0:02 With over 8 million panza produced,
0:04 Germany flooded the battlefield with one
0:06 of the most effective anti-tank weapons
0:08 of the war. But by the time they were
0:09 handed out in ruined cities to anyone
0:12 between 16 and 60, their use had turned
0:13 into something darker than the war
0:15 itself. You've seen this weapon in the
0:17 movies, but now you'll hear its full story.
0:18 story.
0:20 So, let's start from the very beginning
0:22 on how and why this thing was even
0:25 created. Panzer in German literally
0:27 means armor fist in their creative style
0:29 of naming weapons. Everything began on
0:32 the Eastern front by 1942 when after
0:34 invading the Soviet Union and decimating
0:36 older light BT series of tanks, the
0:38 Germans got a Houston, we have a problem
0:41 moment when the T34 and KV1 appeared.
0:43 They were for the time much better armed
0:45 and armored than most German tanks and
0:48 almost invulnerable to most early German
0:50 anti-tank weapons. The first main weapon
0:51 for dealing with armor the Germans had
0:54 was the 37 mm towed anti-tank gun, which
0:56 for its effectiveness got the not so
0:59 encouraging nickname the doorner. This
1:01 gun was also mounted on most of the
1:03 Panza 3es which were supposed to be tank
1:05 killers. While the Panzer 4s and earlier
1:07 twos and ones and self-propelled
1:09 artillery would deal with infantry and
1:11 fortifications. Now, the Germans already
1:13 knew when the war began that rapid
1:15 advancements in armor would surely make
1:17 the 37 mm obsolete, and they were
1:20 already preparing the 50mm anti-tank gun
1:23 and very soon after the 75 mm. But the
1:25 problem was pushing them out in towed
1:27 configuration or replacing the older
1:29 guns on tanks in time. Besides anti-tank
1:32 guns, there were also anti-tank rifles,
1:34 which were somewhat effective at close
1:36 ranges against the light armor found
1:38 early in the war. They were a mass-used,
1:40 cheaper solution than a towed gun,
1:42 something infantry could carry. But now
1:44 they were also very much surpassed as
1:46 ever heavier tanks arrived. The Germans
1:49 also had magnetic anti-tank charges and
1:51 mines for destroying tanks. But they
1:53 were more like lastditch solutions since
1:55 someone had to literally climb onto an
1:57 enemy tank to use them effectively. So
1:59 now the Germans wanted something cheap,
2:02 portable, mass- prodducible, and able to
2:04 give infantry protection against tanks
2:06 at some range beyond point blank. It
2:07 needed to be something they could carry
2:09 with them, use in tight spaces with
2:11 minimal training where cumbersome guns
2:14 couldn't be maneuvered. Very soon, a
2:15 concept of a recoilless launch tube
2:17 firing a shaped charge warhead was
2:19 conceived. Something that would serve as
2:21 a disposable one-shot anti-tank gun.
2:22 They struggled during testing with back
2:24 blast and armor penetration
2:26 effectiveness. But by 1943, they had
2:28 worked out the solution, and the first
2:30 model, the Panserfast 30, was pushed
2:32 into production. The Germans wanted to
2:34 arm the infantry with these as much as
2:37 possible as they faced the ever growing
2:39 threat from Soviet tanks, but also from
2:41 American Shermans, which were ramping up
2:43 their production. So they fielded the
2:45 first panzer, tried it out in combat,
2:47 and the immediate positive results
2:49 spurred an expansion of production lines
2:51 to make as many more as possible. They
2:53 wanted to give every German soldier a
2:55 chance, although not the best one in the
2:57 world, still a chance against enemy
3:00 armor. So now before describing their
3:02 actual use in combat and what they
3:04 immediately did, let's first explain how
3:06 the first one worked because it's quite
3:08 interesting. There isn't much too
3:10 complicated about it. At its core, it
3:12 was a singleshot recoilless launcher
3:14 with a pre-loaded warhead. The
3:16 disposable steel tube was factory-packed
3:18 with black powder propellant, and on top
3:20 of it sat the warhead. When a soldier
3:22 wanted to fire, he would rest the tube
3:24 on his shoulder or under his arm, flip
3:26 up the leaf sight, and squeeze the
3:27 trigger bar. This ignited a small
3:29 primer, then the main propellant charge,
3:31 which launched the warhead forward while
3:33 ejecting the blast out the rear to even
3:35 the recoil. This way, it had almost no
3:37 recoil at all, but it created a vicious
3:38 back blast behind the tube that was
3:40 actually deadly to anyone within about
3:43 10 m directly behind. The red warning
3:46 labels on the tube translated to danger,
3:48 intense fire blast. You definitely
3:50 wouldn't want to fire it from enclosed
3:52 spaces unless it was really necessary
3:53 because you get burned and concussed.
