German Infantry Anti-Tank Tactics 1941/1942 

Military History Visualized 2:00 Holy shit, no wonder everybody was afraid of the ogre named, Shrek. He's the literal embodiment of the German term for terror!!!! Thank you for enlightening me. Also, 8:33 What does Super Mario Ostfront mean?

@@anonymousshawn9996 I also think that way... Btw the "Super Mario Ostfront" cuz "Jump" isn't Mario Bros jumping...

You are doing amazing work. Please keep at it.

one thing to note from an american tank hunters handbook it that, supposedly, you could place locallly sourced pots and pans on a road, and take with all its hatches closed cant properly tell if they are mines or just pots and pans. as such, a tank crewman must get out to check, and that tank crewman can be shot. this would, in theory, allow a tank hunter crew down on its supplies to destroy a tank, but would also allow the rear line catering team to deal with a tank

@Gideon Maxwell fuck off spambot

thewiezman what I discovered and what suprised me studying history of WWII closer that for example German Wehrmacht was much less motorized than even now people think in common believe and the frontline was often held by infantry with very few artillery

I had heard this idea from a German AT soldier when using the puny 37mm PAK gun: first you wait for the T34 or the KV1 to get REALLY close; second hit the driver's hatch with an HE shell-the explosion won' t penetrate the armor, but it often would cause the hatch to fly open; NOW the fun part: with the hatch now open, fire another HE round into the tank's interior, where it would detonate, taking out the crew....all I can say is 'ballsy'.

In WW2 MacGyver was a german, obviously.

Maciej Niedzielski their logistic chain was almost entirely dependend on carriages drawn by horses.

Now imagine they actually had all that equipment popculture paints them having.

so thats every russian soldier then

I believe too much vodka make them hit the fast moving infantry by accident instead. Theirs too.

The more the gunner is drunk, the more accurate will be the shot. Now load AP shell and give the gunner some more vodka!

"Super Mario Ostfront"

Mario Malkav O M G... no way Russian tank driver would be alloewed to drink vodka...

lightning strikes twice ;)

u will have to try harder my friend my willingness to learn anything other than the queen's english is niedrig

Wieso niedrig ? Deutsch ist ziemlich einfach.

Weil ich eine verstopfte Europäische Union hasse Brit

also i cant pronounce that

That's why it's called Axis! :p [citation needed]

I tapped out when I saw the green text arrows no thanks

anon nazi soldier attacks a T34

@@wayfarinstranger9962 no one cares

-"We are going to Moscow..." -"You may have my Flak" -"You may have my Pak" -"You may have my Axe !"

That flaming blanket over the tank thing is more a myth than it is a real thing and it originates from WWII with partisans dropping flaming blankets over panzers. No, the tank crew wouldn't think the tank is burning.

_Sky_ I've read something similar about the Greco-Italian war,soldiers would throw blankets at a tankkete's tracks to immobilise them.

Same in 1956 in Budapest. Although they were ultimately defeated, civilian rebels managed to destroy an impressive number of Soviet tanks in the narrow city streets.

@@barcased maybe not but they wont be able to see and if you cant see you cant shoot, or drive, which means they are basically sitting in a metal coffin..

@@mtnbound2764 You can still back up or just continue driving down the road using your memory. Also, tanks have a large number of different optics, and the other crew can just guide the driver. Oh, and the blankets burn fast.

xD

Fury was such a propaganda piece

@@douglasparkinson4123 man his comment is 2 years old

@@MrGOLDENCUPCAKE1 my comment was one month old.

@@douglasparkinson4123 You're both Cringe, but you especially lol

I heard that in the US they sometimes still use WWII german sniper training videos.

Give linkkkkkkkkk!

Darren Simonelli do you have the link to that movies ?

I have not been able to find the US Army version, which was dubbed and edited. The original title is Männer gegen Panzer (Men against tanks) run time approx 27 minutes. There are several version available on RU-vid. Links disappear, but the title can always be searched.

Falkenauge yes and officers in u.s. army infantry used wehrmacht and ss small squad infantry tactics still. I would know i was told this by an infantry officer when in the army.

"Wait… Fritz, did zat bunker just move?" "Nein, and hans, I'm keeping ze schnapps"

not sure about Those [who played as] german troops ,but I'm sure as hell that both writer and director didn't read it !

oh gawd, please don´t remind me. Those were supposed to be like actual competent SS-troopers. At that point in the war, any SS-man not overweight or underage would be a crack veteran. Also how goddamn long it took them to get into cover. Plus they even fucking had Panzerfausts.

