"Firing Bazookas in enclosed spaces..." Topic

…I thought that it was ill-advised b/c the back blast would cause a fatal concussion in an enclosed space. A friend, however, is doubtful. I tried Google but the wiki entry didn't seem to mention such negative aspects.

It mentioned that the US deployed them w/o bothering to train the operators, but nothing about firing from enclosed spaces.

It came up in a game a few months back when I allowed a panzershreck team in a second story window to fire at the top armour of a Sherman. Afterwards, I thought maybe I shouldn't have allowed the team to fire.

It is basically a rocket. There is a backblast when it launches. I don't think that it would be too bad in a large room, but in a tight room, it would cause problems. During the defense of Berlin, the Germans used the Panzershrek from inside of buildings

Oh, and don't stand right behind it when it launches!

"Fatal concussion" sounds a stretch, but yes, the conventional wisdom is that firing rocket launchers from a confined space ends badly – indeed several modern launchers have reduced backblast "CS" (confined space) propellants specifically to deal with that problem.

The PIAT is the only WWII infantry anti-tank launcher that I'd normally allow to fire from a building, but it depends on the building really.

Are there copies of the training manuals online?

How about the chance that it would set the house/building on fire?

link

From a book on the subject. No concussion but hard on hearing. I thought the info about operating temperature was interesting.

I wonder how different it'd be, on the hearing, from firing a .30 cal from inside that building.

link

If the back blast from a rocket that's finished firing could burn your hands and face…
I'd want to have the back end pointing towards an open window if I was firing one of them things from a room.

So a loud explosion in a confined room, dust and debris flying everywhere… Sounds like the crew is unable to act next turn or is "stunned" if the rules support such a thing.

As opposed to the tank firing into the building? Fire the rocket and live with the ringing in your ears.

"The back-blast was quite powerful and would kill a man in the area." The area spoken of is the cone shape from the back of the weapon 20 feet long and 20 feet wide.

This is quoted from Gordon Rottman's treatise on bazookas at the link supplied above by AONeill.

Tom

Rambo fired a LAW from inside a helicopter once.
Does that count?

On a related note:

From what I've read the last place you want to be is in front of an Abrams when the cannon fires. Especially in a narrow street between two buildings.

At the very least the blast would knock you ass over teakettle.

Rambo fired a LAW from inside a helicopter once.
Does that count?

Depends if he had the opposite door open…. ;-)

In the battle of Singling a soldier fired a bazooka from the upper floor of a two story building. It had large holes in the roof though.

You especially wouldn't want to fire one from inside a bunker.

Way back in the 70's an IRA hit team fired an RPG 7 from a car without opening the back windows. Crispy critters.

Were I in a desperate situation I might very well take a desperate action.
That having been said, maybe a morale check for the team in question… Especially if such could result in the loss of the team.

Agree with Rrobbyrobot. ASL required a morale check after firing bazooka/schreck from inside a building.

Even though the bazooka (and Panzerschrek) projectiles were technically rockets, they burned off 99.9% of their propellant in a small fraction of a second. That fraction was bigger than a cartridge-based gun, which meant that the tube could be much lighter in construction than a gun. But in terms of backblast they were little different from a recoilless gun.

The question of what happened if you fired it from a building depended very much on the room you were in when you fired it. If it was less than 20 feet to a wall behind you, or if there was a collection of furnishings (furniture, bookcases, dishes, etc.) behind you. If that was the case, bad things happened. If that was not the case, it was just loud and disorienting.

It was comparable to setting off a small "offensive" (HE but no frags) grenade. Loud, with a strong concussion to those too close, and a tendency to shatter stuff and throw the pieces with dangerous speed. However it was directional, so if you were the shooter, or to the side of the shooter, it all went away behind you (unless it hit something behind you and bounced back).

If you were in the great hall of a public house -- no problem! If you were in one of the upper bedrooms of a low-rent Inn, BIG problem!

Panzerfausts (or RPGs), being recoilless guns rather than rocket-launchers, were even worse. The over-pressure was higher, so the concussive impact was greater.

PIATs were substantially less trouble when fired from enclosed spaces. There was still a blast, but it went up and forward from the launcher, not backwards into the enclosed space. However it was very tricky to fire them from upper-floors, as they did not have a mechanism for holding the round in place in the launcher (as all the other mentioned AT projectors did), so if you pointed it downward without a lot of care, the round would simply slide out the end, fall to the ground beneath the muzzle (maybe the street below, maybe the ledge below the window?) and DETONATE!

Or so I understand. Never fired any of them myself.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

Isn't the Panzerfaust basically just a black powder charge going off? I imagine it wouldn't be terribly pleasant to be nearby even in a wide open space.

Hi Mark,

Excellent post, apart from one point: The PIAT did indeed have a retaining clip to stop rounds from falling out. I'm afraid that the idea that PIAT rounds would fall out is just a myth.

The glider pilot Louis Hagen, in his excellent book 'Arnhem Lift', describes in detail how they repeatedly engaged a StuG from above while hiding in the eaves of an attic (yet missed every time due to their complete lack of training on the weapon).

There was an American TMPer who actually owned and fired his own PIAT and would challenge the Great 'PIAT Rounds Fall Out' Myth every time it appeared.

As an aside, Hagen's account also emphasised the advantage of the PIAT's low firing signature, as the Germans never located their firing position.

Just to support Jemima's post…there's buckets (and I do mean buckets) of examples of PIATs being fired from upstairs windows etc without problems.

The panzerfaust is technically a recoilless gun.
The safe distance to the rear was 10m.
Gasses would be ejected faster but less of them.
I guess more blast overpressure and less cooking.
There's also the small matter of a steel cap would come whizzing off the back end of some of them.

The PIAT did indeed have a retaining clip to stop rounds from falling out. I'm afraid that the idea that PIAT rounds would fall out is just a myth.

Ah, well, you see one of the great advantages to posting (and reading) in this forum is the opportunity to learn something. And I just did!

The panzerfaust …. safe distance to the rear was 10m.

AONeill -- the short range of the danger zone is interesting.

The original Faustpatrone had a propellant charge of only about 70g of black powder. Later models had almost 3x as much propellant (the Panzerfaust 100 had about 200g of propellant charge). Did the danger zone, as described in the user manuals, change from one model to the next?

The only 'faust manual I've ever seen was for the Panzerfaust 100. It clearly states 10m. Did the other models describe an even smaller danger zone?

I would not want to stand behind one, in any case.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

Panzerfaust 60 – 10m Feuerstrahl:

Supposedly in summer 1944 in Finnish army some men, due to poor or inexistent instructions, tried firing a Panzerfaust with the rear vent braced against their shoulder, as they would have fired a rifle. Results were claimed to have been quite nasty.