3:56 Now, the warhead itself, as we said, was
3:59 a shaped charge explosive that upon
4:01 hitting enemy armor exploded and focused
4:04 that energy into a hot jet that could go
4:07 through 140 to 200 mm of armor,
4:09 depending on the model, like butter. For
4:12 1943, this was a staggering penetration
4:14 capability that could defeat any tank
4:16 the Allies had at the time, especially
4:18 if hit from the rear or side. However,
4:20 actually hitting the tank was the
4:22 problem because of its extremely short
4:24 range. It was basically almost a point
4:26 blank weapon. Definitely better than
4:28 running up to a tank to place a mine,
4:30 but still giving you only about 30 m if
4:32 you wanted a decent chance to hit
4:33 something. The sights had notches
4:36 calibrated for fixed distances like 30,
4:38 60, and 80 m. But aiming at a moving
4:40 tank while under fire was not the
4:43 easiest thing to do, especially at such
4:45 short distance. However, the weapon's
4:47 lightweight of just 5 to 7 kg meant that
4:49 one soldier could easily carry one or
4:51 two, giving him a means of defense if
4:53 enemy armor approached that close. It
4:55 was a simple and effective weapon, and
4:57 it was about to completely change close
4:59 quarters tank combat, as you're about to
5:01 see. The first batches of Panzafs
5:03 reached German infantry on the Eastern
5:07 Front around September 1943, and they
5:09 arrived just in time. Soviet tank
5:11 brigades were spearheading offensive
5:13 after offensive, and German soldiers
5:15 more than once found themselves overrun
5:18 by tank charges. The weapon immediately
5:20 proved it could knock out T34s, and it
5:22 soon became widespread. It was great for
5:24 defending trenches when tanks
5:26 approached, but the Germans also created
5:28 tank hunter teams, or as they called
5:30 them, panzery commando. These were a few
5:32 soldiers armed with panzerasts who would
5:34 lie in ambush and wait for Soviet tanks
5:36 to turn their vulnerable sides or rear
5:39 toward them. riflemen covered them once
5:40 they fired, giving them a chance to get
5:43 away. It was a very effective tactic
5:45 since a single cheap disposable weapon
5:47 could destroy a whole tank that cost
5:50 money, time, and resources to build,
5:52 train a crew for, and send to the front.
5:53 Although effective, it was everything
5:55 but a safe job to do. And look at this.
5:58 In the final stage of the war, around
6:00 70% of Soviet armor losses were caused
6:02 not by tigers and panthers, not by the
6:05 infamous 88mm guns, but by cheap
6:07 disposable panzer. This was mostly
6:09 because combat had shifted to towns and
6:12 cities and in rubble and narrow streets.
6:13 It was hard to protect tanks from
6:15 ambushes. The panerast was just deadly
6:18 in urban combat. And the allies tried to
6:19 protect their tanks in the same way we
6:21 can see today on modern battlefields
6:24 with so-called cope cages. They welded
6:26 on sheet plates, logs, track links,
6:28 sandbags, even wire mesh and bedframe
6:30 skirts. Anything that would detonate the
6:32 warhead away from the main armor. They
6:34 also avoided sending armor into towns
6:36 without proper infantry support, which
6:38 would follow them through the houses and
6:41 make sure Panzer infantry could not get
6:43 within effective range. American and
6:44 British tankers also resented
6:47 panzafouasts in Normandy after the D-Day
6:49 landings where the bokeh carage terrain
6:51 was just perfect for such ambushes like
6:53 that one you probably remember from the
6:56 movie Fury. Shermans, Churchills and
6:58 tank destroyers were all vulnerable to
7:00 them and crews feared them quite a bit.
