Japanese Panzerfausts

[John Kettler]

What if the Germans had provided their allies the Japanese with the plans and help to make Panzerfausts? This would've given the Japanese infantry the means to not only kill tanks from standoff, but also strongpoints, heavy weapons and even infantry groups. Imagine how many secondary missiles several pounds of HE detonating on coral would've made.

The Germans supplied the Japanese with such exotic things as the Me 163 Komet rocket fighter, radar equipment and optical gear, in exchange for rubber, tin, etc., so it's not any stretch at all to believe that something like this could've been done. Why wasn't it?

The Japanese already had rockets, hence propellant, and lunge mines, which were hollow charge munitions. The rest should've been straightforward weapon engineering.

Considering the casualties we took from lunge mines, human satchel charges and men sitting in pits waiting to hammer the fuze of an armed aerial bomb, we should be grateful that they didn't.

Something to think about!

Regards,

John Kettler

[Mark IV]

They were working on it. In late 1945 the Japanese built an experimental prototype of a one-man portable recoilless antitank gun, that combined features of the Panzerfaust and the German LG43.

It was 82mm, weighed 90lbs., with a max range of 850 yds. (couldn't have hit a tank that far out, though), and came with a tripod and optical sight. Only one was ever built and a good thing, from our army's opinion of it.

The supply lines between Germany and Japan were a little iffy by the time the Panzerfaust was developed so they had to roll their own.

[John Kettler]

Mark IV,

Never heard of that one before! Thanks for some fascinating new weapon development info.

Regards,

John Kettler

[thomasj]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Mark IV:

They were working on it. In late 1945 the Japanese built an experimental prototype of a one-man portable recoilless antitank gun, that combined features of the Panzerfaust and the German LG43.

It was 82mm, weighed 90lbs., with a max range of 850 yds. (couldn't have hit a tank that far out, though), and came with a tripod and optical sight. Only one was ever built and a good thing, from our army's opinion of it.

The supply lines between Germany and Japan were a little iffy by the time the Panzerfaust was developed so they had to roll their own.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Mark IV,

Do you have any material referances that I could look into that on? I have never ran across that. Would be facinating to see what it looked like who was the engineer etc, etc........Thanks!

James

[Guest Big Time Software]

I could see where such a weapon like that might have made a tactical difference for sure. Jugngles and otherwise dense vegitation is a prefect situation for ambush weapons like this. Well, so long as you clear a back blast area behind the shooter

Steve

[Jager 7]

Interesting thought John. Equiping the Japanese with PFs would have made a difficult situation even worse. If you check the stats on how many tanks the Japanese were able to knock out in places like Saipan and especially Okinawa you will see that they did quite well without German help. The 47mm AT gun Model 1 was quite effective against Shermans. It's high velocity and accuracy coupled with the Japanese talent for fire discipline and comouflage took its toll on Marine and army armor.

As as example on April 19, 1945 during a XXIV Corps-wide attack against the Japanese defense in and around Kakazu Ridge and the Urasoe Escarpment, 30 tanks and SPs from the 27th Infantry Division attacked through a saddle between Kakazu Ridge and Nishihara Ridge at 0830 that morning. By 1330 only 8 tanks were left of the original 30. Several tanks were lost to mines, some more to anti-tank suicide squads and still more to 47mm AT fire, arty and mortars. Right after the attack began four tanks were knocked out from 1 47mm firing from a covered position with 16 shots fired....without receiving any return fire from the tanks.

Ref: Okinawa the Last Battle - Appleman, Burns, et al. pp 203-204

The battles in the Pacific in WWII were some of the most savage fought during the war and well worth study. They are often overlooked in favor of the more "glamorous" campaigns of Europe and North Africa.

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When the situation is obscure....attack!

CGen. Heinz Guderian

[Guest Germanboy]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Mark IV:

The supply lines between Germany and Japan were a little iffy by the time the Panzerfaust was developed so they had to roll their own.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Still funny though. I read somewhere (memory failing me again) that there was a reasonably regular air connection between German-occupied Russia and Japanese-occupied Manchuria, using Junkers 290 and 390 (IIRC) transport planes. One of these was apparently kept close to Berlin to fly Hitler to Argentina, in April 45. Hitler's personal pilot said something like that. You should have thought they would have been able to throw a Schreck, a Faust and some blueprints on one of the flights.

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Andreas

The powers of accurate perception are often called cynicism by those who do not possess them. (forgot who said it)

[Mark IV]

My source was "Men Against Tanks" by John Weeks (of Hogg and Weeks fame).

He went on to say that no ammunition for the device was captured, so the US Army was not able to test fire it.

Germanboy: "You should have thought they would have been able to throw a Schreck, a Faust and some blueprints on one of the flights". Entering the realm of pure speculation here, but it sounds as though they did. The mechanism of Leicht-Geschoss 43 was a little too unique for the Japanese to have come with it on their own.

I'm not sure what combining the 'faust and LG43 means, exactly. Presumable they copied the inertial, static charge, Venturi effect from the 'faust, and the loading, firing, and optical systems from LG43? If you're interested I will post the few other technical details when I get home.

The little Jap antitank guns did a bang-up job on the riveted Stuarts in the Phillipines, too. I believe that experience was the impetus to going to welded turrets.

