88mm Puppchen and 8cm PAW... What are they?

[vondeath]

Being someone who knows he always has something to learn, I am curious about these two weapons. They are invaluable in low point QBs and are much more mobile than their big brothers while still packing a punch in ambush situations. Normal AT guns always seem to draw a hail of artillery fire and get knocked out after a couple of kills, yet these little guys are easy to hide and easier to move than other AT guns.

I can make a decent guess as to their origins... The Puppchen fires Panzershreck ammo and the PAW fires 81 mm mortar ammo? And what was their historical availability? I see recoiless rifles on both sides in the game although I remember seeing somewhere that only the US used them and very late in the war at that.

Thanks for your help .

[Kanonier Reichmann]

In a word...deadly.

Regards

Jim R.

[Joques]

First off, Hi everybody! I'm an ASL player only recently (today actually) turned on to CM. Boy it looks cool.

I've never heard of the 8cm PAW before, but the Pueppchen was a predecessor to the Panzerschreck. It was not recoilless, it was like an AT gun only smaller and lighter (since muzzle velocity was deliberately kept down to enhance HEAT performance). Only after the Germans captured American Bazookas (in Africa...?) did they realize the potential of a recoilless shoulder-fired AT weapon.

Bye for now!

[Conscript Bagger]

Originally posted by vondeath:

I see recoiless rifles on both sides in the game although I remember seeing somewhere that only the US used them and very late in the war at that.

I think the German 75mm and 105mm recoilless guns were part of their paratroop and mountain division TOEs throughout the war - although not always available.

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by vondeath:

[snips]

I can make a decent guess as to their origins... The Puppchen fires Panzershreck ammo

Mr. Picky suggests that the right way round to say that would be "The Panzerschreck fires Puppchen ammo".

You are, however, quite right that the round fired is essentially the same. Puppchen is certainly pretty unusual; I couldn't offhand name any other breech-loaded closed-tube rocket-launcher that has seen service. It was not enormously popular, as the extra weight was not felt to be worth the additional range as compared with Panzerschreck.

Originally posted by vondeath:

[QB]

and the PAW fires 81 mm mortar ammo? And what was their historical availability?

[QB]

The PAW 600 fired its own ammunition, a hollow-charge round capable of penetrating 140mm at normal impact. The main point of interest which makes the PAW 600 beloved of military scientists is that it was the first to use a "high-low pressure" system, since used to my knowledge only in the M-79 grenade launcher and the Soviet 73mm gun in the BMP-1. There was a 10cm version in the works at the end of the war, but nothing ever came of it.

As to availability, my copy of Gander & Chamberlain says that 10 were delivered for troop trials in late 1944, and 260 were delivered, some on PaK 38 carriages, by the end of the war.

Originally posted by vondeath:

[QB]

I see recoiless rifles on both sides in the game although I remember seeing somewhere that only the US used them and very late in the war at that.

[QB]

Whoever told you that only the US had recoilless rifles was more vastly mistaken than a person who believes that Ivor Novello is still alive. The Germans had them first, particularly for the Fallschirmjager.

While I am blethering out of myself on this subject, it might be as well to mention those other monuments to German extreme cleverness in the field of anti-tank guns, the Stielgranate and the Gerlich guns.

The Stielgranate was a rodded over-calibre HEAT projectile that could be inserted into, well, you most often see a 3.7cm PaK 36, but versions existed for other calibres. The idea here was to give an otherwise hopeless anti-tank weapon a chance of knocking out a real tank. Because the round was fitted into the end of the barrel, stabilisation was by fins rather than spin. As you might expect, accuracy was not great, a couple of hundred metres being about as much as you could expect.

The "squeeze-bore" guns devised by Dr. Gerlich used tapered barrels and APCNR (Armour Piercing Composite Non-Rigid) projectiles. Just like APCR and APDS, APCNR has a tungsten-carbide penetrating core. The outer part of the projectile, however, is squeezed down by the reducing diameter of the barrel when it is fired.