7:02 In Normandy, it is estimated that about
7:04 a third of tanks were knocked out by
7:07 panzerasts but also by other interesting
7:09 weapons you are going to hear about. The
7:10 Panzer Foust went through constant
7:13 improvements in both range and lethality
7:14 and the naming scheme followed its
7:16 effective range in meters. Each new
7:18 variant in theory was supposed to hit
7:20 targets that far. The first was the
7:24 Panza 30 called Klene, meaning small. It
7:26 had a 10 cm diameter warhead and an
7:29 effective range of 30 m. Enough to kill
7:31 a T34 from the side, but they quickly
7:34 needed something bigger and better. Then
7:36 came the Panzer Fast 30 Gross, meaning
7:39 big with improvements and a larger 15 cm
7:41 warhead. Range was the same, but
7:43 penetration and explosive power were
7:46 much better, making it a threat even to
7:50 heavy tanks. In 1944 came the Panzaf 60,
7:52 which became the most produced model. It
7:53 had double the range as the name
7:55 suggests, although the warhead remained
7:57 the same. The propellant charge was more
7:59 than doubled, which helped with range
8:02 and accuracy. Millions were made by 1945
8:05 and it was the most widely used version,
8:07 especially deadly in urban combat where
8:08 it was employed in ambushes against
8:11 advancing Allied tanks. But that was not
8:13 the last. The Panzer 100 followed with
8:16 even greater range and a 6 kg warhead
8:19 that could penetrate up to 220 mm of
8:22 armor. Precision at 100 m was more
8:24 wishful thinking than reality, but it
8:26 was more than capable of destroying any
8:28 Allied tank, even with frontal hits.
8:31 This version however mainly saw use in
8:33 lastditch defenses as the Nazi regime
8:35 collapsed and the allies pushed into the
8:37 capital. It was used by civilians and
8:39 the Hitler Yugand anyone desperate
8:41 enough to try to damage the Allied
8:43 effort. None of it was successful enough
8:45 to change the outcome of the war. There
8:48 was also the Panzafoust 150 which was a
8:51 major redesign. It had a sleeker pointed
8:54 warhead, 10.5 cm in diameter instead of
8:56 15, but with improved explosives that
8:59 gave it penetration of up to 300 mm of
9:01 armor. It used a two-stage propellant
9:03 ignition for much higher velocity and
9:05 better precision, extending the
9:07 effective range to 150 m. There was even
9:10 a clip-on fragmentation sleeve that
9:11 could be placed over the charge to turn
9:14 it into an anti-infantry weapon. Upon
9:16 explosion, it would create shrapnel, and
9:18 it was designed with a 3second
9:20 self-destruct fuse, so if the warhead
9:23 missed a tank, it would still detonate.
9:25 In anti-infantry use, it could even act
9:28 as an air burst. About 100,000 of them
9:30 were produced in 1945, but luckily for
9:32 Allied soldiers, they never reached
9:35 regular units as the factory was overrun
9:37 by the Soviets and production was
9:39 stopped. The final version was intended
9:43 to be the Panza 250. This was designed
9:45 as a reloadable launcher instead of a
9:47 disposable oneshot with a pistol grip
9:49 and electrical firing system. Finally
9:52 beginning to resemble the modern RPGs
9:54 that would come later. It fired its
9:56 improved charge faster and would have
9:58 been a highly effective anti-tank weapon
10:00 if its production optimistically planned
10:03 for September 1945
10:05 had ever been realized. However,
10:06 although the Germans did not have the
10:08 chance to make this panzer fast, Soviet
10:10 post-war designers took a close look at
10:13 the concept and four years later in 1949
10:16 introduced the RPG2, a design
10:18 suspiciously similar to the German
10:20 Panzer. We also have to mention other
10:22 German anti-tank weapons because the
10:25 Panzer wasn't the only one. The next
10:27 most important was the Panzer Shrek.
10:30 Panzer Shrek literally meant tank
10:31 terror, which shows how creative they
10:33 were with names, and it was essentially
10:35 Germany's bazooka. They created it after
10:38 examining captured American bazookas.
10:39 And just in the style of German
10:41 engineering, they made it better. It
10:44 fired an 88 mm caliber rocket with a
10:46 larger warhead of about 3 kg of
10:48 explosive capable of penetrating up to
10:51 200 mm of armor, which was the same or
10:53 better than the Panzer Foust. Unlike the
10:56 Panzer Foust, this was a reusable rocket
10:58 launcher with much better range and
11:00 accuracy. But instead of being operated
11:02 by one man, it required a dedicated
11:05 anti-tank team of two, a gunner and a
11:07 loader. It even had a shield on the tube
11:09 to protect the operator's face from the
11:11 powerful back blast created when the
11:13 rocket exited. Troops nicknamed it
11:15 ofenroar, meaning stovepipe. Germans
11:18 used both panzerasts and panzer shreks
11:19 throughout the war. But panzer shrekes
11:21 were more expensive and required a team
11:24 and some training to use effectively.
