Antitank Rockets

Rockets until 1918

A definition: Rockets had been around since medieval times, these contraptions were used notably by Genghis Khan armies, by the Koreans and the Chinese, by the and by British in the XIXth Century. From "bamboo flame sticks" to proper Congreve rockets, we will not go through this early rabbit hole and see military use aganist tanks from WWI. In this war, rockets were mass-manufactured, but not for ground use, rather for air use: Allied Fighters were equipped with Le Prieur rockets as an efficient balloon-busting method. The British however developed one ordnance known under the name "Vickers-Crayford rocket gun". In reality this infantry support gun developed in 1917 to deal with fortifications was a light, portable limited recoil gun capable of firing Incendiary, AP, and HE cartridges. Offically name the 1.59-inch breech-loading Vickers Q.F. gun, Mk II this was merely a close support, close range weapon to deal with fortified positions and in no way, shape of form fired rockets.

In the past, rockets had been effective for their psychological effect and extra range. However in WW2, trench mortars and artillery were just better, with an even greater psychological effect, destruction range and unmatched precision. As the war became static, hitting a trench with rockets was just ludicrous. Even when Tanks appeared, the Germans learned to deal with them with K-bullets, antitank rifles and light guns. Not rockets. As for note, Robert Goddard patented the liquid fuel rocket in 1914, the same year WWI started, and his research on rocket design wouldn’t be published until 1919. If that would have been known earlier, perhaps the German command might have been interested to develop early ballistic missiles instead of risking squadrons of heavy bombers and zeppelins over London and Paris. But the war stopped in 1918.

A belligerent however might had a head start in 1917, when the same Goddard presented its models of rockets to the two branches, Army and Navy after April 1917. He even reworked his concepts to present a precursor to the bazooka on November 6th 1918. Interested by the Le Preieur Rockets they also used, they British developed rocket guidance systems during the war, both wired and radio controlled, but the was ended before any realistic prototype.

From Interwar Developments to WW2

The Russian Case

In the Interwar, there might have been some proposals, and indeed Soviet Russia, of all future belligerents, very much embraced the idea of rocket artillery. It needed for that to develop solid fuel, and thanks to specialists such as Nikolai Tikhomirov at the Soviet Gas Dynamics Laboratory (GDL), the first ancestors of 1942 Katyusha were tested in March 1928. I however only flew to 1800 m and was not accurate. Thus, their first appplication was to assist take-off of aircraft (JATO). In 1930s Georgy Langemak tested firing rockets from aircraft and the ground but it wait until June 1938 to have a workable military rocket designed by the RNII, with prototype launchers for the modified 132 mm M-132 rockets.

It was test launched from a ZIS-5 truck but this proved unstable, so V.N. Galkovskiy proposed a new launching system with longitudinally mounted rails and by August 1939, the result was the BM-13. However until 1945, the "Kayusha" whic existed in many variants were used as mobile mass artillery until 1945. It was perfect over an enem over open terrain and accuracy matched less than the fire concentration and psychological effect. It was never intended to destroy tanks concentrations, being only an anti-personal weapon first and foremost. The Russians uses a variety of anti-tank non-gun/rifle weapons during the war, like the RPG-43 grenade, which used a high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) shaped charge for good effet. Also of note, the Llyushin LL-2 Sturmovik, the famous mass-produced attack aircraft, carried the RS-82 and RS-132 rockets, both designed to destroy armored vehicles with a single hit. However they were so inaccurate that experienced Il-2 pilots used their 30mm cannons with AP shells instead each time. They were still efficient against concrete pillboxes and other fortified fixed targets. On tank concentrations they also used HEAT shaped charge bomblets as well.

The German Case

The Germans too, developed rockets early on in the interwar, notably with pioneer Fritz Van Ohain (1911–1998), and started playing with jet engines after testing rocketry. The Nebelwerfer, German rocket artillery, was treaty already in the artillery section. Whatever the model, these rockets were not intended for anti-tank use. Rather, they were used by Chemical troops. If they hit anything armoured and defeated it, this was by pure luck. But when targeting tank concentrations this was less to destroy them than their crews, resting, maintaining or supplying their vehicles out in the open... However unlike the Soviets, the Nazis were keen on testing self-propelled ammunitions to defeat tanks. In addition to a range of anti-tank grenades, the development of shape-charges already renewed interest for traditional artillery, as practically any field gun, whatever its muzzle velocity just had to be precise enough to hit its target at short range with one of these. Hollow charges created an incandescent jet inside any armoured vehicle, though any steel thickness, transforming the inside of the target into an hoven.

Thus, using an infantry launcher for such warheads seemed a cheap and efficient way to deal with allied tank superiority. This took several forms: The first of these was the Panerschreck. It appeared a bit later than the US Bazooka and operated the same way so many authors postwar stated that it was a straight-out copy. However its development long predated the use of bazookas and if it was deployed from 1943 instead f 1942 for the US Bazooka, the base principle was worked on earlier. In addition to light recoiless guns also firing HEAT charges, the Raketenpanzerbüchse 54 became a favorite until 1945, but with 300,000 made it was still costly to make.

Antitank RPGs:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket-propelled_grenade https://www.russianspaceweb.com/rockets_wwII_germany.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_rocket_propelled_bombs_of_World_War_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panzerschreck https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bazooka

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