Even Kelly's heroes has battles that make more sense, and that was a comedy!

neither did those German troops even use the Panzerfausts that half of them were carrying, once they openend fire on ?Fury it seemed like they forgot they even had them.

My problem with the scene was how come nobody tried to drop a grenade into one of the hatches

(My 3 years old reply...) Reminds me of an angry Soviet chef that captured a German tank and its crew intact with an axe and revolver.

@@artificialintelligence8328 my 4 year old reply Reminds me of mad jack churchhill Hancked open a tank with an umbrella and revolver

Ancestor of the Gordon Freeman

@@niviera7807 ,,Hey guys, Desinc here" *starts flying with supersonic speed*

I guess if you knock out all the view ports and the gun sight, the tank is effectively blind and useless.

We scrwed

*_Aw Blyati_*

Jesper O answer is Russians learnt quickly...

And thy where meant to be elite SS troops 😎

@@Lowlander-ci7is The SS were not elite troops, they were political fanatical troops, just like the Italian blackshirts or the Soviet NKVD units.

hahahahahahahaha lets be honest, good movie, but full of bullshit.

The German soldier at that time in history was the best you could be up against, well trained, all round, the ussr had unlimited manpower, wave after wave, over time it would wear you out, dont forget 27 million died in the ussr, the male population haven't recovered to this day, what ever anyone may say, THAY DEFEATED HITLERS WAR MACHINE THE USSR.

thank you!

Kein Problem! Keep up the great work!

Another good resource is 'Small Unit Actions During the German Campaign in Russia,' Department of the Army pamphlet NO. 20-269, July 1953

@@JayM409 Thanks! I find it interesting that the US Army wisely documented and learned everything it could from the combat experiences of the German Army on the Eastern Front. Many former German field marshals and generals were sought by NATO during the Cold War and acted as advisers and consultants because of their firsthand combat experience dealing with the Soviets.

Well, yes, and vice versa - infantry fire to protect the anti-tank teams. It´s interesting to note that these anti-tank teams were not actual units, but simply men from the platoon who have been designated to the task in case the enemy tanks get close.

Russian infantry are famous for riding their tanks into battle...certainly gave them mutual protection plus mobility! Dangerous as hell but looks really cool....

@@hjorturerlendand interesting that they were so organized, to the degree that they were, though not surprising for Germans......

Oftentimes Soviet tanks would simply stop in order to wait for their infantry to catch up. The Germans would then pick them off. A leftover from WW1 was how in German defense doctrine tanks were viewed as minor threats without supporting infantry which artillery could deal with. (Hence the lack of heavy AT weapons.) Many times the Germans would simply let Soviet tanks run right by them after taking out their supporting infantry. As the combat studies manual eloquently stated these isolated tanks would then be allowed to flounder about like lumbering mechanical beasts and treated more as a nuisance than real threat.

who the hell is bitching about whether or not the nazis were in the wrong?

You forgot the axe. The axe is what makes it easy.

Justin King every army is killing women and children, even the U.S. army is doing it right now. So fuck war...

@@marcmech1 you're implying war is bad?

@@walkergargagliano142 no they are literally stating “fuck war”

It's a step up from the birch log that Finns had to use. :)

+Jim Steele Can you imagine how horrifying it is to realize there's some lunatic climbing on your tank and he seems determined to stop you with axe and grenade?

I wonder if that was George Lucas' inspiration for Luke Skywalker destroying an AT-AT in Empire Strikes Back with his lightsaber and a space grenade.

Obummer Jerry Can with a grenade attached to it haha

+Jim Steele Closer you are to danger, the further you are from harm!

Now say it 3x, fast.....

Well . there is the whole late war magnetic HEAT mine , run up to the tank and attach it. In 1944

Wow, and I thought the Romanian team that got a pak 36 within 10 meters of a T-34 had balls (they didn't trust it to penetrate at longer ranges)

@@alex_zetsu even at 10m it wasn't sure thing

@Hugo Holesch the quip is kind of dumb, i agree, but man I laughed so hard when Woody said that in the movie. It was just so unexpected :D

Hm... why not just shallowly bury a mine and let it do its work the way it was designed? I promise you, it will do more damage this way than being buried deeper than necessary.