11:26 Then there was the telmine, a
11:28 dish-shaped metal mine filled with about
11:31 5 kg of TNT, buried under the soil and
11:33 used extensively in defensive belts. In
11:35 desperate situations, soldiers also
11:37 sometimes tried to place them directly
11:40 onto or under tanks during close combat.
11:41 And there was the magnetic mine we
11:43 mentioned earlier, which required
11:44 someone to stick it onto the tank
11:47 directly. The Allies also had similar
11:49 anti-tank weapons of their own, and some
11:51 are worth mentioning because of how
11:53 unique their operation was. The American
11:56 Bazooka was the standard reusable rocket
11:59 launcher. Introduced already in 1942. It
12:02 fired a 60 mm heat rocket and had a
12:04 decent but not impressive penetration of
12:08 about 75 to 100 mm. Effective range was
12:11 much better than the Panza, up to 150
12:13 meters, and it also required a team of
12:16 two. Reliability was a problem since
12:18 early models used a battery to activate
12:20 the rocket's propellant charge, and this
12:22 was sensitive to cold, meaning it
12:24 wouldn't always fire exactly when you
12:26 needed it while aiming at an enemy tank.
12:27 It was also more difficult to use in
12:30 urban combat because of its longer tube.
12:32 The allies actually respected the German
12:34 panserast and its simplicity and
12:36 effectiveness and used them whenever
12:37 they had the chance to capture them.
12:39 Like the Germans, they also used them
12:41 against bunkers, fortifications, and
12:44 even infantry, not just against tanks.
12:45 But the most unique of them was
12:48 definitely the British PT, short for
12:51 project, infantry, anti-tank. Unlike the
12:53 Germans with their flashy names, this
12:55 one was very plain. It was essentially a
12:57 spigot mortar that lobbed a shaped
12:59 charge using a powerful spring. This
13:01 meant no back blast, so it was safe to
13:03 fire from enclosed spaces, and it didn't
13:05 reveal the operator's position like
13:07 Panza Fousts and bazookas did with their
13:09 sparks and clouds of dust. It had
13:11 similar penetration to the American
13:13 bazooka, but its realistically effective
13:16 range was up to only 50 m. The Pat came
13:18 with a heavy recoil from the spring,
13:20 which slammed directly into the
13:22 shooter's shoulder, and it weighed 32
13:25 lb, so it wasn't exactly easy to carry.
13:27 In theory, the recoil should reccock the
13:29 spring after firing, preparing it for
13:32 the next round. So, in theory, the
13:34 operator needed to manually [ __ ] it only
13:36 once. In practice, however, this didn't
13:39 always work. When it failed, a soldier
13:41 had to stand up, place the PIAT
13:44 vertically, and step on the shoulder pad
13:46 while pulling the spring back with both
13:49 arms to reset it. Check confirm if the
13:52 PAT also used a small propellant charge
13:53 in addition to the spring energy to
13:56 launch the bomb. As some sources mention
13:58 both forces working together because of
13:59 these issues, British troops had a
14:02 lovehate relationship with the PYAT. The
14:04 Soviets didn't have their own version of
14:06 what we now know as the RPG during the
14:09 war. They used anti-tank rifles heavily,
14:11 although their effectiveness dropped
14:13 later in the conflict. They also relied
14:15 on more creative and brutal methods like
14:17 Molotov cocktails and satchel charges.
14:19 Like the Western Allies, they loved
14:22 using captured German panerasts whenever
14:24 they could. They did experiment with the
14:26 RPG one, but it came too late to see
14:29 action. Allied handheld anti-tank
14:31 weapons never matched the German ones in
14:33 quantity, simplicity, or sheer
14:35 effectiveness. But they didn't really
14:37 need to. They had more tanks anyway,
14:38 while the Germans had to come up with
14:40 ways to give their infantry the best
14:42 fighting chance. Once the war turned
14:43 against them, as the war entered its
14:45 final phase, we come to the darkest use
14:48 of the panzer. They were handed out to
14:50 the folkm, which literally meant
14:52 people's storm militia. This was
14:55 essentially anyone between 16 and 60
14:57 years old who could hold a weapon. They
15:00 were instructed that they were now the
15:02 last line of defense of the Reich. Like
15:04 in Berlin itself during the final
15:06 battle, old men, children, women, anyone
15:08 who had two working hands and could aim
15:11 and fire a panzer was armed and given
15:12 the briefest of instructions on how to
15:14 use it against Allied armor at their
15:17 doorsteps. Many of them died in
15:18 desperate attempts, but many others
15:20 accounted for a significant number of
