Panzerfaust card

The Panzerfaust (plural: Panzerfäuste, literally: "gauntlet", "armored fist" or "tank fist") was an inexpensive, recoilless German anti-tank weapon of World War II. It consisted of a small, disposable preloaded recoilless gun (not rocket propelled, as commonly believed) dispatching a shaped charge warhead. It replaced the earlier Faustpatrone in service, and remained until the end of the war in various versions. The Panzerfaust 150 variant was the basis for the development of the Soviet RPG-2 which in turn was developed into the RPG-7.

Development began in 1942 on a larger version of the Faustpatrone. The resulting weapon was the Panzerfaust, a very simple weapon weighing only 5-10 kg. The body was a tube of low-grade steel, around a meter long and 4-6 cm in diameter. Attached to the upper-side of the tube were a simple rear sight and trigger. There was no front sight, the edge of the warhead was used. Inside the tube was a small charge of black powder for propellant. Fitted to the front of the tube by its wooden tail stem and metal fins was an oversized warhead, 15 cm in diameter and weighing 3 kg that contained about 800 grams of explosive.

The Panzerfaust often had warnings written in large red lettering on the upper rear end of the tube, the words usually being "Achtung! Feuerstrahl!" (Beware! Fire Jet!). This was to warn soldiers to avoid the backblast. After firing, the tube was discarded, making the Panzerfaust the first expendable anti-tank weapon. During the last stages of the war, many conscripts were given a Panzerfaust and nothing else, causing several German generals to comment sarcastically that the tubes would then be used as clubs. The weapon was often fired from the crook of the arm and the shaped charge could penetrate up to 200 mm of steel, enough to defeat any contemporary armoured fighting vehicle.