General Production and Destruction Figures
Here are some figures on the production of the weapons discussed later.

Table 1: Overall Production

Most notable is the huge amount of Panzerfausts produced. What makes these production figures even more impressive is the fact that nearly all of those were indeed issued to troops: in March 1945 the german forces possessed 3,018 million Panzerfausts, of which only 271,000 were stored in armories, the rest was distributed among the fighting forces. The overall production of the german Panzerfaust variants (Faustpatrone and Panzerfaust 30, 60, 100 and 150) is therefore 8,254,300.

However not all of these were usable, and production was not perfect: For example, in 1944 247,200 Panzerfausts out of the July production batch had to be recalled from the frontline units because of serious faults in the used material. Those excluded, the army aquirers refused acceptance of another 453,000 during the course of the war due to various reasons; another 130,900 were returned from the troops themselves because of flaws (the Panzerschreck ammunition didn't fare much better, to the contrary: 285,000 (12.9%) were rejected by the weapon's bureau of the army, and another 32,400 were returned by the frontline units due to various faults).

Still the astonishing number of over 7.4 million Panzerfausts in army use remains, and especially in later war years there was almost an abundance of these weapons among the troops when compared to the extreme shortages of everything else.

Again, these production figures can be considered accurate; much less certainty can be expected from the reported tank kills from frontline battle reports. The fog of war often leads to exaggerated claims or on the contrary to unreported kills. This should be kept in mind when taking a look at the following statistics.

Table 2: Reported Tank Kills along the Eastern Front

Looking at these figures the effectiveness of the Panzerfaust suddenly seems entirely dubious. Tank kills by the established AT weapons such as tanks and AT guns were predominant. Although many of the unknown tank kills can likely be kills by soldiers with Panzerfausts who did not get to report it; another explanation is that the Panzerfausts due to their demolition effect were most often used as super-handgrenades against infantry in buildings etc. Finally, the major factor probably is that these figures are from early 1944 when the weapon was still quite new; therefore, most of the supplied Panzerfausts were probably still in the process of getting distributed, equipping forces equally throughout the theater and generally establishing a basic stock of these weapons.
 
 

Foreign Use

Panzerfaust and Panzerschreck weapons were also supplied in considerable quantities to germany's allies during WW II. Romania was given a considerable amount of the Panzerfaust klein to help shore up their evident lack of AT capability a little bit. Finland also was supplied with the german AT weapon designs. The picture at left shows finnish soldiers armed with the Panzerfaust 30 late in WW II (click here to learn more about the finnish use of Panzerfaust weapons) , below you see an RPzB.54 (along with an RPz.Gr. 4322 round) in finnish use (more finnish WW II pictures). The finnish designations were F1 for the Panzerfaust klein and F2 for the larger Panzerfaust 30. In 1944, 28,500 of both types were supplied to the fins. The fins proved to be quite effective tank killers with the Panzerfaust.

The Soviets too realized the potential of these weapons. Although the russian military was reportedly not very enthusiastic about the lend-lease Bazookas which they had received in little numbers in 1943, they took a liking to the bigger Panzerschreck and the late-war Panzerfaust types. The russians usually referred to both the Panzerfaust and the Panzerschreck simply as "Fausts". The following information is to be taken with care as this issue is still rather sketchy. Apparently, captured german Panzerfaust weapons supposedly were used under the designation RPG-1; the captured german factories kept producing Panzerfausts for the soviets even after the war. Immediately after the war the russians further developed the Panzerfaust 150 design into the RPG-2. This eventually lead to the better known RPG-3 series.

Other more or less straight copies of the Panzerfaust and the Panzerschreck were the swedish post-war pansarskott m/46 and raketgevär m/49 or m/51 respectively.

Copies of the german Panzerfaust weapons were also produced in neutral Switzerland during the war to equip the swiss army.

© 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 created by M.Hofbauer August 29th 1998; document ver. 1.4 mod 150102
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