Anti - tank grenade An anti - tank grenade is a specialized explosive device to defeat heavily armored targets . History . The first anti - tank grenades were improvised devices . The Germans were the first during World War One to come up with an improvised anti - tank grenade , taking their stick ( " potato masher " ) grenade and taping two to three more of the explosive heads without the sticks to create one complete grenade . In combat , after arming , the grenade was thrown on top of the slowly advancing tank where the armor was thin . During World War Two , various nations made improvised antitank grenades by putting a number of defensive high explosive grenades into a sandbag . Due to their weight , these were normally thrown from very close range or directly placed in vulnerable spots onto an enemy vehicle . Another method used by the British Home Guard in 1940 was to place dynamite or some other high explosive in a thick sock and cover the lower part with axle grease and then place the grease covered part in a suitable size tin can . The antitank sock was pulled out , the fuse lit and the sock thrown against the side of the tank turret in the hope it would stick until the explosion . If successful , it caused internal spalling of the armor plate , killing or injuring the tank crew inside . It is not known if this type of improvised anti - tank grenade was ever successfully employed in combat . By late 1940 , the British had brought into production a purpose - built adhesive anti - tank grenade - known as the " Sticky bomb . " When tanks overran entrenchments , hand grenades could be , and were , used by infantry as improvised anti - tank mine s by placing or throwing them in the path of a tank in the hope of disabling a track . While this method was used in desperation , it usually proved more dangerous to the soldier on the ground than to the crew of the tank . Purpose - designed anti - tank grenades generally use the shaped charge principle to penetrate tank armor , although the squash head concept is also used . In military terminology , warheads employing shape charges are called " high explosive anti - tank " ( HEAT ) warheads . Because of the way shaped charges function , the grenade must hit the vehicle at an exact right angle for the effect to work most efficiently . The grenade facilitates this by deploying a small drogue parachute or fabric streamer s after being thrown . Britain put the first anti - tank grenade into the field during the Second World War in late 1940 with the No 68 AT Grenade , which was one of the first " any " type anti - tank weapons of the shape charge or HEAT type . The No 68 was fired from a rifle using the Mills grenade cup launcher . The Type 68 had a penetration of 50 mm of armor plating , which was astonishing for 1940 . Also developed by the UK during the war was the No 74 ST Grenade , popularly known as the " sticky bomb " , in which the main charge was held in a sphere covered in adhesive . In anticipation of a German invasion , the British Army asked for ideas for a simple , easy to use , ready for production and cheap close - in antitank weapon . The ST Grenade was a government sponsored initiative , by , a group tasked with developing weapons for use in German and Italian occupied territory , and they placed the ST Grenade into mass production at Churchill ' s insistence , but seeing how it was operated , the British Army rejected it for the Home Guard much less their regular forces . The No 74 Grenade was later issued to troops as an emergency stop - gap measure against Italian tanks in North Africa , where it proved — to the surprise of many — highly effective . Later in the war , French partisans used the No 74 effectively in sabotage work against German installations . Shortly after the German invasion of Russia in 1941 , the Germans introduced the " Panzerwurfmine ( L ) " , an extremely lethal close - quarter HEAT anti - tank grenade that could destroy the heaviest armored tanks in the war . The grenade was tossed overhand to land atop the tank . After release by the thrower , three spring - out canvas fins stabilized it during its short flight . The Panzerwurfmine ( L ) was lethal , and inexpensive to manufacture , but required considerable skill to throw accurately and was issued only to specially trained infantry tank - killer teams . It did not take long after the Russians captured the German Panzerwurfmine ( L ) to come out with their own hand - thrown anti - tank grenade with a HEAT warhead . In 1940 , they developed a crude antitank grenade that used the simple blast effect of a large high explosive charge , designated RPG - 40 , which was stabilized in flight by a ribbon released after it was thrown . The RPG - 43 ( developed in late 1943 ) was a modified RPG - 40 with a cone liner and a large number of fabric ribbons for flight stabilization after release . In the last year of the war , they introduced the RPG - 6 , a total redesign of the RPG - 43 with an improved kite - tail drogue in the handle and a standoff for the HEAT warhead , drastically increasing both accuracy and penetration , which was reported to be over 100 mm , more than adequate to cause catastrophic damage to any tank if it impacted the top . The Russian RPG - 43 and RPG - 6 were far simpler to use in combat than the German Panzerwurfmine ( L ) and did not require extensive training . After the end of World War Two , many eastern European nations engineered their own versions of the RPG - 6 , such as the East German AZ - 58 - K - 100 . These were manufactured in the tens of thousands and given to ' armies of national liberation ' , seeing combat worldwide , including with the Egyptian Army during 1967 and 1973 . The first Japanese antitank grenade was a hand - thrown grenade , which had a simple 100 mm diameter cone HEAT warhead with a simple " all the way " fuse system in the base . ( If dropped accidentally with the pin removed , it would explode ) . It had what looked like the end of a mop head on the tail end of the warhead . A soldier would remove the antitank grenade from its sack , pull the pin , and throw it gripping the mop - head as the handle . This was dangerous , as there was no arming safety after release and the thrower could strike something in his back swing before release . Penetration was reported only around 50mm . The second Japanese antitank grenade — a suicide weapon — was nicknamed the ' lunge mine ' . This weapon was a very large HEAT warhead on a five - foot stick . The soldier rammed it forward into the tank or other target , which broke a sheer wire that allowed a strike pin to impact a primer and detonate the large HEAT warhead — destroying both soldier and target . While crude , the Japanese lunge mine had six inches ( 150mm ) of penetration , the greatest penetration of any antitank grenades of World War Two . The U . S . Army first encountered the hand - thrown anti - tank grenade in 1944 , in the Philippines ( some believe they were locally manufactured ) . The later suicide ' lunge mine ' first appeared in the U . S . invasion of Saipan and subsequent invasion of Okinawa . Tens of thousands of these crude devices were produced and issued to both regular units and home - guard units on the home islands of Japan before the war ended . In the late 1970s , the U . S . Army was worried about the lack of emergency antitank weapons for issue to its rear area units , to counter isolated enemy armored vehicles infiltrating or being air dropped . When the US Army asked for ideas , engineers at U . S . Army laboratories suggested the reverse - engineered and additional safety improvements of the East German AZ - 58 - K - 100 HEAT antitank grenade that had been obtained from various classified sources . This concept was called " HAG " for " High - explosive Antiarmor Grenade " . While the civilian engineers working for the US Army thought it was a great idea , it was rejected out of hand by almost all senior US Army officers with field experience , who thought it would be more dangerous to the troops who used them than the enemy . The idea was quietly shelved by 1985 . This decision left many rear - area U . S . units with no heavier " antitank weapon " than the M2 heavy machine gun . The most widely distributed anti - tank grenades today are the post World War Two Russian designs of the 1950s and 1960s , mainly the RKG - 3 . Due to improvements in modern tank armor , anti - tank hand grenades are generally considered obsolete . However , in the recent Iraq War , the RKG - 3 anti - tank hand grenade has made a reappearance with Iraqi insurgents who used them primarily against U . S . Humvee s , Stryker s and MRAP s , which lack the heavier armor of tanks . This has in turn led the U . S . to adopt countermeasures such as modifications to MRAP and Stryker vehicles by the fitting of " slate " armor or " bird cage " armor , which causes the antitank grenade to detonate too early .