Bird_Dog Or, you know, bury a 150mm HE shell or two next to a normal AT mine and you just killed everything

because this way, it is harder to detect with a magnet detector and it will leave a roadblock in form of the crater behind... Also, some modern MBTs are known to have survived a mine detonating under the track without even throwing said track. So, in this case, the deeply burried mine would actualy do more damage.

Bird_Dog you seriously underestimated the power of an 150ish HE round.....

Graff Zitel I actualy answerd to Apocalyptic Knights. Also, the M197 155mm artillery shell contains about 5.7kg of explosive filler. Some AT-Blastmines like the Panzermine 60 contain similar amounts or even more.

That would take balls....

Some kids from the 12th SS Hitlerjugend Division actually did suicide attacks on tanks. They would lie down and wait for the tank to move over them, detonating a grenade or a mine under it. That is a whole another level.

TENNOHEIKABANZAI

@@jirkazalabak1514 That's some fucked up shit... couldn't even imagine watching someone do that let alone doing that. That's a whole new level of brain washed.

@@redchickenproduction You're gonna have fun seeing all the suicide weapons and tactics the Japanese devised as their conventional weapons grew obsolete and their industry could not churn out necessary upgrades.

Artificial Intelligence lol nah homie even Japanese suicide attacks are nothing compared to The Islamic State Caliphate (ISIS) Martyrdom Operations/Suicide attacks.. The ISIS military command are professional military generals and officers who were apart of the saddam husseins military and political Inner circle but unlike Saddams military - they now use Suicide tactics as a fundamental element of their strategy and they’ve become so incredibly successful at it - it would be chilling for anyone not used to it or not sympathetic to them to watch.. the hundreds of ISIS official military footage they release regularly and in particular when they’re fighting defensively in a city or village against overwhelming odds and they use suicide attacks in such strategic and organized well thought out ways... they use consistent but relatively few suicide bombers throughout entire battle whenever they see vulnerabilities amidst their regular fighting however when they strategically use waves of suicide bombers is when it becomes clear how much of a nightmare miserable hell on earth it is for anyone to fight ISIS. They first realize their enemy is planning to retake a city from the,, so they clear out first half of the city in order to make themselves seem more defenseless and that they abandoned the town for the forward surveillance teams to see and report back, them their enemies begin to move towards the city without harassment since ISIS want them to come in and are just strengthening their defenses, tunnels, etc etc.. As the enemies finally begin to reach the city, isis tells the civilians to leave bc of the fighting, civilians leave and are stopped by the soldiers, searched, etc and sometimes will be given food and water and etc by the soldiers - putting strain on their supplies and keeping them both extremely scared of ISIS ambush and attacks but also trying to avoid making the city civilians even more loyal and pro isis than they already are and then when civilians are leaving and being searched by the front of the army force In the city, ISIS send a wave of suicide bombers around to attack the supplies, support, etc, while also sending small units of suicide attackers (not bombers) to just endlessly harass them while in the city they use suicide bombers to attack the soldiers.. You can watch these videos. And they are so capable and sophisticated that they are FOR SURE going to regroup, resupply and return to retake as much of their lost territory and hunt down any civilians and police who helped their enemies lol. Anyways if u want links lemme know

4:00 I thought he said 'fork handles'. There was also a cherry can there somewhere.

Could have sworn he said "Fart Candles" which makes a hilarious kind of sense.

ItsStevieBoy sounds like a bad porn version of The A-Team

Interestingly I had no problems since I was listening and well... obviously knew the context he was talking about. the images also help make it obvious lol. Also I didn't find the way he said it all that off. But I can see how one can be mistaken.

@@neurofiedyamato8763 yeah We are as mindful...

Learning the language? Which one, Arabic, Urdu or Afghani?

Suddenly there are two bunkers!

germanic people have a great sense of humour unless ur the enemy

Na, even then we have. We simply find it amusing to blow the enemy up. I know, I know...not that amusing for the enemy, but still...

REgamesplayer I was looking for this comment. Loved it. :D

ah well the fuck of war mechanic :D

Did the same thing here.

same here

Oh no.Hadedas have finally reached RU-vid. We are doomed.

+goodsous dat necro tho...

