In World War II, many battlefield aces emerged in the German army, including tank aces, fighter aces, submarine aces and so on. There was also an "Iron Fist Ace" in the German army who was good at anti-tanks.
▲ The demand for anti-tanks by infantry during World War II reached a peak
In fact, since tanks were first put into the battlefield, the need for anti-tank warfare has emerged. The two world wars led to a rapid development of anti-armor weapons, and the pace of development during World War II was greater than at any time before.
Although World War II was not a completely mechanized war, the number of tanks invested by the two warring sides was unmatched by any war today. In the later stages of the war, the production of anti-armor weapons against tanks was definitely an economic route compared to the manufacture of tanks, and the "Iron Fist" was born in this context.
Strictly speaking, the "Iron Fist" born in the late world war II is not a real rocket launcher, but an ultralight recoilless gun. At the end of the war, the "iron fist" in the hands of German soldiers and civilians was completely different from the launching principle of anti-tank bazookas such as the famous "Bazooka" and "Tank Killer".
▲The warhead of the Iron Fist is actually a HE armor-breaking bullet
There are no rocket thrusters in the tail
The Iron Fist is an anti-tank grenade launcher, which is essentially a small, preloaded recoilless gun that is mainly used to fire super-caliber armor-breaking warheads. The launch tube is equipped with a propellant column, while the warhead does not contain a rocket engine.
In addition to the different launch principles, its use is also different from the general bazooka. The Iron Fist is a disposable anti-tank weapon, so it has the advantage of not occupying the establishment, and can be issued to the front-line grass-roots units in large quantities in wartime (it can be done in some cases), which greatly improves the firepower density of the front-line infantry when fighting tanks at close range.
As the tank armor became thicker and thicker, the "Iron Fist" successively appeared in the Iron Fist 30, the Iron Fist 60, the Iron Fist 100, etc., and the number behind it represented the effective range of the Iron Fist. In August 1943, the German army was the first to be equipped with the "Klein Iron Fist 30" and "Iron Fist 30".
Klein Iron Fist 30, "Klei" means "small" in German
The Klein Iron Fist 30 has a launcher of 54 grams, a warhead containing 400 grams of explosives, an effective range of only 30 meters, and a depth of about 140 mm. Although it is far less well-known than other members of the Tekken family, it already has most of the characteristics of the Tekken series.
Compared with subsequent models, the Klein Iron Fist 30 is prone to jumping when facing inclined armor due to its hyperboloid cone shape at the front end of the warhead (there are similar problems with the M6A1 rocket used in the early days of the US "Bazooka" rocket launcher).
▲ Tekken 30 with a significantly enlarged warhead
Compared with the Klein Iron Fist 30, the Iron Fist 30, known as the "Great Iron Fist", has a great improvement in performance, and the most obvious change is in the shape of the warhead: the head is changed to a flat head cone, which has become an important symbol of the future Iron Fist family.
Due to the great increase in the diameter of the warhead, the charge of the Tekken 30 was doubled, and the depth of the armor breaking reached about 200 mm (almost twice that of the Bazooka bazooka). It can penetrate armor with an incline of 30 degrees and 200 mm. This was powerful enough to destroy American Sherman tanks and Soviet T-34s.
The problem of power is solved, but the Tekken 30 still has a fatal flaw, that is, the range is too close.
▲The Tekken 30, which has an effective range of only 30 meters, is very dangerous when used
When performing anti-tank combat missions, an effective range of 30 meters is tantamount to suicide for the launcher. Even without taking into account the enemy's self-defense firepower accompanied by infantry and tanks, it is quite dangerous to detonate the warhead at such a close distance. When aiming, the shooter simply points the aiming hole at the corresponding distance on the gauge plate at the very top of the curved warhead in front of him and presses the firing device to fire. However, the overly simple sighting device also makes the Tekken's hit accuracy low, and the warhead is a parabola during flight, and the Tekken will lose its accuracy in the face of a slightly farther target.
Finnish soldiers instructed Swedish volunteers to use the German Iron Fist against the Soviet Union
Screenshot of the Blood War 1944 movie
It is not difficult to see from the gear division that 60 meters is not the maximum effective range of the Tekken 60, which is fully capable of attacking 80 targets, but the hit accuracy at this time will drop significantly with the increase of distance. For example, the Tekken 60 hits about 75 percent of targets at a distance of 60 meters, while when the distance increases to 80 meters, the hit rate plummets to 25 percent.
Although there were still many shortcomings in performance, the Iron Fist 60 was already a relatively mature anti-tank weapon at that time. It was put into mass production in September 1944, with a monthly output of 400,000 units, and 1.3 million units produced in the year alone. Until the end of the war, it was the main model of the Tekken family.
▲ Anti-tank is not the only use of the Iron Fist
(It is often used as a cannon for attacking fortifications)
The last product in the Big Iron Fist was the Tekken 100, which was born in September 1944, which looks almost exactly like the Tekken 60, which is not surprising, since it is itself an "Iron Fist 60 with a second propellant column added inside the launch tube".
