At the end of World War II, in order to cope with the steel torrent of the Soviet Union, Germany planned to develop a single weapon for infantry carrying anti-tank use, when the Soviet Union was equipped with t-34 tanks, there was a T-34 crisis in the German army, in order to solve this problem, the German Army Weapons Office (HWA) proposed the combat squad anti-tank weapons program in May 1942, the final product of this plan is the protagonist of this issue of the weapons lecture hall - the German Iron Fist anti-tank rocket.
A single weapon at the end of the war
The German Iron Fist anti-tank rocket was developed in 1942, when the German Army found that the existing infantry with anti-armor weapons was no longer able to fight against the enemy armored forces, especially after the implementation of the invasion strategy of the Soviet Union in June 1941.
At that time, the Soviet Union had the strength to produce tens of thousands of T-34 tanks per year, so the German Army was deeply troubled by the soviet land steel torrent, and urgently needed a light anti-tank weapon that could be carried by infantry, so it quickly issued a demand for new anti-tank weapons to the local military factories.
In November 1942, hasag was asked to develop a recoilless gun that would fire armor-breaking grenades, and the company developed on the basis of the existing anti-tank weapons, and quickly submitted a plan, and the specific development process and program situation are currently impossible to study.
Because in April 1945, when the U.S. army was about to invade Leipzig, the general manager of Hugo and Affrey Schneider co., Ltd. and his wife committed suicide by detonating a bomb in the headquarters building, and part of the company's archives were burned, so the development record of this Tekken series of anti-tank rockets was also largely destroyed.
The current record is that Dr. Heinrich Langweller, the company's early director of weapons development, led his research and development team to develop a small version based on the principle of recoilless guns, called fp 42, which is an abbreviation for French fist bomb faustpatrone, which is also nicknamed "gretchen".
At that time, when the test found that this weapon was inconvenient to operate, and it was even more difficult to aim, especially when the tail flame would burn the palm of the hand, so it had to be operated with gloves, and it was sent to the Eastern Front for combat testing in early 1943, and the results of the front-line soldiers at that time were very disapproved of this new weapon, and before it was sent to the front line for testing, the designer Dr. Heinrich Langweiler had already found deficiencies in the test test, so in December 1942, he proposed some modifications. This requirement is that the length of the entire launcher can not exceed 1 meter, the launch tube needs to have a sight ruler, the launch button should be placed behind the aiming gauge, and the warhead should be equipped with folding tails.
In early 1943, a recoilless armor-breaking grenade launcher was redesigned, which was the prototype of the Later Iron Fist anti-tank rocket, known as the faustpatrone klein 30, and many versions were later optimized, collectively known as faustpatrone in name.
In July 1943, after testing and optimization, after testing and evaluation by the military, it began to officially enter the mass production stage, and the mass production version was renamed the panzerfaust 30, and after service, it was officially finalized as the panzerfaust series, which was the development of the Tekken anti-tank rocket.
The mass-produced Iron Fist anti-tank rockets were delivered to the Eastern Front for combat testing in August 1943, and soldiers at that time found the Iron Fist simple and lightweight, but powerful enough to destroy Soviet heavy tanks, so it did not take long to be appreciated by grass-roots soldiers.
The launcher as a whole is composed of a low-grade steel body tube, a sight ruler, a launcher, a safety and a warhead, because after service, it has been upgraded, and different range versions have been upgraded, such as Tekken 60 with a range of 60 meters, Tekken 100 with a range of 100 meters, Tekken 150 with a range of 150 meters, and Tekken 250 that has not yet been mass-produced, which are basically the same principle, and we take the initial version of Tekken Tekken 30 as an example to explain the size in detail.
The Tekken 30 launcher is partially 809 mm long and has an inner tube diameter of 33 mm, opening at both ends, which is basically similar to the principle of the recoilless gun of the modern RPG and at4 anti-tank bazooka that we introduced earlier.
At the same time, in order to prevent the tail flame from burning the rear personnel, it is generally used in red German above the tail of the body tube: achtung! feuerstrahl (attention!) Flame jet! ) label the warning.
At the tail vent, a lid made of cardboard will be used to cover the seal when leaving the factory, but generally when it is transported to the battlefield, the soldier will remove it, it does not matter if it is not removed, at the time of launch, the dust cover will be blown off by the air flow of the tail spray.
The interior of the launch tube is filled with black propellant, of which the Tekken 30 version of the propellant charge is 54g, the Tekken 60 is 134g, and the Tekken 100 is 190g, and different propellant charge quantities can bring different ranges.