[Naja]

From the book HIRSCHFELD ISBN 0 850525314 pg 198

"The cargo was loaded under conditions of the strictest secrecy. Into the deel ducts went the 50lb iron bottles of mercury. Elsewhere optical glass, engineering blueprints, cameras, secret documents in sealed containers, evan an Me 262 jet fighter in its component parts were stowed in the holds amidships. Some of the forward upright tubes were packed with Panzerfauste, other anti-tank weapons and small rockets. The most important and secret item of cargo, the uranium oxide, which I belive was highly radioactive, was loaded into one of the vertical steel tubes one morning in February, 1945. Two Japanese officers were to travel aboard U-234 on the voyage to Tokyo: Air Force Colonel Genzo Shosi, an aeronautical engineer, and Navy Captain Hideo Tomonaga, a submarine architect who, it will be recalled, had arrived in France aboard U-180 about eighteen months previously with a fortune in gold..."

The processed uranium oxide is theorized to have been used in the atomic bomb dropped on Japan. The captian and cargo disappeared after being surrendered to the Americans who didn't believe that the Germans had reached such an advanced state in Nuclear development. Do you know where Japan's heavy water treatment plant was located during the war? (I do)

[Mark IV]

Nice find, Naja.

Heavy water plant was somewhere in Korea, I believe.

[Black Sabot]

Here's another bone to chew on...

Picture what the war in the Pacific would have been like if the Japanese adopted a submarine campaign similar to the Germans in the Battle of the Atlantic.

Take some of the big convoy battles of the Atlantic and then imagine them occuring off of the Eastern Solomons, or the Phillipines.

Granted, the Americans would have prevailed in the long run, but at huge cost.

Your thoughts?

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"I do like to see the arms and legs fly"

[thomasj]

Thanks Mark and Naja, will look into it thanks to your information.

"It's a trick, get an axe!"

[Guest Germanboy]

Naja, thanks for digging that one up.

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Andreas

The powers of accurate perception are often called cynicism by those who do not possess them. (forgot who said it)

[von Lucke]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Black Sabot:

Picture what the war in the Pacific would have been like if the Japanese adopted a submarine campaign similar to the Germans in the Battle of the Atlantic.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

IIRC early in the war (while they were still winning, anyway) Japanese sub commanders thought it dishonorable to attack un-armed merchantmen. I read somewhere of a squadron of Japanese subs that had parked themselves off the Pacific exit to the Panama Canal in early '42: They saw plenty of merchant traffic, but since no warships came through during their time on station, they headed home with full tubes.

[Mark IV]

"The only other recoilless anti-tank gun which showed any originality of design [after a discussion of other designs] was a Japanese experimental model of late 1945. It was intended as a one-man portable system and tried to combine the best features of the then current German weapons. It was a cross between a Panzerschreck and an LG43 and with luck and some sensible development might well have become a useful weapon. The calibre was 82mm which was just about adequate for the time, and the weight of the experimental model was 90 lbs., which again was reasonable. The breech was almost an exact copy of the LG43 with a central firing pin and a short venturi cone. Maximum range was quoted at 850yd, but for tanks it would have been much less. There was a light tripod and an optical sight and although the general standard of engineering and finish is nowhere near that of the American 57s and 75s the principle seems to be right and perhaps the US Armour [sic] Corps can be grateful that only one was made. No ammunition survived and so no firing was done by the US Army." - from "Men Against Tanks: A History of Anti-Tank Warfare", John Weeks, Mason/Charter, NY, 1975.

[John Kettler]

I'm so glad I reasked this question!

Naja, could you please provide further details about the oddly, to me, at least, named HIRSCHFELD book? I've never heard of it and want to know what it's about. I definitely had never before read anything explicit about Panzerfausts as U-boat cargo.

Mark IV, thanks for the long quote on the Japanese prototype AT weapon.

Here are a couple of return morsels for you. A WWII war correspondent named Tom Agoston wrote a bunk called BLUNDER, which details how the technical fruits of a Top Secret SS weapon development center hidden within the Skoda Works wound up in Soviet hands even though the Germans wanted us to have them. There is some information in the book about the sub we're discussing here. The History Channel had an episode which talked about what Germany shipped Japan during the War and went into great detail about planned Japanese and German strikes on the U.S. Juicy stuff! I think we need to contact Bletchley Park and ask for copies of translated cargo manifests for U-boats delivering tech items to the Japanese. Maybe we could even pry the original

Navy report loose covering the U-boat's contents when surrendered.

Also, though most people don't know it, the Germans had several varieties of what we'd call flying saucers during the war. These craft used jet, rocket and even more exotic means for propulsion. I highly recommend you read Renato Vesco's MANMADE UFOs 1945-1990. Vesco worked on some of the projects during the War and retired as chief of technology for the Italian Air Force during the mid '60s.

A former member of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Vladimir Terziski, has done tons of research on these German craft, some of which is in the book, and has interviewed the son of a Japanese engineer who apparently was present when a dissasembled rocket powered version was reassembled and test fired in Japan during the War. Reportedly, it so terrified the Japanese that they destroyed the thing. Those of you who are in interested in the true state of German weapon development during the War will also find the German Research Project (www.1999.com/ufo/grp.htm) of consuming interest. Not only is there a wealth of material here on exotic German aerial craft, but unusual bombs, acoustic weapons, advanced missile and U-boat projects, etc.

Thank you all for exposing me to a wealth of new information.

Sincerely,

John Kettler