What if improved rifle grenades instead of Panzerfausts

  • Thread starter Deleted member 1487
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My $.02 worth...

With the benefit of hindsight a "bullet trap" AT rifle grenade that was at least capable of penetrating the side armour of typical AFV's would would have been useful. I seem to recall reading part of the initial impetus for the development of the bazooka in the U.S. came from a belief that effective AT rifle grenades were to heavy to be fired from rifles so truly effective rifle fired AT grenades may not have been viable (or at least were not perceived to be viable ?) with WW 2 technology ?

Giving every rifleman a basic AT capability that didn't require changing from ball ammo to special "grenade launching blanks" probably would have lead to a modest increase in tank losses in my view. I doubt the course of the war would have been changed.

I'm having trouble reconciling a bullet trap grenade and a HEAT warhead from an overall length and stability perspective. I would think you might be stuck with a blank cartridge motivator...someone with the requisite knowledge want to weigh in?
 
Article IDs round as "late 70s" work, got anything more contemporaneous with the thread time line?
Not trying to be difficult here, but, why would anyone go through all the crap that a blank cartridge launcher entails, if a Bullet trap launcher was a viable option? Suggests to me that there's something, some obstacle, in the way in the late 30s and early 40s, or various army's infantry would be popping light tanks like targets in a carny shooting gallery during the early war years.
 

Redbeard

Banned
The availability of a reliable and effective AT weapon at squad level IMHO was a game changer in warfare. The effect of the tank already had been diminished by tactics like deploying for defence in hedgehog formations but after the Panzerfaust the tank really couldn't afford to close on infantry, at least not without a strong infantry escort.

In that context having a squad AT weapon years before will have to be significant, but were there really that many pre-Panzerfaust incidents of allied (Soviet) tank attacks that would have been defeated by earlier AT weapons? I come to think of the Soviets attack that cut off Stalingrad, but IIRC that was mainly against Rumanians. Or how about Bagration?

Anyway I think the downside of rifle grenades is a heavy recoil. My father in his servicedays used the Energa, and he hated it - it kicked like a horse! OTH you can use it in confined spaces, that could be handy in urban combat.
 

Deleted member 1487

Article IDs round as "late 70s" work, got anything more contemporaneous with the thread time line?
Not trying to be difficult here, but, why would anyone go through all the crap that a blank cartridge launcher entails, if a Bullet trap launcher was a viable option? Suggests to me that there's something, some obstacle, in the way in the late 30s and early 40s, or various army's infantry would be popping light tanks like targets in a carny shooting gallery during the early war years.
Good question, I don't really know considering the French invented them in WW1:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rifle_grenade#.22Shoot-through.22_type

This was a French rifle grenade from the mid-1950s:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APAV40

Usually it is more a fear of the novel and military conservativism around some issue like the fear of the bullet detonating the explosives, rather than actual danger.

The availability of a reliable and effective AT weapon at squad level IMHO was a game changer in warfare. The effect of the tank already had been diminished by tactics like deploying for defence in hedgehog formations but after the Panzerfaust the tank really couldn't afford to close on infantry, at least not without a strong infantry escort.

In that context having a squad AT weapon years before will have to be significant, but were there really that many pre-Panzerfaust incidents of allied (Soviet) tank attacks that would have been defeated by earlier AT weapons? I come to think of the Soviets attack that cut off Stalingrad, but IIRC that was mainly against Rumanians. Or how about Bagration?

Anyway I think the downside of rifle grenades is a heavy recoil. My father in his servicedays used the Energa, and he hated it - it kicked like a horse! OTH you can use it in confined spaces, that could be handy in urban combat.
Speaking tactically yes there were heaps of moments where armor overran infantry formations that couldn't fight back at range or were able to close within a certain range and fire with impunity. Demyansk and the winter fighting of 1941-42 was a prime example of situations where German infantry had to fight with grenade bundles against Soviet armor. But even in places like Normandy an AT rifle grenade would be a perfect weapon to use from cover where they can get close enough (vs. say the Steppe). Urban terrain is also a great use for it as well, as the Israelis apparently found:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIMON_breach_grenade

Yeah the one problem would be shoulder firing for something like the ENERGA, but you can also brace it against something to fire, including say the wall of a trench or a tree. The Japanese would do that to direct fire their knee mortars.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_89_grenade_discharger#Design_and_operation
With its curved support plate, the Type 89 was designed to be placed on the ground or against a log or trunk at a fixed firing angle of 45 degrees. However, since it used a spring-loaded, lanyard-operated firing pin mechanism, in an emergency it could fire grenades or shells at point targets while braced horizontally against a tree or building.

Actually the Poles had an interesting grenade/light mortar weapon that could have been modified to fire a 50mm mortar round:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granatnik_wz._36
 
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