German Close-in Tactics against Armoured Vehicles

Jawgap

A translated German document on infantry close-combat against Russian tanks on the Eastern Front was published in Tactical and Technical Trends, No. 23, April 22, 1943.

It's all a matter of attitude.......

Each rifleman, whether he is part of a tank-hunting squad or the gunner of an individual weapon, must be thoroughly convinced that, if he fights skillfully he and his weapon are superior to any tank. He has to know that he is the hunter and the tank the game. This thought is to be given great weight in the training period.

claypigeon777

As the tide turned in World War 2 the Germans after all were up against endless quantities of Shermans and T-34s so I suppose they had no choice.

They had superior anti-tank weapons such as the 88mm and the Panzerfaust.

In the bocage country of Normandy or the ruins of a city tanks were very vulnerable to infantry attack.

Stovepipe

Part of the need to use close-in weapons was the critical shortage of anti-tank guns, as they were being consumed by the fighting partly because they were very short of towing vehicles. Panzerfausts and panzerschrecks were easy to manufacture, use and replace and were deadly to the enemy tanks.

regards
Stovepipe

tac foley

Stovepipe wrote: »

Part of the need to use close-in weapons was the critical shortage of anti-tank guns, as they were being consumed by the fighting partly because they were very short of towing vehicles. Panzerfausts and panzerschrecks were easy to manufacture, use and replace and were deadly to the enemy tanks.
regards
Stovepipe

Yup, the German anti-tank rockets/missiles were a VERY unwelcome surprise to the Allies. The re-useable Panzerschreck had a warhead three times bigger than the original US Bazooka, and was a very effective MG squad killer as well as a sure-fire tank-buster. It fired a real rocket-propelled grenade, too, unlike the use-and-discard Panzerfaust.

My dad, who worked on repairing Allied tanks from early 1944 until the war's end, often told me of the 'injuries' suffered by our tanks, either from the devastating 88mm or even the 75mm German guns - in a tank, SP gun or Atk gun, but was always amazed at how a little jet of gas could cause so much damage. It was the inevitable shortage of tungsten [used for armour penetrating projectiles] that in the end caused production of guns and the ammunition that they shot to be curtailed

I have an 88mm solid shot as a doorstop, and the very thought of that huge lump of hardened steel coming at me at at around 3000 fps is enough to make you wish you'd chosen something safer, like submarines...

tac

Stovepipe

Hi there
I'll bet your dad had a few stories to tell, Tac......anyone seeking further info on the effect of German anti-tank weapons should read Belton Y. Cooper's account of dealing with wrecked Shermans in WW2. It's called "Deathtraps" for good reason.......the average German was trained to a greater extent to deal with enemy tanks directly, compared to Allied soldiers, who were trained to use proper anti-tank guns or get tanks up to deal with Panzers. The experience of the Eastern Front meant that every German soldier was expected to be able to cope with enemy tanks with whatever was available, be it improvised blasting charges, multiple hand grenades, improvised firebombs, smoke grenades and so on. Osprey have a very good title out on this topic.

regards
Stovepipe

claypigeon777

Stovepipe wrote: »

Hi there
I'll bet your dad had a few stories to tell, Tac......anyone seeking further info on the effect of German anti-tank weapons should read Belton Y. Cooper's account of dealing with wrecked Shermans in WW2. It's called "Deathtraps" for good reason.......the average German was trained to a greater extent to deal with enemy tanks directly, compared to Allied soldiers, who were trained to use proper anti-tank guns or get tanks up to deal with Panzers. The experience of the Eastern Front meant that every German soldier was expected to be able to cope with enemy tanks with whatever was available, be it improvised blasting charges, multiple hand grenades, improvised firebombs, smoke grenades and so on. Osprey have a very good title out on this topic.

regards
Stovepipe

Although the Germans were able to knock out lots of American Sherman tanks and Soviet T-34s, many of them were salvaged, patched up again and reused. The Sherman and the T-34 were pumped out like sausages and the training of American and Soviet tank crews was rudimentary. The Germans produced tanks with thicker armor and heavier longer range guns but in inadequate quantities while the thorough training for their precious crews was time consuming. Also when a German tank was knocked out it was typically abandoned rather than recovered. German armor could not be everywhere at once either.

