed in America.

Stolen from the U.S.A.

German troops captured several bazookas in late 1942, both during Operation Torch, the Allied landings in North Africa, and on the Eastern Front, where the weapon appeared as a part of Lend-Lease (The Secrets of Lend-Lease) shipments. They quickly realized that the bazooka could do the same job as the Puppchen but at less than one-tenth the weight and a fraction of the price and manufacturing time. 

The new weapon went through a couple of names. As a development project, it used the codename Emtekranz (“harvest wreath”). Its official name was Raketenpanzerbüchse (“rocket tank hunting rifle) 54, but Ofenrohr (“stovepipe”) was also used. Its final name became Panzerschreck (“tank terror”), a warlike name chosen to boost the soldiers’ morale. 

The Panzerschreck’s design

One obvious change they made to the design was changing the bazooka’s caliber of 60 mm to the Puppchen’s 88 mm. The latter already had a good, powerful, working warhead, and upscaling the launcher meant it would be easy to change the pre-existing grenade and rocket to fit the new weapon. While the grenade’s power was retained, much of its speed and range was lost. The Puppchen fired from a closed breach, meaning that the rocket’s exhaust pushed against a solid surface when it ignited. The new “German bazooka” had an open rear just like the American original, so some of the rocket’s energy was lost as the exhaust was pushing against the air. The effective firing range was reduced from 750-1,600 feet (230-500 m), depending on whether it was aimed at a moving or stationary target, to 490 ft (150 m), along with a decrease in accuracy. On the other hand, the warhead retained its ability to penetrate over 6.3 inches (160 mm) of armor, which was enough to knock out any Allied tank at the time as long as it was aimed at the right spot and fired at an angle not too shallow. The Panzerschreck was 65 inches (164 cm) long and weighed 20.9 pounds (9.5 kg), larger and heavier than the bazooka with its 54 inches (138 cm) and 13.26 pounds (6 kg). 

The weapon came with a variety of warheads. There was a non-firing one used for drills, one that could be fired but had no explosives for target practice, and the real warhead. This last one was later developed into separate summer and winter versions due to the effect of temperature on the rocket fuel. High temperatures, such as exposing the warhead to the summer sun, could cause premature detonation inside the launcher, while low temperatures made the fuel less effective and the weapon less accurate. 

The firing system was an innovative departure from the bazooka’s. Igniting the rockets required electricity for both weapons. The bazooka was originally powered by a battery, but this was liable to rapid draining in winter weather, and a larger replacement battery often got stuck; the battery was eventually replaced with a magneto sparker.

The German design used a punch generator instead. Once the weapon was cocked, a thin rod running along the bottom of the barrel on the outside was pressed against a spring under tension. Pulling the trigger released the spring, which kicked the rod backwards, causing its other end to hit a metal disc on a small electric generator. The force of the impact caused the iron core inside the generator to move backwards through a magnetic field, creating a small electrical charge in the copper wire coiled around the path of the core. This charge was then transferred to the rocket by wires, igniting the fuel.

Another ingenious change was made to the barrel’s geometry. The warhead had a caliber of 88 mm, but the internal diameter of the barrel was actually 91 mm, leaving a tiny bit of windage. The barrel was crimped along the side in three places, creating three inwards “ridges” where the diameter really was 88 mm. These ridges were sufficient to keep the rocket in place, but the lack of contact with rest of the barrel reduced friction, and also allowed for some fouling and minor dents without causing the rocket to get stuck. The reduced contact area between rocket and tube gave the latter a theoretical lifetime of about 1,000 shots before it wore out to the point of uselessness. 

Problems and solutions

One major problem with early Panzerschrecks was something the Americans had already solved but the Germans couldn’t. In the bazooka, the rocket propelling the grenade forward had been already extinguished by the time it cleared the tube; this meant that after the initial backblast, the projectile no longer had a dangerous plume of flame pointing back at the user. The Germans’ rocket, on the other hand, still had a plume when it got free of the tube and could badly burn the operator.

The initial solution was to mandate thick gloves, hoods and gas masks (without filters) for hand and face protection, but these were unwieldy in combat. Panzerschreck crews started welding jury-rigged shields to their weapons to protect themselves from the blast. An official blast shield was added from February 1944 onwards, with a glass window to aim through. One small detail was that the shield had a container attached to it holding spare window glasses in case the original one shattered or got smudgy. It also had three small brackets to mount branches that could help camouflage the user. 

Another weakness of the weapon was the early version of the aiming sight, which underwent several revisions. Late versions helped aim at various distances, with summer or winter ammunition, and also helped lead moving targets. 

The Panzerschreck in use

Yet another problem was that the Panzerschreck created copious amounts of smoke with every shot, revealing the team’s location. Anti-tank teams quickly learned to relocate to a new position after every attack. By the late stage of the war, German doctrine called for three two-man teams to set up separate trenches in a staggered arrangement, no more than 337 ft (115 m) apart, and wait until an approaching tank got close. This way, all teams could fire at the same target from different angles, hopefully before being noticed, increasing the chance of a penetrating hit. 

Allied tank crews often tried to improve their armor against Panzerschrecks and Panzerfausts (which will be the subject of a future article) by adding sandbags, wooden logs, spare track units, or metal meshes. These provided little additional protection due to the nature of shaped charges, since the focused energy of the blast could only be reliably stopped by two separate layers of armor with about 3 feet (1 m) of empty space between them – not by a single, somewhat thicker armor layer.

Organizationally, Panzerschrecks were considered specialist weapons that required trained crews to handle. (In contrast, the single-use Panzerfaust could be handed out to any rifleman after minimal instruction.) Tank destroyer battalions were not supposed to be deployed independently. Instead, each battalion was assigned to a panzergrenadier (mechanized infantry) division as high-level reserves. Individual Panzerschreck companies were divided into squads, and each squad was assigned to a specific infantry company. 

Close to 315,000 Panzerschreck launchers were made, some by the Dassler factory, whose owners went to found the Adidas and Puma footwear brands. (The Story of Adidas and Puma)A new version of the weapon went into development late in the war. The Raketenpanzerbüsche 54/1 was shorter, lighter and had better warheads (though it could still fire the old ones, too), but only a small number were produced before the war’s end. There was also a desperate, failed attempt to create a version out of compressed cardboard. 

The Panzerschreck’s iconic look, and its reputation as a dangerous anti-tank weapon, earned it appearances in many World War II-themed films, such as Saving Private Ryan, and computer games. The most unlikely appearance we know of, however, is in the “Secret Service Dentist” sketch in the absurd British 70s comedy show Monty Python’s Flying Circus, in which one (with the shield incorrectly fitted sideways) played the role of a bazooka. This particular prop, made from a real weapon, had a cone attached to the front to make it look more like a Korean War-era M20 Super Bazooka. Insterestingly, the Germans did experience with such a cone during World War II, but it was discarded as it failed to protect against the backblast.

Weapon enthusiasts can find several specimens of this rocket launcher in museums around the world. Our Passengers have a chance also to see some of them along with other anti-tank weapons, especially on our Band of Brothers Tours.