Hitler's Anti-Tank Weapons 1939–1945
By Hans Seidler
()
About this ebook
Hitler’s Wehrmacht and SS units will be remembered for their aggressive Blitzkrieg tactics. But, as the war progressed, the Germans developed an impressive range of anti-tank warfare weaponry and munitions. Using many rare unpublished images, this Images of War book covers the full Nazi anti-armor capability. Also featured are the half-tracks and converted Panzers that pulled or mounted these weapons and carried observers and reconnaissance elements forward.
Later hand-held anti-tank weapons came into service and were effective against Allied armor. The Panzerfaust, with its shaped charge warhead, became the first disposable anti-tank weapon in history. This comprehensive book shows this formidable range of weapons in action from Poland in 1939, through North Africa and the Eastern Front to the final collapse of the Third Reich in 1945.
Read more from Hans Seidler
Hitler's Defeat on the Western Front, 1944–1945 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hitler's Artillery 1939-1945 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Hitler's Anti-Tank Weapons 1939–1945
Titles in the series (100)
Himmler's Nazi Concentration Camp Guards Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Adolf Hitler Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Armoured Warfare in Northwest Europe, 1944–1945 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChiang Kai-shek Versus Mao Tse-tung: The Battle for China, 1946–1949 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5D-Day Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blitzkrieg Russia Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsArmoured Warfare on the Eastern Front Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHitler's Defeat on the Eastern Front Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Armoured Warfare in the North African Campaign Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Waffen-SS on the Eastern Front, 1941–1945 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGreat War Fighter Aces, 1916–1918 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAllied POWs in German Hands 1914–1918 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5B-17 Memphis Belle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Crushing of Poland Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Afrika-Korps Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Armoured Warfare in the Italian Campaign, 1943–1945 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Armoured Warfare and Hitler's Allies, 1941–1945 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH) at War, 1939–1945: A History of the Division on the Western and Eastern Fronts Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHitler's Mountain Troops, 1939–1945: The Gebirgsjager Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsArmoured Warfare in the Korean War Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Auschwitz Death Camp Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Armoured Warfare in the Battle of the Bulge, 1944–1945 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHitler's Headquarters, 1939–1945 Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Germans at Arras Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFallschirmjager: Elite German Paratroops in World War II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Battle for the Caucasus, 1942–1943 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Blitzkrieg in the West Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Hitler's Panzers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5SS Totenkopf at War: A History of the Division Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRetreat to Berlin Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related ebooks
T-34: The Red Army's Legendary Medium Tank Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Panther Tank: Hitlers T-34 Killer Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Hitler's Light Tanks Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Panther V in Combat: Guderian's Problem Child Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTiger I & Tiger II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5German Tank Destroyers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFerdinand and Elefant Tank Destroyer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Panzer III: Hitler's Beast of Burden Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSturmgeschütze: Armoured Assault Guns Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Russian Armour in the Second World War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTank Wrecks of the Eastern Front, 1941–1945 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hitler's Tank Destroyers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Building Guderian’s Duck: Germany’s Response To The Eastern Front Antitank Crisis, 1941 To 1945 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hitler's Tank Killer: Sturmgeschütz at War, 1940–1945 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5German Armour Lost on the Western Front Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLuftwaffe Flak and Field Divisions, 1939–1945 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Patton Tank: Cold War Warrior Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Panzer IV: Hitler's Rock Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hitler's Heavy Tiger Tank Battalions, 1942–1945 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTiger I and Tiger II Tanks: German Army and Waffen-SS, The Last Battles in the West, 1945 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGerman Armour Lost on the Eastern Front Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGerman Guns of the Third Reich Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Tiger I: The Official Wartime Crew Manual Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTank Wrecks of the Western Front, 1940–1945 Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Panther Tanks: German Army and Waffen-SS, Defence of the West, 1945 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5German Machine Guns of the Second World War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5German Assault Guns and Tank Destroyers 1940 - 1945 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5T-34: Russia's Armoured Spearhead Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Panther Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPanzer III at War, 1939–1945 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Wars & Military For You
God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World--and Why Their Differences Matter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The God Delusion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unit 731: Testimony Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mein Kampf: The Original, Accurate, and Complete English Translation Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Doctors From Hell: The Horrific Account of Nazi Experiments on Humans Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sun Tzu's The Art of War: Bilingual Edition Complete Chinese and English Text Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Daily Creativity Journal Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Unacknowledged: An Expose of the World's Greatest Secret Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of War & Other Classics of Eastern Philosophy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Wager Disaster: Mayem, Mutiny and Murder in the South Seas Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Kingdom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rise of the Fourth Reich: The Secret Societies That Threaten to Take Over America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Making of the Atomic Bomb Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Killing the SS: The Hunt for the Worst War Criminals in History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bill O'Reilly's Legends and Lies: The Civil War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Art of War: The Definitive Interpretation of Sun Tzu's Classic Book of Strategy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Faithful Spy: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Plot to Kill Hitler Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933–45 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Hitler's Anti-Tank Weapons 1939–1945
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Hitler's Anti-Tank Weapons 1939–1945 - Hans Seidler
Introduction
An anti-tank gun is an artillery weapon primarily designed to destroy armoured fighting vehicles, normally from a fixed defensive position. The Germans were masters of anti-tank gun warfare, and during the Second World War developed a variety of specialised anti-tank munitions and anti-tank guns. This book, in the popular ‘Images of War’ series, is dedicated to the men and the guns that fought in the anti-tank war. With rare and unpublished photographs, accompanied by detailed captions and text, the book covers all the various PaK guns from the 3.7cm PaK 35, 5cm PaK 38 and the 7.5cm PaK 40, to the versatile 8.8cm FlaK guns, and the vehicles that pulled these weapons including the specialised forward observers and reconnaissance elements.
