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www.geocities.com/Augusta/8172/panzerfaust6.htmPanzerfaust
WW II German Infantry Anti-Tank Weapons
Page 6: Tank Rifles
Panzerbüchse
The idea of the Wehrmacht behind the Panzerbüchse ("tank rifle") was to give the infantry integral limited anti-tank capability against light tanks without having to wait for the tank hunter units to relieve them. However, the concept of the Tank Rifle was quite out of date for the tanks of WW II; the unsatisfactory performance of the tank rifles due to the spectacular successes hitherto went hardly noticed until the battle for Moscow in 1941 where the the weapon's proved themselves practically useless against the soviet tanks. Reportedly, many Panzerbüchsen were thrown away by the frustrated soldiers. Even earlier the weapons themselves were for a variety of resons not very popular among the troops, not the least of the reasons was that collar-bone fractures among the gunners were all too common.
Tank Rifle Ammunition
The success or failure of a tank rifle is largely depending on the ammunition it uses. Large caliber rifles that used high energy hardened projectiles - anti-tank rifles - had already been developed and used during WW I where tanks appeared on the battlefield for the first time in history. The first german tank rifle used then was the so-called T-Gewehr ("T-Rifle", T for tank).
During the 1930ies the company Rheinmetall used this weapon's ammuntion as a basis for the development of new tank rifle ammunition. Set into the old T-Gewehr casing was a 7.9mm projectile instead of the original 13mm. The complete cartridge weighed 84 g, the bullet weighed 14.6 g (as compared to the original bullet's 52g!) and had a steel core. The amount of gunpowder was increased to 14.9g; all this changed the V0 from the original 780m/s to now over 1,150m/s.
This new ammunition was called Patrone 318, the full official designation was Patrone 318 SmK-Rs- L'spur or Patrone 318 SmKH -Rs-L'spur, whereas "Patrone" means "cartridge", 318 was an inversion of 813 that stood for an 8mm bullet in a 13mm casing; SmK meant "Spitzgeschoss mit Kern" ("pointed bullet with core"), SmKH = "Spitzgeschoss mit Kern (Hart)" ("pointed bullet with core (hard)") meant the same projectile that featured a hardened steel core (some sources report a tungsten-carbide core but this seems wrong), Rs stood for "Reizstoff" ("irritant agent") because the projectile also contained a small amount of tear gas, L'spur for "Leuchtspur" ("bright trace" = "tracer") indicating the bullet had a small tracer in its rear. At a typical Vo of slightly over 1,200m/s the projectile penetrated 30mm of steel at a range of 100m and still up to 25mm at 300m (both at 0° slope) and was accepted as the standard anti-tank rifle ammunition to be used by all weapons of that type. The irritant agent in the projectile was a ridiculous idea that envisioned to make the crew of the hit target leave their vehicle or otherwise impair them to a degree of battleunworthiness; however, the tear gas pellet in the projectile was so little that the irritant agent was never noticed by enemy crews; in fact, it wasn't discovered by the allies until after captured ammunition was examined.
Production of the Patrone 318 ran until August 1942; overall, 9.417 Mio. cartridges were produced. Compared to the tank kills the same explanation as that given in connection with the Panzerfaust can be applied: many of these were not shot at tanks but at a variety of other targets.
The cartridge used for the PzB 35(p) was the Panzerbüchsenpatrone P 35 7,92 x 107. It weighed 62.6g which includes the 10.4g of powder; the projectile (which lacked a steel core) weighed 14.5g (other sources: 12.8g). total cartridge length 132mm, case length w/o projectile 107mm. When fired from the PzB 35(p) the projectile had a Vo of 1,275 m/s which equates to an Eo of 11,786 Joule.
The russian tank rifles PTRD-1941 and PTRS-1941, which were also used by the germans as the PzB 783(r) and PzB 784(r) respectively, used the russian M 41 cartridge that was later improved to the heavy machine gun and tank rifle cartridge M 41/44 14.5 x 114. The latter cartridge was also used by the KPV 14.5mm heavy machine gun (which made it a reasonably effective AT weapon against lightly armored vehicles) towards the end of the war. The cartridge is still in production today as a heavy machine gun ammunition. It has a caliber of 14.5mm; different projectiles were available ranging from the armor-piercing steel core to armor piercing incediary and explosive projectiles. The armor-piercing projectile weighed 63.4g, the whole cartridge weighs 198.5g incl. 28.8g of powder charge. Total length of the cartridge is 155.5mm; at a typical Vo of 1000m/s this ammunition has an initial energy of 31,700 Joule. It penetrated 40mm of armor at 100m; 35mm at 300m; 30mm at 500m; an AT rifle with this ammunition could still penetrate a light AFV's armor of 15mm at ranges of 1.5km, if the gunner was able to hit a lightly armored target at that distance....