Panzerschreck was the popular name for the Raketenpanzerbüchse 54 ("Rocket Anti-armor Rifle Model 54", abbreviated to RPzB 54), an 88 mm reusable anti-tank rocket launcher developed by Germany in World War II. The Panzerschreck was designed as a lightweight infantry anti-tank weapon and was an enlarged copy of the American Bazooka that was first encountered in Tunisia in late 1942. The weapon was shoulder-fired and launched a fin-stabilized rocket with a shaped-charge warhead.
The warhead could penetrate approximately 9 inches of steel armor perpendicular to the impact, meaning that the Stuart tanks shown here with a maximum armor thickness of less than 1.5 inches would have been no match. The effective firing range was about 150 meters.
At 0:14 we can see that one of the knocked out tanks is fitted with "hedgerow cutters". In the summer of 1944, during the Battle of Normandy, Allied forces had become bogged down fighting the Germans in the difficult Normandy bocage terrain. This landscape of thick, banked dirt and rock walls covered with trees and hedges proved difficult for tanks to breach.
In an effort to restore battlefield mobility, various devices were conjured up to allow tanks to navigate the terrain. Initially the devices were manufactured in Normandy, largely from German steel-beam beach defensive devices on an ad hoc basis. This tank belonged to the 747th Tank Battalion that was one of the first units to work on the idea. Manufacture was then shifted to the United Kingdom, and vehicles were modified before being shipped to France.
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