As the war progressed, the ever increasing demands on the German war machine required drastic changes in anti-tank warfare. This included mounting PaK guns on halftracks and converted Panzers and turning them into fast mobile tank-killing machines or Panzerja¨ger (Panzer hunters). This led to further development in anti-tank guns, and to more economical weapons that were deadly and efficient such as the hand-held anti-tank weapons including the Panzerfaust and Panzerschrek, which were used in all the theatres of war. The Panzerfaust was used extensively in the last year of the war, and with its unique shaped-charge warhead could penetrate the armour of any fighting vehicle. After firing, the tube was discarded, making the Panzerfaust the first disposable anti-tank weapon in history.
This book provides a unique overview of German anti-tank gun warfare from action in Poland, the Low Countries, France, Italy, and the Eastern Front, up to the last weeks of the war. This highly illustrated record of the firepower of the Nazi war machine is a must for anyone interested in weapons of war.
Chapter One
Early Years 1939–41
With the introduction of thicker-armoured heavier tanks being manufactured around the world, German weapon designers in the 1930s worked to produce a light weapon that could be towed, moved, concealed easily and with the fire power to deal with enemy tanks if the country was ever to go to war. As a result of this, anti-tank weapons, or ‘Panzer Abwehr Kanone’ (PaK for short), were designed and manufactured. Just as important was that these guns possessed a projectile with high velocity ammunition that could pierce enemy tanks at a reasonable range and halt their progress on the battlefield.
When war finally broke out in September 1939 and Germany invaded Poland, the attack was a surprise for the Polish enemy. While bombers and fighter planes soared overhead, reconnoitring, attacking, spreading fire and fear, Panzers, whole divisions of them, sped across the countryside, accompanied by infantry of 1.5 million men on horses and in motorized columns. Among this arsenal were the anti-tank PaK units.
It was here that the Germans introduced their first anti-tank gun, the 3.7cm PaK 35/36. This was the standard German anti-tank gun at the outbreak of war. By design standards it was small but rugged, well-engineered and reliable. The gun was of conventional type and was carried on a two-wheel split-rail carriage of tubular construction with a bolted-on sloped armoured shield. A hydro spring recoil system was carried in the cradle and the wheels had coiled springs.
During the invasion of Poland the Germans fielded some 11,200 of these guns, and the gun proved more than adequate against lightly armoured opposition in spite of having a disappointing penetrative performance. Many of the PaK units were towed by animals, and while this mode of transport was relatively slow, resistance was not a major threat and PaK units had considerable freedom of movement on the battlefield without much danger of being overrun.
The Germans also had a small number of anti-tank rifles. These dated back to the First World War with the Mauser 1918 T-Gewehr, the world’s first anti-tank rifle, created in response to the appearance of British tanks on the Western Front. By the 1930s development resumed in an effort to provide infantry with a man-portable lightweight anti-tank rifle. First produced was the Panzerbüchse 38 (PzB 38). Only a small number were built in 1939 with sixty-two used by German troops in Poland. A modified version of this anti-tank rifle also saw action in Poland that September, the Panzerbüchse 39 (PzB 39). The weapon was virtually identical to the PzB 38 but slightly longer and lighter. Performance was basically the same as that of the PzB 38, and 568 were used by the German army in the invasion of Poland. Success rate against lightly armed Polish opposition saw the Panzerbüchse make a number of successful engagements, but it was still far from adequate against heavier armoured-plated vehicles.
Following Poland’s defeat in early October 1939, plans were soon drawn up to attack the Low Countries and France. For the attack, and to support a typical German division during its advance, there was now the anti-tank battalion, which contained a heavy MG34 machine gun company equipped with twelve 2cm FlaK; and three anti-tank gun companies, each equipped with twelve 3.7.cm PaK 35/36 guns. Also there was a single company of ten 8.8cm FlaK 18 auf Zugkraftwagen. These 8.8cm flak guns were