page_title: Panzerfaust
section_title: Background: Faustpatrone
hierarchical_section_title: Panzerfaust / Background: Faustpatrone
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Panzerfaust 60 und Faustpatrone 30
context_page_description: The Panzerfaust was an inexpensive, single shot, recoilless German anti-tank weapon of World War II. It consisted of a small, disposable pre-loaded launch tube firing a high-explosive anti-tank warhead, and was intended to be operated by a single soldier. The Panzerfaust's direct ancestor was the similar, smaller-warhead Faustpatrone ordnance device. The Panzerfaust was in use from 1943 until the end of the war.
  The weapon's concepts played an important part in the development of the later Russian RPG weapon systems such as the RPG-2. Most notably, the RPG-7 added a sustainer rocket motor to the projectile.
context_section_description: A forerunner of the Panzerfaust was the Faustpatrone (literally "fist cartridge").
  The Faustpatrone was much smaller in physical appearance than the better known Panzerfaust. Development of the Faustpatrone started in the summer of 1942 at the German company Hugo Schneider AG (HASAG) with the development of a smaller prototype called Gretchen ("little Greta") by a team headed by Dr. Heinrich Langweiler in Leipzig. The basic concept was that of a recoilless gun; in the Faustpatrone and the Panzerfaust a propellent charge pushed the warhead out the front of the tube while the blast also exited the rear of the tube balancing forces and therefore there was no recoil force for the operator.
  The following weapon, the Faustpatrone klein, 30 m ("small fist-cartridge") weighed 3.2 kg (7.1 lb) and a total length of 98.5 cm (38¾ in); its projectile had a length of 36 cm (14¼ in). The 10 cm (3.9 in) diameter of warhead was a shaped charge of 400 g (14 oz) of a 50:50 mix of TNT and tri-hexogen. The propellant was of 54 g (1.9 oz,  830 grains) of black powder, the metal launch tube had a length of 80 cm (31½ in) and a diameter of 3.3 cm (1.3 in) (early models reportedly 2.8 cm (1.1 in)). Fitted to the warhead was a wooden shaft with folded stabilizing fins (made of 0.25 mm (0.01 in) thick spring metal). These bent blades straightened into position by themselves as soon as they left the launch tube. The warhead was accelerated to a speed of 28 m/s (92 ft/s), had a range of about 30 m (100 ft) and an armor penetration of up to 140 mm (5½ in) of plain steel.
   Soon a crude aiming device similar to the one used by the Panzerfaust was added to the design; it was fixed at a range of 30 m (100 ft).  Several designations of this weapon were in use, amongst which Faustpatrone 1 or Panzerfaust 30 klein; however, it was common to refer to this weapon simply as the Faustpatrone. Of the earlier model, 20,000 were ordered and the first 500 Faustpatronen were delivered by the manufacturer, HASAG, Werk Schlieben, in August 1943.
caption: Faustpatrone 30 (top) and Panzerfaust 60 (bottom)
exif: {}