The desperate situation on the Eastern Front as the Reich collapsed and Red Army soldier raped and pillaged and slaughtered soldiers and civilians alike everywhere they went made German troops ultra fanatical and they went to extremes to destroy tanks they never would have resorted to earlier in the war. On paper a German unit was a division but might number a few battalions of troops and some of those battalions would be only company size and some of those companies would be only platoon size making full use of every crossroads, ridge, wood, ruined building and so on as they fell back. A platoon with the excellent weapons the Germans had late in the war could give Soviet spearheads a bloody nose and then retreat to do it again and again and again. The poor quality of Soviet troops was made up by quantity and no matter how many tanks or infantry the Germans massacred when they charged blindly there was always more to throw into the meat grinder.

German soldiers took as many Soviets with them as they possibly could before they were out of ammo, overrun and annihilated.

Jawgap

claypigeon777 wrote: »

........and the training of American and Soviet tank crews was rudimentary. .....

I think you'll find there's a lot of still alive WWII tankers would disagree strongly with that statement.

Their training was different, because the way the Red Army, the Army of the US, the British Army and the German Army used tanks was all very different - and those differences fed back into the processes of designing and building the tanks and the training of their crews.

And one other observation, while it is indeed true that the Red Army carried out barbaric atrocities and were guilty of using rape as a weapon of war, the Germans, whether advancing or retreating, often showed little regard for the civilian population...........and I'm not looking for a debate on who was worse, just pointing out that in war everyone does terrible things to everyone else.

Stovepipe

I agree with Jawgap. American tank training was good and they had learned the hard way at Kasserine. Problem was, they were equipped in 1944 with the tank that was inadequate in 1942. The Sherman got better in time. One thing the German tanks lacked was adequate protection for their stowed shells. US and British tanks had water jackets for their shell stowage and this saved a lot of lives when a shell penetrated the hull. The Germans were also less than enthusiastic about the meagre armour on some of their self-propelled guns. They even called the aging Panzer Four, the Mess Tin and said that it's saving grace was that an Allied shell would punch clean through, whereas, if a Panther or Tiger was pierced, then the AP shot would ricochet around inside, mincing up the crew. Most of their tanks were petrol-engines and burned just as well as Allied tanks........Russian training was basic, to say the least, but did improve as time went on and any Russian tankers who made it to Berlin were hardened men......in the case of tank repair, if a tank burned, it was generally written off by all sides, because the armour had been weakened and the level of effort required to refit the interior with new wiring, hydraulics, optics, etc wasn't worth the effort. In other cases, tanks were repaired with patches over penetrations and rough repairs made to get it back into action. All sides made a habit of blasting tanks with engineers charges if they couldn't move it off the battlefield or else they'd fire a few rounds of AP into the turret to ruin the gun and turret ring. The Germans and Russians also made a habit of converting shot-up or obsolete tanks to self-propelled guns, as well as being ready to use intact captured tanks at will.

regards
Stovepipe

Stovepipe

Tac, how about a picture of your doorstop?

regards
Stovepipe

tac foley

The watch is my 1971 Omega Flightmaster for scale....how's that? The streamlining nosecap has long gone - it disappears on impact. This was recovered from the soft backstop at an FP on the Gunnery Test and Trials Establishment at Shoeburyness in Kent, after a test of a captured PaK43 Atk gun - allegedly.

tac

Stovepipe

Sufferin' Divine! No wonder it went thru Allied tanks like a knife thru butter! No wonder the crews were deadly afraid of the 88mm. Nice shot, by the way.

regards
Stovepipe

tac foley

I CAN post pics - YIPPEEEEEE!.

Ahem.

tac

tac foley

8.8cm KwK 36 L/56
Shell Weight: 10.20 kg
Muzzle Velocity: 800 m/s
Kinetic Energy: 3264 kj - that is 2,407,435 ft lbs.

And that was the Tiger 1 gun...the Tiger 2 was almost 50% better in all respects.

tac

Stovepipe

there was an account once of a Tiger knocking out three T-34s at 2500 metres. They examined the wrecks later and found one of the T-34s had had it's entire engine torn out of the hull by the impact of the 88mm solid shot.hell of a gun.

regards
Stovepipe

BlaasForRafa

Stovepipe wrote: »

Sufferin' Divine! No wonder it went thru Allied tanks like a knife thru butter! No wonder the crews were deadly afraid of the 88mm. Nice shot, by the way.

regards
Stovepipe

About 15 years or so ago there was a great BBC series called War Walks presented by Professor Richard Holmes one of which covered the Normandy campaign and described the panzerfaust and 88mm anti-tank shells.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Wi6nDR1tOo