PANZERFAUST

he is popularly associated with being a lastditch weapon, wielded by the old men and young boys of the in the final days of the Third Reich. Yet by the end (“fist cartridge”) or (“armor-fist 30 short”), but subsequent improvements led to the three core variants of the war years: the 30, 60 (the most common), and 100. All these types shared a common design layout. Essentially the comprised a metal tube holding a black powder propellant charge and mounted with a firing mechanism and basic sight. The charge fired a bulbous warhead to ranges of 30, 60, or 100 meters—the range of each type was denoted in meters in the variant number. The weapon was fired via a simple two-handed grip, and it operated on recoilless principles; it gave almost no recoil but did impart a vicious and dangerous backblast—the official instruction was not to stand fewer than 10 meters (33 feet) behind one being fired. had many limitations. Their short range put the operator in serious danger of return fire from both armor and infantry, and the dust kicked up from the backblast easily identified his position. The weapons were not especially accurate, and mechanical malfunctions were common. Yet distributed in the millions, they became a nerve-wracking threat to Allied armor crews, especially in close-quarters urban or wooded terrain. Thousands of Allied armored vehicles fell victim to the , and had they been developed earlier in the war and issued to more highly trained soldiers, their impact could have been considerably greater.