Bazookas and flamethrowers

what kind of bazookas and flamethrowers were used on any side? Range of these weapons? Firepower? Anything...

 

Well as far as I know the first flamethrowers were used in WW1 ( 1915) by the Germans at Houge in France.

I hope this helps a bit.

Dean

 

Close Dean. It was at Hooge, now known as Hooge crater. Some first hand reports from people on the recieving end are available in Lyn Macdonalds book 1915 (chapter 28 or 29 I think).

Brum

 

The first flamethrowers were invented in 1900 by Germany, I'm not sure but I think bazookas were invented in 1941 or 1942.

 

Hi Thomas,

A bit off topic I know but is there any documentation of German forces using or being trained in the use of flamethrowers prior to WW1. thanks in advance for any info.

Brum

 

When British Generals whent to visit the German war games prior to the war no mention is made of German troops carrying or using flamethrowers and I'm sure the Kaiser would have been eager to impress the visiting guests with liquid fire. Small mention of German manouvres are made in Mons by John Terraine and this is what I'm basing my opinion on.

I'm not exactly positive about the answer above so you'll probably find a better answer at the WW1 forum www.1914-1918.net

 

Already a member there. Just thought you may have the info at hand, thanks anyway. Hope you get some WW2 answers soon Nunclear.

Brum

 

The Bazooka was an American system which fired a free flight rocket and you can get some details on the American Anti-Tank thread.

It was superior to the British PIAT, which was a spring loaded contraption.

The Germans had various models of Panzerfaust and Panzerschrek, all very effective.

All the warheads employed the hollow charge effect.

 

OK thanks everybody
P.S. sorry i couldn't reply earlier i ad some problems with my internet connection

 

since were are talking about Anti-tank weapons here are a few pics of my arsenal at home...........Panzerschrek 54 captured on the Ost front and used by the Finnish military after the war.... still has the German field grey paint on the protective shield

 

the Panzerschreck 54 was a very capable weapon in the hands of a two man team and many an Allied and Soviet tank fell to a Jäger squad. here is the unit laying againat one of my many book shelves

 

Originally posted by Erich@Aug 21 2004, 03:07 AM
since were are talking about Anti-tank weapons here are a few pics of my arsenal at home

Great pix and excellent details when enlarged to full size.

I have a number of pix showing German forces equipped with Panzerfausts, including one showing a Hitler Youth unit in the closing days of the war, each with two clipped to the handlebars of their bicycles (in Anthony Beevor's Berlin, published as The Fall of Berlin in the US), but I don't have one of a Panzerschrek in service.

Do you have any information on the scale of issue and the level at which they were deployed? I am assuming that as a two man weapon they were probably company level equipment.

I hope you don't mind the invasion of privacy, but I also enjoyed checking out your book titles.

 

Angie enjoy the books there are many more

The Panzerschreck was given in increasing amounts from 44-45 as it was the only thing really to be found except the different forms of the Panzerfaust to build up the moral of the individual Landser. At present I am not sure what the composite was of the different divisions as you had Panzer, and Panzergrenadier going all the way down to Panzer-jagd Kompanies. My very good freidn Gefreiter Helmuth Reichert served throughout the war as a waffenmeister in Regiment 43 in the 1st Infantrie Division and he and his men of 12-15 continually brough up both anti-tank weapons to the front during the harrowing 1945 battles in Ost Preussia. As to numbers he never told me (he passed away this past January).

v/r

E ~

 

The Russians developed a bazooka type weapon, the RB65, during the 1930,s but I've found no mention of the use of HEAT rounds with it. Finnish accounts suggest that it may have seen some use during the Winter War, although this may have been the result of confusion with the recoilless weapons that were used by the Russians, some being captured by the Finns.

 

The photo is what was refered to as the RB65 on a Russian language web site that I can't find the URL for at the moment. I had it bookmarked on Mozilla which I unistalled due to the better translation facilities on IE. With luck I may be able to locate it elsewhere. The use of some type of rocket weapon during the Winter War is refered to in several publications, those of Ian Hogg and John Weeks immediately come to mind. Further to this I feel that the weapon refered to was probably of the recoilless type. The Russians must have made a considerable number of 37mm recoilless AT rifles using the Kurchevsky princple at this time because I have scans of the user manual for this weapon.

 

.....
My interest perhaps springs from the use of Schuerzen on German Armour, which no official source ever seems to refer to as for use against shaped charges, despite the popular (and in my opinion, erroneous) belief that it was.


The original schuerzen plates may have been to protect the this skinned side armour of the Pz III and IV against ATR but the later mesh protections, that I believe used the same mountings, would be pretty useless agaist a 14.5mm AP round. There is a quote in Guderian's Panzer Leader on schuerzen being a counter to soviet "Russian infantry tank destroying weapons" that seems to point to the ATR but the HE RPG-40 and molotov cocktails are also a possibility, an HE or flame bomb detonating 1m away from the 30mm main armour is a different thing than a direct impact. AFAIK the hollow charge RPG-43 introduction is after the schuerzen, something of a mistery here.

The Panzerfaust was a very different weapon from a bazooka, technically it's a single use recoiless gun not a rocket, also operationally it was issued as secondary weapon to infantrymen not specialized weapons teams. So while the Panzerschrek was possibly influenced by the US weapon are there any original sources on the PF having been so?

 

re portable flamethrower units, I understand they generally had about 12 seconds of life in them and a range of no more than 20-25m, it did vary a lot between nations & models, I'll try to remember where I read that.

Bayonetstrength

Angelfire

and of course Wikipedia

 

Just a thought...

What about protection from the possibly thousands of captured Panzer-fausts that could be used against themselves?

Cheers
Ev