(03) German War Film: Men Against Tanks 3 of 3

-------Subscribe to EXCELLENT World War II movies-------Männer gegen PanzerGerman propaganda film detailing how German troops destroy Soviet armor with a Varity of weapons. Amour without proper infantry support are easy targets for well trained infantry with an iron nerve. German infantry deployed several simple and innovative anti-tank weapons. Although the German forces like any other, especially the Soviet forces made up their own ad-hoc Molotov weapons of glass bottles filled with flammable liquids, the Germans also standardized this weapon and factory - mass-produced them in large quantities.The first such weapon was the Brandflasche ("flame/incendiary bottle"). It was a glass bottle that was 25cm high and had a diameter of 7cm. It was filled with one third of the same flaming liquid that was also used by the flamethrowers and called Flammöl ("flame oil") and two thirds gasoline.The other Molotov - weapon was the Brandhandgranate 48/57 ("flame/incendiary hand grenade"). It was a glass container of 10cm height and 8cm diameter. It contained 0.5 liters of a mixture of gasoline fuel and benzole.Several Handgranate 43 warheads could also be combined with a Stielhandgranate to make a large explosive grenade bundle. This combination of one Stielhandgranate 24 with 6 of the same warheads without the stick was very popular and often referred to as the "Geballte Ladung" ("forceful/big charge") by the troops although this designation is rather colloquial and was actually semi-officially in use for an engineer weapon. The complete weapon combination looked like a flower with the grenade stick of the central Stielhandgranate as the stalk and the Hd.Gr.43 warheads surrounding it like petals (see sketch at right). It was often used as an improvised makeshift AT weapon.Small early trials with Panzerhandminen with shaped charges of 300 and 400g did not prove successful. The first usable weapon, the Panzerhandmine 3 or PzHM 3, had a bottle-like shape with a length of 27cm and a diameter of 14cm. Three strong U-magnets were to fix the weapon to steel armor of the tank it was attached onto by daring infantrymen. It carried a shaped charge of 1000g capable of penetrating 130mm of armor. The successor model, the Panzerhandmine 4, was a little bigger and had stronger magnets and an improved penetration performance of 150mm.First use of the PzHM 3 was in the battles at the Wolchow in Russia in May 1942; production and destruction figures are unknown.The Panzerhandminen were succeeded by the larger weapon family of the Hafthohlladung ("attach hollow charge") which were basically enlarged Panzerhandminen. The single important type, the Hafthohlladung 3, had a shaped charge of 1.5kg that could penetrate 140mm of armor, had a diameter of 15cm; with it's three magnets the weapon was 27.5 cm tall. the complete weapon weighed 3kg; the magnets exerted an attachment force of 45 kg. To arm the weapon, the Sprengkapsel 8 ("detonator cap") detonator and the time fuse had to be inserted into the top. The weapon detonated after 7.5 seconds. The first shaped charges of the HHL 3 were hemispherical; later the shaped charge was improved to a more effective tapered / conical shape of 1.7kg resulting in a total weight of now 3.5kg. 553,900 were produced.

Channel: Education
Uploaded: November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am
Author: kingtiger88

Length: 07:39
Rating: 4.88
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Tags: anti-tank  flamethrower  German  II  King  Molotov  Panzer  propaganda  Russia  Russian  Soviet  Tiger  War  World  

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