Stick grenade 41
The stick grenade 41 was developed by the German Wehrmacht in 1943 as armor-piercing ammunition based on the shaped charge principle for the PAK 36 in order to be able to take action against heavily armored vehicles. The ballistic penetration performance (product of projectile speed , design and weight) could no longer be increased significantly due to the design. The 3.7 cm PaK was loaded with the "stick grenade 41" only with a cartridge as a propellant charge without a projectile. The hollow charge was inserted into the front of the small gun with a short handle and only briefly accelerated for a small part of the barrel by the gas pressure of the cartridge. It was therefore considerably slower than the tank shells previously used, but this has no effect on the performance of hollow charges. It was stabilized in flight by 6 small surfaces without twist. If a hit could be made at close range, the penetration power was extremely increased compared to the usual 3.7 cm grenades. It could easily be carried along (see 3.7 cm PaK 36 ).
history
With the advent of heavily armored vehicles, especially the T-34 on the Russian side, the old ammunition of the PaK 36 became almost useless. Instead of exchanging the guns, they responded with the introduction of the stick grenade 41. The grenade was attached and could reach distances of up to 800 meters, but with extreme limitations in accuracy. The effective range was therefore almost 300 meters due to the high weight and low speed. The lengthy reloading and difficult aiming made stick grenade 41 unpopular with the troops.
The mission was extremely life-threatening for the gun crew and consequently also unpopular, since the gun operation came within the immediate effective range of the dismounted tank grenadiers at such a short combat distance to the enemy tank and was usually fought immediately by them. Used from ambush in a well camouflaged position, stick grenade 41 was a very effective weapon against tanks when the shooter waited for the closest possible distance.
Another weak point in use was reloading after a missed shot: you had to leave the protective shield , step in front of the gun and put on a new stick grenade as quickly as possible. At the same time, the loader had to replace the cartridge and the gunner had to pursue the target. Since the missed shot was fired from a maximum distance of approx. 500–300 m, the targeted tank was only approx. 450–100 m away in the meantime. However, jumping out of cover immediately revealed to the machine-gunner in and next to the enemy tank and its accompanying tank grenadiers the camouflaged position of the gun emplacement, which thus attracted the entire defensive fire.
Due to its high penetration power, stick grenade 41 was able to compete with all armored vehicles of the time.
Technical specifications
| Art | Clip-on projectile |
| Shaped charge | |
| Weight | 8.6 kg |
| Weight warhead | 2.42 kg |
| caliber | 3.7 cm (see PAK 36) |
| Head diameter | 15 cm |
| Speed 1 | 110 m / s |
| length | 73.8 cm |
| Breakthrough | 180 mm |
| Effective range | ~ 300 m |
| Detonator | AZ 2 5075 |
| AZ 2 5095 | |
| BdZ 3 5130 |
1: V 0
2: impact fuse
3: bottom fuse