▲ Tekken 60 and Tekken 100 are not significantly different in appearance
Its true secrets are hidden in the launch tube
So the question is, why doesn't the Iron Fist 100 directly lengthen the original propellant column and add a second independent pill pack? In fact, the reason is very simple, if you continue to increase the amount of charge of the original drug package, it is bound to lead to an increase in the chamber pressure in the launch tube, which requires a corresponding increase in the thickness of the launch tube wall, which will undoubtedly bring unnecessary trouble to the conversion of the factory.
In order to facilitate the production, the Germans decided to put the new propellant package behind the first package, when the front package is ignited, it will trigger a chain reaction of the second package, thus avoiding the two being detonated at the same time, this ingenious method effectively increases the initial speed of the Iron Fist 100, so that the effective range is increased to 100 meters.
▲ Rare "Iron Fist" standard launch process
The operation procedure of the Iron Fist is: place the launch tube under or above the arm, unplug the safety pin, put up the ruler, use the ruler to aim at the target along the edge of the warhead, and press the launch button.
It is worth noting that when firing, the rear of the reflective tube of the iron fist will spew flames, which can cause death within 3 meters, so the tail of the launch tube is printed with a red warning "Attention!" Flames!
According to statistics, the total output of the entire Iron Fist family during World War II was as high as 8.25 million, because it was concentrated in the last years of the war, and the cost was simple and low, many members of the People's Stormtroopers in the later period sometimes could not get a rifle, but they could receive an iron fist in the rear.
▲ American soldiers holding 60 iron fists, the number of iron fists
Enough for both enemies and enemies to use together
Of course, millions of iron fists also caused no small amount of trouble for the Red Army and the American and British Allies in the later stages of the war. According to Soviet statistics, during the Battle of Berlin alone, 70% of the tanks destroyed by the Soviet army were hit with an iron fist. For the Germans, it even became a more effective anti-armor weapon than tank destroyers.
According to statistics, the total number of tanks destroyed by all infantry weapons (tank killers, anti-tank guns, anti-tank mines, anti-tank grenades), the number of iron fist destruction accounts for more than 50%.
German student soldiers destroyed American tanks
Screenshot of the Last Bridge movie
Later in the war, a large number of iron fists flowed into the hands of the Soviet army
During the war, the Germans also gave birth to an anti-tank ace, he was Gunter Wittzz. As an infantryman, tanks are the natural enemies of infantry, and the exchange ratio between tanks and infantry on the Eastern Front is 1:100, but he is specifically here to hunt tanks.
Witzentz preferred to use the Tekken 60, where he often lurked in positions to deliver a surprise blow to a tank. The most valuable thing is that he can retreat after successfully destroying the enemy tank every time, which allows him to refresh his single-soldier destruction record again and again!
Due to the difficulty of the individual anti-tank task, Germany set up a series of medals at that time, the Tank Destruction Medal, which was awarded to brave soldiers who used infantry weapons to destroy tanks. One silver medal is awarded for each destroyed vehicle and one gold medal for each destroyed vehicle.
The holder of the medal can wear it on his right arm. In the photo of Vytzenz being awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, he has 5 gold and 2 silver tank destruction medals on his arm, representing the destruction of 27 tanks. He had no planes or tanks, and he achieved this result on his own.
Using an iron fist is a battle that requires courage and is very dangerous
After the war, Günter Wittzenz joined the Bundeswehr, serving as a colonel in the Army before retiring in 1980. To this day, he is the world's number one anti-tank ace.
▲ The Tekken 250 is actually a reference prototype for the Soviet RPG-2
Although the Iron Fist failed to help Germany save the war, the anti-tank technical line represented by the Iron Fist did not disappear from the demise of Nazi Germany, on the contrary, its influence after the war even exceeded that of World War II itself.
▲ Model of the Tekken 250
▲ RPG-2 bazooka, is not very similar to the Tekken 250
The Soviet RPG-2 (that is, the imitation prototype of China's Type 56 rocket launcher) is a product developed with reference to the Tekken 250, and the later generation of classics, the RPG-7, is a mature model that has been further improved on the basis of the RPG-2 (with rocket propulsion, becoming a rocket launcher in the true sense).
▲ German Iron Fist 3 bazooka that still uses a super-caliber warhead
It is an outlier among NATO countries
In fact, the Tekken anti-tank grenade launcher not only influenced the development of the post-war Soviet RPG series of anti-tank weapons, but also gained rebirth in post-war Germany, unlike RPGs, which were developed in the 1970s and 1980s, Tekken 3 took a high-end route, which had the ability to launch in enclosed spaces.
As a new type of individual anti-tank weapon that can adapt to the conditions of modern warfare, it and anti-tank missiles such as Hot and Milan constitute an anti-tank combat system that combines far, medium and near, and has become the standard combat weapon of many NATO countries and Japan today.
▲ Tekken 3 is still essentially a disposable bazooka
(Only the firing and sight can be reused)
Weapons are evolving, and the story of the Iron Fist continues. As long as there are tanks and field fortifications on the battlefield, bazookas cannot be replaced by other weapons. In the foreseeable future, disposable rocket launchers will also be indispensable killers in the armies of various countries.