There were three guns in the Gerlich series; the 2.8cm PzB41, 28mm reducing to 20mm calibre; the 4.2cm lePaK 41, sometimes known as the PJK 41, 40mm reducing to 29mm calibre; and the PaK 41, 75mm reducing to 55mm calibre. All saw service and had fierce armour penetration performance for their size and weight, but suffered the disadvantages of a high rate of barrel-wear and an inability to fire useful HE rounds. The barrel-wear problem was addressed by Dr, Grotsch's design for the PaK 44, another 75/55mm weapon, which never saw service but had the tapered portion of the barrel capable of being changed relatively easily. Quite why development of this weapon continued is a bit of a mystery to me, as the decision had been made to reserve tungsten stocks for the machine-tool industry in late 1942 anyway, which spelled the end for all the Gerlich guns. The idea has AFAIK not been used elsewhere with the sole exception of the Littlejohn adapter for 2-pdr and 37mm guns.

It's been out of print for years, but if you ever see a copy of John Weeks' "Men against tanks", buy it; it is a highly readable account of the history of anti-tank weapons, and covers all this stuff and a lot more.

Can anyone tell me how many of these weapons feature in CM:BB?

All the best,

John.

[Nippy]

Can anyone tell me how many of these weapons feature in CM:BB?

Not too many made it in as of version 1.0. Only the "Stick Bomb" for the 37mm PAK and tje 28mm Squeeze bore AT gun are preasent.

[demoss]

I'm pretty sure the lePaK 41 (the 42 mm taper-bore) made it in too. Haven't played with one, but I recall seeing it in the purchase roster.

[vondeath]

Thanks for the info, guys ...

You've cleared something else up for me. When I last watched "Band of Brothers", I saw what I thought was a PaK 36 being used like a large Panzerfaust(The Carentan episode). That must be the Stielgranate you have mentioned.

[Strontium Dog]

Here's a picture of the Püppchen

Picture of Puppchen

[kevsharr]

I really don/t think the M-79 grenade launcher was a "High-low pressure gun"or the"Hoch-Niederdruck system.The system used a seperate powder chamber to hold the high pressure between it and the barrel was a steel plate that was perforated with holes that allowed the pressure to bleed thru gradually into the barrel to provide a low pressure to propel the shell.This way you could use a powerful charge and have a light-weight barrel.On the 8cm. PAW to even further relieve the stress on the barrle it was made smoothbored and the projectiles fin-stabilised.The M-79 grenade launcher has a conventional 40mm cartridge

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by kevsharr:

I really don/t think the M-79 grenade launcher was a "High-low pressure gun"or the"Hoch-Niederdruck system.

[snips]

The M-79 grenade launcher has a conventional 40mm cartridge

...which includes within it both high and low pressure chambers.

This is made quite clear on page 632 of "Jane's Infantry Weapons" for 1975.

Alternatively, point your browser at any of the following web sites

http://www.soft.net.uk/entrinet/us_weapons4.htm

http://www.specialoperations.com/Weapons/Grenade_Launchers.htm

http://www.adtdl.army.mil/cgi-bin/atdl.dll/fm/23-31/f2331_9.htm

The last of thee takes a while to load, but as it seems to be the USA army FM on the the M-79, I think it can be regarded as authoritative. I refer you to para A-10.

Ian Hogg mentions in his "Encyclopedia of Infantry Weapons of WW2" that the high-low pressure system was also used in a Swiss tank gun, but I do not know what weapon he is referring to here.

All the best,

John.

[Maj. Battaglia]

John S,

It's funny you are asking about the squeezebore guns and the stielgranate ammo in CMBB. I also don't have CMBB (awaiting a new computer) and was wondering this myself. I did a bit of research on these yesterday, particularly the squeezebores, after being reminded of them while leafing through my Handbook on German Military Forces.

According to Feldgrau, total production figures for the 4.2/2.8 cm pak 41 were 313 (1941/42) and for the 7.5/5.5 cm pak 41, 150 (1942). Compare the latter to 23,303 for 7.5 cm pak 40. There were no figures for the 2.8/2 cm gun.

It would seem that, if these figures are true, that the two higher caliber guns were pretty insignificant in terms of numbers. Couple this with a paucity of ammo as you mention, and I doubt they had more than minimal impact on the war in the East, and none as far as CMBO is concerned. I would not shed any tears over them not being included in CMBB.

I'm glad the shaped-charge ammo for the 37mm is included, though. Same for the 2.8/2 cm gun; despite seeing no figures for this, it seems to have been more common.

I also searched the forum, and found a classic thread featuring JasonC on the different 75mm AT weapons fielded by the Germans (search: pak 41). Beautiful. (Also, those interested in the puppchen and PAW, search the CMBO forum--there is great stuff already posted such as "is there an umlaut in puppchen," "is using it 'gamey,'" and more technical info (these are just the ones I remember seeing).