"Bazooka rockets as anti-tank mines" Topic

I had never heard of this but it appears in the field manual and was apparently used at the Battle of the Bulge.
The 2.35-inch round was launched from its cardboard carrying tube using field telephone wire and a spare bazooka battery.

YouTube link

Amazing what you can do when you have to.

Barry

Thanks for sharing. That was a cool tip/ I wou;d allow those improvised mines from 44 on.

This is a nice find!

Jim

Now the version hidden under the road is going to penetrate the belly of the tank, the weakest bit. That really does appeal. Just be sure to bury the wire sufficiently so the tracks do not break it before detonation. I assume no minimum range for a bazooka rocket to arm itself?

Really clever and great find. I guess the drawback was the prep time needed, but, if you know they are coming, if you can find a choke point, especially requiring an AFV to slow down…..great!

@all:
It quite surprised me so I was happy to share.
Barry

The Germans devised and employed a similar ambush method with their Panzerfausts.

B

@deahead The method where the engineers are just tying them to fence posts is a lot faster.

I suspect that you could stick them into bushes, and possibly some pine trees. It would be distracting when a burning bush appeared at the side of the road and a tank exploded. Vengeance is mine?

The M401 fuze is a simple, non-delay, inertia actuated type. It consists of a detonator, percussion primer, spring restrained inertia firing pin and two safeties. One is a manual safety pin removed at loading, another is a bore-riding safety pin released by the set-back during firing and held in place by the launcher tube wall until the projectile leaves the muzzle. The fuze assembly is housed in the front portion of the rocket motor. The M401 fuze is extremely sensitive. A blow on the warhead nose equivalent to a 130mm (5 inch) drop on a hard surface will fire the warhead.S o sounds like it's live on clearing the tube.

Yes, being a WWII reenactor, I saw that in the field manual and was quite intrigued with it. I can't recall ever reading about it actually being done, but who knows?

The bazooka rockets did have a safety pin to prevent accidental detonation, but once removed it becomes very dangerous to the user.