In the front of the launch tube welded there is a distance gauge, this ruler is stamped with steel sheets, taking the 60 gauge of the iron fist with a range of 60 meters as an example, there is a hole of different sizes on the top, and the distance number is marked below, from top to bottom, corresponding to 80 meters, 60 meters and 30 meters.
Its opening is not a small round hole, but a square opening with a notch below, in fact, in this notch is the aiming point, the upper box is used to observe the target.
It can be seen from the design of the aiming that the Iron Fist anti-tank bazooka is not designed with a crosshair, and when aiming, the target is observed through the viewing window, that is, the box mentioned above, and then the warhead of the warhead is raised and aimed at the target through the upper edge and recess of the warhead.
The ruler is generally retracted forward, fixed with a safety pin, and can be aimed after pulling out the safety pin, but it is not possible to shoot at this time, because the press-type trigger at the back of the ruler is designed with an additional safety, which is called a shooting safety bolt.
In the case that the ruler is not opened, the safety plug cannot be pushed, only in the case of the ruler is open, the safety plug can be pushed forward to the positioning point, and the trigger can be pressed at this time, which is equivalent to the meaning of secondary insurance, which is basically the composition of the launch system.
In the design of the warhead, the whole is divided into a head cover, a fixing ring and an explosive body, an internal charge, a fuze, an igniter, a directional tail, a wooden stick, and a tail cover.
The surface of the warhead is painted with instructions, including instructions on how to use, precautions and aiming methods, which is convenient for soldiers with no experience on the battlefield to quickly get started.
Its internal charge has different amounts according to different models, of which the charge of the Tekken 30, 60 and 100 is 800 grams 50% tnt: 50% rdx mixture, the Tekken 150 is 900g, the warhead charge is installed in an inverted cone, which is often said to be cone-hollow charge, this charge will leave a hollow part in the front of the warhead, we introduced the same design in the 598th issue of the Suicide Anti-Tank Thorn Mine used in Japan during World War II, and here we will not elaborate too much, Interested friends can check out our previous videos for themselves.
In the rear of the propellant is the fuze and igniter structure, generally in the transport, the warhead is not loaded with fuzes, only before use is inserted and used, the tail of the warhead is designed with four pieces of directional tail, this tail is made of high elastic thin steel sheet, usually is put away, after launch, the shell leaves the launch nozzle when the tail will automatically open, can make the warhead rotate, thereby stabilizing the flight path of the shell to improve accuracy, The principle of armor breaking in its warhead is not much different from the principle of the later Japanese anti-tank stab mine warhead.
At that time, the warhead of the Iron Fist anti-tank rocket could penetrate the rolled homogeneous armor with an incline of 30 degrees and a thickness of 140 to 220 mm, and different models had different initial velocities and ranges, of which the Tekken 30 warhead had a initial velocity of 30 m/ s, an effective range of 30 m, and a depth of 140 mm of rolled homogeneous steel armor.
The initial velocity of the Tekken 60 type was 45 m / s, the effective range was 60 m, and the depth of armor breaking was 200 mm, and the later Tekken 100 type had an initial speed of 60 m / s, an effective range of 100 m, and a depth of 220 mm of armor breaking, which was basically able to deal with most mainstream tanks at that time.
When firing, it is necessary to shoot with the arm under the armpit or shoulder resistance to launch, which is mainly to avoid the shooter being burned or burned by the tail flame, and after the launch, the launch tube can be directly abandoned, it can be said that the iron fist anti-tank bazooka is the world's first single-use anti-armor weapon.
After it was developed at that time, it was widely used in World War II, when German soldiers often hid in bushes or trenches to attack passing tank armored vehicles, and hundreds of Soviet T-34 series tanks were destroyed in World War II, and the Us Sherman tanks were countless.
According to current data, the initial small Tekken 30 in World War II was mass-produced more than 1.5 million units, other models were mass-produced 6.6 million units, and the Tekken 150 was also produced nearly 100,000 units, so the production of the Tekken series anti-tank bazookas in World War II exceeded 8 million, which profoundly affected the development of anti-tank bazookas after the war.
Its manufacturing process is mostly steel plate stamping molding, modular structure is very easy to produce, the overall cost is also very low, so it can be mass-produced in Germany and give German infantry the ability to engage enemy armored forces in close combat, but there are also low range, poor accuracy and large tail flames are easy to expose.
Its design scheme and technical materials were later secretly sent to Japan at that time, on the basis of which Japan developed a suicide four-type anti-tank stab mine, and after the war, countries also upgraded and developed their own anti-tank rocket launchers, which can also be regarded as a far-reaching anti-tank weapon.