We are on your lawns, your roofs, your devices, we are legion. :)

For those who don't know, it a freshly baked baguette (taken from the ovens of a Baguettewerfer) that is tossed somewhere near a B1. The crew smells the fresh baguette and climbs out of the tank, at which point the security team takes them out.

also the smoke team would often use baguette flavoured smoke to maximize their changes of winning

Didn't the Germans also draw up plans to deal with French superheavy tanks by having the smoke teams deploy smoked salmon, as baguettes would have been insufficient against tanks that came with their own baguette ovens?

​@@Oliolli3 The French superheavy tanks weren't of any threat, because they were nothing more than propaganda. Any historian worth their salt could tell you that all of rural France couldn't produce the wheat necessary for it's very borsche-intensive engine, not to mention it's ridiculous weight of 69 Baguette-tonnes. All in all, the Char 2Croissant was of no real threat to the Germans.

I feel like that was mostly propaganda because what else are you gonna tell them, "go take on that incredibly dangerous and destructive tank with an axe", no one would do it, so of course you lie and say "its all bark and no bite, really, heres an axe, go kill it"

the same thing american instructors told their soldiers about the mg42. they quickly learned they were lied to i guess.

It's probably not a very good weapon against infantry at close range. I'm guessing a low top speed, slow rate of fire, limited ammunition and slow rate of turret traverse.

@@jrd33 Seriously, I don't see how people think it's a threat at close range. You could probably be standing directly in front of it and it would still be stuck shooting its machine gun over your head because of how high off the ground it is.

meanwhile in all my play as KV2 *my shoots miss like the 80% of all time and die during the huge reload time*

Don´t think they were issued yet.

well, it wasn't mentioned in the instructions, I assume it was not (widely) available yet and according to Wikipedia it was first used in 1942. I think that guide was written in 1941 early 1942.

I read another contemporary (the same?) German infantry anti-tank manual. A minor difference was that they included the use of single, "plankless", mines attached to two ropes and operated by two soldiers in seperate camouflaged foxholes, essentially Tellermine tug-of-war... They also had a rope attached to the detonator, so they could manually detonate it under the centre of the tank. Oh, and the exploding jerrycan wasn´t included, tho they did advocate dousing tank in gazoline and then lighting it up... Something about these tactics just puts a smile on my face :D

Every Cromwell driver's dream. Unless of course the gun is pointing the Cromwell's way...

Connor Quarmby maybe that's why it is so ugly. whenever you aim at the tank your eyes burn up

Connor Quarmby nuke tank

Well, the historical KV2 shouldn't fire the gun if the turret was turned completely to the left or right because it was at risk to simply fall on the side or rock so hard the crew could be injured. And in reality the german tanks moved too fast for the KV2 crew to aquire the target properly. For infantry, most KV2 drove into battle with an bunker buster armor piercing shell loaded...and you couldn't simply switch the shell inside the barrel. If you are referring to the WoT/WT KV2...yeah, holy fuck KV2 at close range!

Hjalfnar Feuerwolf yeah I was talking about dat dank meme bruh, I'm curious if you ever seen Girls Und Panzer. If oh haven't you should watch it and also don't think about it, Churchill's can go about 75MPH because logic oh and so can the Matilda, The KV2 can go underwater apparently and have no problems at all, The Hetzer isn't crushed by A FUCKING MAUS. just accept it if you do ok? It's all you can do, just accept the "Anime logic" I have, and it's all awesome XD

I guess you could use night cover but the real problem is the infantry support.

interesting, but yeah, since the Soviets used also the 152mm to kill Tigers etc. the "schwere Infanteriegeschütz" (sIG) should be able to do that too. Funnily enough, that is the first time I see that mentioned. Remember reading something about artillery used, but the IG would actually make more sense, due to their close-support role, whereas artillery "should stay back".

and thank you!

Similar tactics worked great in Finland... Some guys got both 5 and 6 tank kills a day in certain times of the winter war. How often with the Germans... Who can tell, the first year in Russia, they didn't really have anti-tank guns (besides the 88) for the infantry (the 37 mm didn't cut it, and the 50 mm, turned out to not be powerful enough against the KV tanks and the T-34). But it would almost certainly not be common, I imagine.

