Most effective portable anti-tank weapon of WWII ?

Yes they did, with an average of 7 kills per ATR crew.

 

Can you imagine the pounding that the user of an automatic ATG would take?!!!

Go out and fire a few hundred rounds from an M1 and you will hurt! I'm out on the ATG!

Give me my panzerfaust!

 

Give me my Panzerschreck, undoubtedly the most powerful Infantry AT weapon. Not the best though I'm pretty sure.

 

The Panzerfaust had a higher penetration than the Panzerschrek.

 

but you would have to get so close to your enemy with the panzerfaust...it excelled in street to street fighting as you could sit in a pile of rubble or a house and wait for the tank to roll past..then fire and leg it...so other than in ambushes it wasnt really all that good...

 

Wouldn't it have been more effective if used with Blitzkrieg style, with the infantry and armor encircling strong points? Because then you could just run behind any tanks, and eliminate the problems of short range.

 

With the Piat there was no back blast or vapour trail for anyone to spot.

A Bazooka or anything that did fire a rocket could be back traced due to the propellent trail.

I have no idea about the firing mechanisms of the German one shots?

 

The Panzerschrek was based on the Bazooka, and they kicked up a lot more dust and debris than the Bazooka.

 

Cheers for that, I guess the user of this would have to pray for a dust storm to cover his location.

 

Thats why they called it the Stovepipe, so much stuff came out.

 

Yes, well that sounds pretty obvious as the bazooka was 2.53" while the Panzerschreck was 88mm. But what I meant was that it is both powerful and has a good range.

All I ever heard about the PIAT was that it was primitive, heavy and unreliable.

 

The Panzerschrek was certainly more powerful than the Bazooka, but it could burn the skin of the guy who fired it.

The PIAT was indeed primitive in the sense that it used a spring to fire the projectile. And it was unreliable in the sense that the spring sometimes failed to recock. It would then take two men to recock it manually. But it could knock out practically any German tank when it worked as it was supposed to.

 

Zhukov_2003:

97 would indicate 1937.

Give my vote for best infantry anti-tank weapon to the Panzerfaust. The late war (1944) versions could penetrate 200mm of armor with a range of 150m, although the original 1943 version only had a range of 30m. It was a recoiless weapon using a black powder charge to propel the warhead. They were fire and discard weapons, cheap, easy to use and very effective. Weight, which is obviously very important for a man carried weapon, was 5.22kg.
The only stats I've seen on the PIAT says the armor penetration was 75mm with an effective range of 91m. The firing mechanism on the PIAT was supposed to use the firing reaction to re-cock the weapon, but apparently this rarely worked. Manual re-cocking of the spring was so difficult it had to be done standing up to get enough leverage. Weight was 14.52kg.
The 60mm bazooka warhead could penetrate up to 120mm of armor, with an effective range of around 125m (max range was over 600m). It was alos provided with effective HE and white phosphorus rounds. Weight was 5.98 kg.
The 88mm Panzerschrek could penetrate 100-150mm of armor and had an effective range of 150m, although as stated there was a dangerous back blast caused by the rocket continuing to burn after leaving the launch tube. This was much less a problem for the bazooka since the rocket burn took place in the launch tube. Weight was 9.5kg.

 

Nice posts.

 

I was close.

Yes that was quite a problem in the heat of battle, but if you use it right, you will not have a problem with it. Other than the spring, it was a good weapon that could easily take out most German tanks and could disable the bigger ones with ease.

This weapon was designed for defense, it was cheap and disposeable, which is great for defense, but in an offensive it is just money wasted. Plus this weapon was designed when Germany was on the defensive so they really had no chance to use it in an offensive other than the Battle of the Bulge.

 

I agree completely. It was nearly idiot proof and rarely didn't kill what it hit.

In my 35 years of reading WW II literature, I've rarely heard much praise for the PIAT. My understanding is that rarely was a hit achieved at more than 25 yds (20 meters?) with this thing, assuming that the spring mechanism worked at all.

 

Contrary to popular belief the Germans undertook series of counterattacks in the later stage of the war; the Bulge was simply the biggest. There was the battle of Lake Balaton in Hungary, operation Nordwind in the Alsace, and numerous other minor operations.

 

I stand corrected Roel. Do you have any info on these counter offensives? Sounds interesting.

 

but the battle of the bulge was the very last offensive attempted by the germans in the west wasnt it?

 

Yes!