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Though it has its roots in fighting the Soviets in World War II,
the Panzerfaust 3 antitank rocket is now being used against the Russians again — in Ukraine.
Though the Russian Army was once vaunted as the second-best military in the modern world,
the greatly underestimated Ukrainian military has showed it up again and again, seemingly with only
national pluck and a hodgepodge of donated weapons from sympathetic Western countries.
Among the borrowed Ukrainian arsenal, the Panzerfaust 3 has made an impressive showing
against Russian armored columns. What is this shoulder-fired antitank rocket,
where did it come from, and why is it striking fear into Vladimir Putin‘s soldiers?
THE PANZERFAUST ORIGINATED IN WORLD WAR II
In 1943, with a resurgent Soviet army advancing on the Third Reich behind a phalanx of first-class
tanks being produced in numbers that Germany has no hope of matching, Germany developed a small,
simple, easy-to-use antitank weapon that could turn any wielder into a tank killer.
Called the Panzerfaust (“armor fist”), it was essentially a tube that launched
a rocket-propelled grenade with a shaped charge capable of penetrating armor at
ranges up to 200 feet. The launching tube could be reloaded if extra warheads were available,
but inexpensive enough to be discarded if they were not.
Distributed among soldiers and, as of Oct. 18, 1944, to hastily trained elders and children of
the Volkssturm (“people’s storm,” Nazi Germany’s last-ditch national militia), the Panzerfaust
required extraordinary courage to operate at its effective range and was not reliable enough to
save the Reich from its ultimate doom on May 8 (or May 9, depending on who you ask) the next year.
IT BECAME A COLD WAR STAPLE
It was, however, effective enough for postwar armies on either side of the Iron Curtain
to make improvements to its basic design. That includes the current German Bundeswehr
(Federal Armed Forces) in the form of the Panzerfaust 3. After entering combat
in Afghanistan with the Bundeswehr, the new generation of Panzerfausts is again
battling Russian tanks … except that the people wielding the antitank weapons are Ukrainian.
In response to a 1973 order for a more powerful, accurate semi-disposable weapon to replace the
World War II-vintage PzF-44, capable of engaging the latest generation of Russian T-72 and T-80
tanks, the Dynomit Nobel Allgemeine Gesellschaft worked on this latest version of the antitank
rocket from 1978 to 1995, though the Panzerfaust 3 was accepted by the Bundeswehr in 1992.
THE MODERN PANZERFAUST 3 IS A TANK-KILLING MACHINE
It has since undergone technical upgrades to keep up with improvements in tanks,
especially the Panzerfaust 3-T, which uses a dual hollow-charge tandem warhead, with a spike
on the front of the warhead that can set off reactive armor and in so doing free a path for
the main charge to reach and penetrate up to 31.5 inches of steel armor. As a further improvement,
the Panzerfaust 3-IT600 gets its designation from the user’s ability to engage enemy armored
vehicles at up to 600 meters by using a Simrad Optonics sighting-and-targeting mechanism.
Once fired, the warhead is sent on its way by a spring, but after about 16.5 feet,
the rocket motor ignites and the safety disengages,
allowing the warhead to explode on contact with its target. The warhead also contains plastic
granulate that works on the recoilless countermass principle to virtually eliminate backblast.
The Panzerfaust 3-IT600 is 3 feet, 11 inches long, and weighs 34 pounds, 6 ounces, of which 8 pounds,
10 ounces is the 110mm-diameter (4.3-inch diameter) warhead with Amatol/Sindal high
explosive. Up to 29 pounds, 5 ounces of spare rounds can be carried by the operator.
With a muzzle velocity of 499 feet per second, the warhead has a maximum effective range of
1,312 feet on a stationary target and 1,968.5 feet against a moving target. The minimum effective
range (without the debris of an exploding target endangering the user) is 65.6 feet.
CAN A PANZERFAUST 3 TAKE ON A RUSSIAN T-90?
These capabilities pale beside the 125mm (4.9-inch) main gun with a 1.86-mile range
on Russia’s latest main battle tank, the T-90, on an open battlefield. As with the original PzF-44,
however, Panzerfaust 3 operated on uneven ground, in forested areas or in urban
environments by trained, motivated troops can be every bit as deadly as designed.
Once under full production, the original Panzerfaust 3 cost $9,994,
but the IT-600 version costs $11,108 apiece because of its computerized sight.
A standard antitank round costs $297, but there is also a Bunkerfaust (“bunker fist”)
round for use against static enemy positions. That costs $202.
As of 2003, 261,718 Panzerfaust 3s have been produced. In 1989,
Japan became the first foreign power to purchase the weapon, followed by Switzerland in 1991.
Since then, it has also entered the arsenals of Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, Peru, South Korea
Iraq, and Mauritius. Ukraine added its name to that list when Russian forces invaded it in
February 2022 and a variety of sympathetic Western powers began supplying weapons — including the
Panzerfaust 3 — to bolster Ukraine’s defenses. Thus far, the Ukrainians have been putting them
to very good use, much to the expense of a growing number of Russian armor crews.
It is no secret that the West has supplied Ukraine with various anti-tank and anti-armor weapon
systems that have helped them fend off Russian tanks. The more well-known are the Javelins
the US donated and the NLAWs that the British Government also gave the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
However, there’s another anti-tank weapon that has not been getting the recognition it deserves,
and that is the German-made tank killer, the Panzerfaust 3.
The Netherlands, with Germany’s approval, donated some 400 Panzerfaust 3 rocket-propelled grenade
launchers to Ukraine in an attempt to aid the Ukrainian defensive efforts.
VARIANTS INCREASED RANGE AND DESTRUCTION
Many Panzerfaust 3 variants have been produced over the decades, the first being the PzF 3-T.
Developed during the late 1990s, it was a vast improvement on the original. It introduced the
dual hollow charge 3-T tandem HEAT warhead, which included an explosive charge in its spike. This
pierced explosive reactive armor (ERA), allowing a second warhead to damage a tank’s primary armor.
As with the original PzF 3, it was most effective at 300 meters against moving
targets and at 400 meters against stationary ones.
The PzF 3-T was followed by other variants. Of the most effective were the PzF 3-T600
and the PzF 3-IT, the latter of which could defeat heavily-armored tanks with ERA.
Its newest variant, the PzF 3-IT600, can travel up to 600 meters thanks to
its Dynarange fire control unit, which assists with sighting and targeting.
Other notable variants are the PzF 3LR, with a range of 800 meters and
the ability to penetrate 700 mm of armor, and the Bunkerfaust, an anti-structure
version designed for urban combat. It uses a 106 mm tandem High Explosive Dual Purpose
(HEDP) rocket that can break through buildings, field fortifications, bunkers, and pillboxes.
THE PANZERFAUST 3 IN SERVICE
The Panzerfaust 3 entered service in 1987 with the Bundeswehr.
However, the Germans didn’t officially adopt the weapon until 1992. In 1989,
Japan became its first international customer, followed by Switzerland two years later.
Today, the PzF 3 is operated by at least 11 countries,
including South Korea, Peru, Austria, Iraq, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Italy, and
Mauritius. US Special Forces tested the weapon, but the decision was made to not pursue it.
After its development during the Cold War, the PzF 3 continued to see service,
with armies using it during the Iraqi Civil War, the War in Afghanistan, the Syrian Civil War,
and, most recently, the Russo-Ukrainian War. As of 2022, the German government had
authorized the Netherlands to supply the Ukrainian military with weapons.