Riceball01. some of these tactics seem to be ideal for surprise attacks on a convoy moving cross country. they could be seen from a distance their path safely predicted and the team likely out of sight during the engagement. it offers the benefit of imobilizing all or part of a convoy and in terms of losses a two man team with light cheap equipment isnt a terrible loss compared to a tank and its crew even if the kill rate is just 1 to 1, if said teams manage to kill multiple tanks and crews before dying them selves it is on a tactical level a success. harsh sure, but no more so than storming a beach and counting your 6000 dead men as acceptable losses. I also doubt they chose to use these tactics in open fields when they are the sole targets for the tanks and their infantry, in an active battle a few 2 man teams scuttling about in the chaos may do well enough but ultimately I see this being used against convoys and in urban settings almost exclusively.

true, but on the flip side... these teams usually are accompanying the regular infantry which would engage the infantries covering the tank and in some cases (particularly urban warfare) close quarter fight is both more viable and in the early war... it was basically pretty much all they had (this is before german copied bazooka and mass produced panzerfaust and panzershreck to give infantries a capable close range mobile anti tank weapon) given the right circumstances, it seems possible that they can do a number to a tank that wasn't expecting threat against it in the absence of big guns. and if the tanks were designed with means to accommodate close quarter protection against infantry (pistol port, grenade launcher like on some german tanks, or rear machine gun on some soviet tanks), then these squads on both sides must have had some effect.... enough to justify the presence of those features above.

Riceball01 in the finno-russian war the finns used similar tactics against russian tanks because they had'nt any on there own. but the looses for a anti-tank troop were probably very high. so it works when you are quick on foot and very brave.

They actually had an award specifically for this activity (destruction of tanks by non-anti tank units) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Destruction_Badge

danke! Jo, die Namen ändern sich zum Teil doch stark, der Mörser hieß auch noch Granatwerfer(34). Aber die Sache mit "Panzerschreck" hat mich am meisten erstaunt, fand den Namen für die Waffe auch immer etwas "counter-intuitive".

Allerdings, das alte "Panzerschreck" im sinne von "Schreck durch Panzer" kannte ich aber vorher nicht. Naja, man war ja damals genauso kreativ wie heute :D Ich hass diese ganzen leute die um irgendwas betteln, aber wenn du mal Zeit und Lust hast, kannst du etwas zum Thema Artillerie-Feuerleitung in der Wehrmacht oder auch anderen Armeen machen? Ich werd das wahrscheinlich bei uns auch mal machen, nach den Offizierlehrgängen, bin deshalb sehr interessiert :D

hast ne Buchempfehlung dazu, weil zur Artillerie hab ich bisher nur gute Englische Literatur gefunden. Hab nur bzgl. 1. WK ein Buch zu deutscher Artillerie bzw. zu Bruckmüller oder Bruchmüller oder so gefunden: Steel Wind.

Da muss ich mal schauen, zu Hause in meinem Regal steht was, hab aber den Namen nicht parat und bin gerade in München an der Uni :D Na gut, Bruchmüller ist so ne Sache, aber eigentlich auch sehr interessant :D Der hatte seinen Spitznamen auch verdient.

von Moltke Erinnerung

that's not funny. this is kind of stupid.

EpicTubah In the first year of the war the soviet army fights with poor tactics, like mass infanty attacks or uncovered tank assaults. But they learned the combined weapon tactic very quickly and . Fortunatley for the germans at the bginning of operation barbarossa, because the main anti tank gun 3,7cm PaK 36 (Panzeranklopfgerät = tank knocking device) was uneffectiv against KV's and T34.

EpicTubah the anti-tank team would probably also not be the only Germans around. The infantry might be supressed with MG or mortar fire. Anti-tank defense while a massed attack on a german position was underway was also probably more spontaneous than this, organized teams were probably used to take care of stragglers or isolated an immobilized tanks.

Thanks for the insights. PaK stands for Panzerabwehrkanone (Anti-tank cannon) though.

GhostRider659 exactly - i' m interested in wwii and i always thought (perhaps not right ?) that it was question of individual skills of few soldiers in platoon to try a stop a tank if they didn' t have antitank gun rather then organized separately units ? ...

EpicTubah good point, i thought same with that "axe idea"

the old colleagues at my working place who all where in the DDR Army told me storys about practicing exactly that, jumping on driving tanks and covering them with there rain ponchos.

those were used especially at the beginning, when they had no other ranged weapons. The russians used them in particular long after the Germans basically gave up on the tank rifles. The Russians as a rule aimed at the weak spots, of course, viewing slits, ventilation and at the guns.