Red Army Hand Held Anti-Tank Weapons

[Jeff Duquette]

I thought this was mildly interesting.

S. Zaloga in “Red Army Handbook” (pg. 197) indicates 8,500 Bazookas were sent over to the USSR as part of the Lend-Lease program.

“The United States Army in World War II Statistics, Lend-Lease”, Prepared by T. Whiting, et al, Office of the Chief of Military History states on (pg. 30) that 8,500 rounds of 2.36-inch HE-AT ammunition was supplied to the USSR.

Some difference between 8,500 bazookas and 8,500 bazooka rounds being sent to the Red Army.

While digging through “Soviet\Russian Army Artillery and Armor Design Practices, 1945 to Present” by Hull et al, there is a reference on pg 171 stating that the Soviets “may have” started manufacturing their own copy of the panzerfaust and began employing it in the latter days of the war.

Anyone have additional poop on the “may have” bit?

[Commissar]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jeff Duquette:

I thought this was mildly interesting.

S. Zaloga in “Red Army Handbook” (pg. 197) indicates 8,500 Bazookas were sent over to the USSR as part of the Lend-Lease program.

“The United States Army in World War II Statistics, Lend-Lease”, Prepared by T. Whiting, et al, Office of the Chief of Military History states on (pg. 30) that 8,500 rounds of 2.36-inch HE-AT ammunition was supplied to the USSR.

Some difference between 8,500 bazookas and 8,500 bazooka rounds being sent to the Red Army.

While digging through “Soviet\Russian Army Artillery and Armor Design Practices, 1945 to Present” by Hull et al, there is a reference on pg 171 stating that the Soviets “may have” started manufacturing their own copy of the panzerfaust and began employing it in the latter days of the war.

Anyone have additional poop on the “may have” bit?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I believe the hand held RPG type anti-tank rockets weren't fully developed and deployed until well after the war was over. However, the Soviets captured plenty of panzerfausts from the Germans and used them against German tanks. That still doesn't explain what they did with all those lend lease bazookas and some PIATs.

[Stalin's Organ]

I've seen references to the RPG-1 being a copy of the Bazooka, Panzershreck & Pzfaust 100 in different places!!

The RPG-2 was apparently a copy of the little/never deployed PanzerFaust 150.

appart from that I await more detailed info with interest!

[Lt Bull]

Can't say anything on a Ruskie version of the panzerfaust being developed but I have read somewhere that the panzerschreck was designed after a "shipment" of Lend Lease bazookas destined for the Ruskies feel into German hands. They basically reverse engineered it, improving on it in the process.

Anyone else heard this story?

Capturing a shipment of bazookas sounds a little more dramatic than capturing one on the battlefield and send it back to "the lab".

Lt Bull

[kipanderson]

Jeff, hi,

For me “the big one” when it comes to Soviet WW2 infantry AT weapons is the RPG43.

It was only a hand thrown grenade; however, it did do the job within its limitations. It was a very clever design, simple, yet tended to hit its target front first. Penetration 75mm. Even at a 60-degree strike angle that is more than enough to deal with any German tank through is top armour. Produced in vast numbers.

“If” one can separate German armour from its accompanying Panzergrenadiers then all German tanks are vulnerable.

All the best,

Kip.

PS. One strange thing,I very rarely hear about the RGP43. I have come across it only about three or four times in twenty years of reading all sorts of sources. Just not sexy enough, I suppose.

[Jeff Duquette]

Commissar & Organ: Thanks for replies.

Lt Bull: The legend I heard was that bazookas captured in Tunisia were sent back to Germany. It was also relayed to me that a lend-lease bazooka (or bazookas) may have been captured on the Eastern Front at one of the Dnepr river bridgeheads. In either case the legend goes on that some reverse engineering was than done and an improved version cranked out in the form of the panzerschreck.

Kip: AAR’s detailing Red Army employment of the various hand thrown RPG’s do seem somewhat few and far between. RPG-43 references are certainly not nearly as plentiful as the ubiquitous Molotov Cocktail. Chris Lawrence at the Dupuy Institute did indicate to me the following:

“At Kursk the Soviets deployed lots of AT Rifle Battalions, a Molotov cocktail company and a platoon of anti-tank dogs. All these lesser AT systems never get mentioned in the German reports. They are concerned about Soviet Tanks, AT guns, mines and tank ditches. It does not appear that the other AT systems were very effective, or at least not effective enough for the Germans to mention them.”

The Soviets apparently also field anti-tank flamethrower battalions at some point in the war. I forget the exact reference and dates employed…seems like it was 1942’ish or 1943’ish?

A reference from Alan Clark’s “Barbarossa, The Russian-German Conflict, 1941-1945” has been sort of bated around here before. Something which Clark indicates was called a Cheristikye (Page 435). The reference is to a late war (Jan 1945) counterattack by German armor around Poznan being broken up by Soviet infantry using “Cheristikyes”. Clark’s footnote for the word indicates the following:

“Cheristikye: The Russian equivalent of the Bazooka anti-tank rocket.

I have been unable to find an exact translation for this word. I even emailed the Clark passage along to David Glantz as well as James Gebhardt. Both were unable to identify the word “Cheristikye”. And neither had run across the word in any of their research. Either Clark mis-spelled the thing, or the transliteration is incorrect, or the word is slang.

[Mark IV]

Both Hogg ("Tank Killing") and Weeks ("Men Against Tanks") echo the story that some of the first Lend-Lease shipment of bazookas to USSR were captured by the Germans, and led directly to the Panzerschreck. The Germans had already faced the bazooka in North Africa, however, and were predisposed to regard it as effective.

Weeks has a good picture with a caption on RPG-43, but neither book has much to say about it. It is a "potato masher" design, with a conical back cover that falls off the handle when thrown, to unravel a cloth streamer which stabilizes the flight and keeps the hollow charge forward.

The Brits also had used a streamer-stabilized grenade, launched from a rifle, the No. 44, in April 1918!

[Echo]

Molotov Cocktail.

[killmore]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jeff Duquette:

Both were unable to identify the word “Cheristikye”. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

This is not a real word in russian. I will ask guy who used to serve in 1980s as soviet tank commander.

[Jeff Duquette]

thanks