Frag Out! Magazine
Issue link: https://fragout.uberflip.com/i/1150145
ry, but more and more information about the Russian armored solutions reaching the decision-makers. Again, this new knowledge led to a range of major modifications being made to the German grenade launcher and although it was put to operation in 1992, we can say that the weapon reached its "final" form only about 2005 (!) – and this is where the "Polish connection" and the information and equipment acquired from the for- mer Soviet Union in the years 1993–2000 play a part. The Panzerfaust 3 family includes four 'base' variants – the Panzerfaust 3, the Panzerfaust 3T, the Bunkerfaust, and the most advanced Panzer- faust 3IT600. Apart from the solution designed to destroy field bunkers, the existence of as many as three types of AT grenade launchers is a result of the evolution of the weapon. The oldest variant, adopted by Bundeswehr in 1992, is the Panzerfaust 3, with warhead was able to pierce through 800 mm of RHA. One of its best features was an excellent fuse that made it possible to arm the warhead 15 m after the launch, and the warhead could 'perform' correctly even if it hit a plate inclined at an angle of less than 20° against the horizontal. For 1992 standards, this was really something to boast about. Unfortunately, Germans real- ized pretty soon that even such a strong HEAT warhead could not deal effectively with the armor of the sides of a hull shielded with ERA – such conclusions were drawn already at the stage of trials of West German reactive armors and intelligence data on the Soviet 4s20 Kontakt-1 ERA, which became a common feature of Russian since 1984. The solution to the problem was Panzerfaust-3T from 1998, featuring a warhead equipped with a precursor, which was to pierce ERA. It was a so-called non-initiating precursor which produced a "granulated" jet of low velocity and density and formed a hole in the ERA without initiating shock of the high-explosive at impact. The solution was highly effective against both western 1st-generation armors such as Blazer or BRENUS and the Soviet Kontakt 1. Yet again, the results of the trials of the captured equipment brought an unpleasant surprise. The captured T-80Us (Object 219AS) turned out to have a much stronger armor on the front of the turret and the hull than engineers assumed. Plus, the front plate shielding the ERA module featured over 25 mm of hardened steel, which combined with its inclination angle resulted in a resistance of approx. 65 mm of steel, which affected the performance of the precursor to a great extent. It also appeared that Kontakt-5 was much more resistant to piercing than the designers of the PzF-3T expected. The trials of the Panzerfaust-3T and of the prototypes of the PzF-3IT600 tested against a Polish ERAWA-2 did not instill optimism in Germans either. And this was the challenge the ERAWA-2 had to face in May 2000. It involved both static and dynam- ic trials performed at 15° and 30° against the surface of the tiles (or: 75° and 60° against the vertical). The trials produced no decisive results on the one hand, but proved that the Polish solution performed really well on the other. A PzF-3T warhead preceded by a precursor forming a low-density shaped charge jet perforated the ERAWA-2 tile effectively each time, but the tile offered a protective capacity of approx. 50%. To put it in different words – a PzG-3T warhead set at an angle of 30° was able to pierce through not 800 mm but only about 400 mm of armor after it got through the ERA. The trials involved also testing of a prototype warhead used with the Panzerfaust 3IT600, which featured a range of improvements – but it appeared that even when it got through ERAWA-2, it managed to pierce only about 450 mm of armor. This meant that there was still no way to fight enemy vehicles from front – which was the idea of the designers of the Panzerfaust-3. As a result, the German weapon got to be improved once again – this time with a HEAT warhead creat- ing a so-called high-speed shaped charge jet of a velocity of not 6–7 km/s but 10–12 km/s. The warhead is a challengefor reactive armors www.fragoutmag.com