Frag Out! Magazine
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against the shoulder (which deactivated the automatic safety), it was possible to pull the trigger and release the pin, which fired off the car- tridge, and the cartridge initiated the firing of the propellant of the an- ti-tank grenade. Originally, the PzF 44 was a recoilless gun which ejected counter-mass when the grenade was launched. The solution described above was not very user-friendly and criticized as such – that's why the weapon was quickly modernized and since 1973 featured a lower-caliber grenade (offering a greater penetration potential) propelled by means of a combined solution – a recoilless launch from the barrel and a rocket booster. As a result, the weapon became a kind of equivalent to the Sovi- et RPG-2 – and even resembled it in terms of appearance. The later version of the PzF 44 measured 880 mm in length and weighed 7.8 kg. The DM32 shaped charge grenade weighed 1.5 kg and could pierce up to 370 mm of steel, and the declared range of firing at moving targets was 300 m, but in reality, it was half of that values. The life-span of the launcher was declared to amount to 2,000 rounds. The effectiveness of the German grenade launcher did not lag much be- hind other weapons of such type used in the 1960s and 1970s. In the case of firing at vehicles with monolithic steel armor, such as the T-62 or the T-55, the warhead was enough to penetrate the armor subject to the same reservations as those concerning its predecessor from the WW2 era. And that's how Germans perceived its effectiveness. The problem started when NATO got to learn new facts about the new generation of Soviet tanks from the 1970s – the T-64A, the T-80, and the T-72A. The knowledge about e.g. their armor was incomplete to a great extent, but the shortage of information was soon replenished. It appears that the NATO intelligence, especially from United Kingdom, knew quite a lot about Soviet tanks. Everything thanks to some incredible feats pulled off by the UK and US intelligence during over 30 years of the United States Military Liaison Mission (USMLM) and BRIXMIS operations, i.e. missions of official military observers who watched the 'maneuvers' performed by Warsaw Pact and Soviet Union – lawfully, acting within the scope of al- most diplomatic-like immunity. In reality, intelligence officers pretending to be USMLM and BRIXMIS observers were engaged in acquiring critical data concerning Soviet military solutions, often as part of extraordinary spy operations. Two most remarkable such operations took place in 1981 and 1984. In 1981, three British agents stole a complete specifications of the T-64A from Soviet barracks in Neustrelitz. In 1984, in turn, the Ameri- cans engaged in the USMLM project took advantage of the relaxed mood during New Year's Eve and managed to get inside a complex of tank depots and spent well over a dozen hours photographing T-64Bs, their technical specs, measuring and removing some minor equipment parts, and sampling the armor (!). There had been some earlier successful oper- ations too, which made it possible to learn quite a lot about the T-72. The conclusions drawn from the incoming information were far from optimis- tic – the PzF 44 was virtually unable to pierce through the non-monolith- ic armor of the front of the hull and the turret. The only parts sensitive to attacks were the front bottom plate of the hull (although hitting it on a typical battlefield verged on the miraculous) and the rear and sides of the hull – provided that they got hit at right angles to their surface. Another thing was the difference between the Soviet and the NATO battle doc- trine. Even today many scratch their heads thinking how Soviets could leave the sides of turrets and hulls of T-64A/Bs, T-80Bs, T-72As (and their predecessors) virtually unscreened. The sturdy armor protecting the tur- ret and the hull contrasted strongly with the seemingly poorly protected sides of the then-latest Soviet tanks. The problem is that nothing was left to chance. According to the 1960-1970s doctrine, battlefield was to considered NBC (nuclear, biological, and chemical) site. The main asset www.fragoutmag.com