German wire-guided anti-tank missile ?

Just one more quote from Mr.Ganders book before I write him and ask for a refund :

"At one time it was supposed that the X-7 remained at the experimental stage but subsequent findings indicate otherwise. Although much of its history was lost in the chaos following the demise of the Third Reich, it now appears that a pre-production batch was sent to the target-rich Eastern Front for operational testing starting in January 1945. The size of this batch has not been found recorded but is generally accepted as being of the order of "some hundreds". Unfortunately the results of the trials do not appear to have survived. It is known that wire guidance was not the only method investigated for X-7 flight control. Trials were carried out with a system known as Steinbock involving automatic infra-red homing. Other systems tried included Pfeifenkopf and Pinsel, both using rudimentary video imaging to produce optical contrasts between target and background."

The X-7 Rotkäppchen was according to Terry Gander a wire-guided, rocket-propelled missile developed by the Ruhrstahl Presswerke AG for use against tanks.

There are some very intriguing claims presented in this quote, but are there any substance to them ?

 

LoL, Rotkäppchen, that's little Red Ridinghood.

As usual with the German secret weapons, this thing sounds incredibly advanced and incredibly unnecessary. The Germans already had the best AT guns!

 

God bless google...

http://www.geocities.com/Augusta/8172/panzerfaust12.htm

(and a simple search on X-7 Rotkäppchen throws up loads!)

Basic consensus, though, is that it is unknown whether the X-7 was used or not.

 

What weapon didn't the Germans begin developing/use/pave the way for???

 

Did they invent the pistol, that when pointed at the enemy and fired the round actually went toward the one pulling the trigger? :kill:

 

More or less. Starting the war more than backfired on them.

 

I´ve looked around a bit, and it seems to be correct that the X-7 was tested with both an infra-red targeting system as well as a video / optical system. However, no other source I´ve seen mention any useage of this weapon in action. So, the big question is if there is any thruth at all to Terry Ganders claim about the batch sent to the Eastern Front for combat evaluation, or if this claim can be filed together with the M6 TD only used for training and the Panzerjäger / Jagdpanzer concept.

 

Well, a batch was prepared to be sent / was supposed to be sent.
But no records beyond that exist.

Make up your own mind!

 

I found an excellent account for the X-7 here :

http://www.geocities.com/pizzatest/panzerfaust12.htm#rk