[Blackstump]

I bet the bloke who thought up the panzerfaust BU antitank aircraft, also got to test fly it !! Note the sights mounted fore and aft of cowling....

[pvt_Grunt]

Is that for real?

[Heeresarmee]

And some testflying it would be...Imagine that being the panzerfaust 30, you had to fly in so close even the tankcommander could shoot you with a handgun. Then...if you manage to hit the target, you get blown to bits or torn apart by schrapnel from the exploding tank. Hmmm i wonder why it never got past the experimental stage.

Here`s a link for those wanting to know more about the Panzerfaust.
http://www.geocities.com/Augusta/8172/panzerfaust2.htm#pzfaust30

[king_tiger_tank]

there were longer ranged panzrfaust but the longest was a panzerfaust 90 with a huge rocket projectile but still you would have to get in to close range to hit a tank.

[rufus]

man those germans must of been desperate to steem the tide of allied armour to think this one up.the plane look's like a bucker BU bestmann which the luftwaffe used as a primary trainer ,top speed of 134 mph considering the stuka had a speed of 225 mph and look how they faired in the latter war years.Also the the wings had a basic construction of wood covered in plywood and fabric,obviously a siucide weapon,fire the fausts and the wings get wripped off! thats if you actually make to be in a position to fire the things in the first place.

[Pzt_Mac]

It probably was just meant as a suicide weapon - fly the plane and all into the target, poping the fausts few second before impact, if you lived long enough to do it.

[Arg0n]

I think that German engineers had a bad sense of humor. Even if you could approach the tank it would have to be a direct hit. If airplanes are going to use HEAT it would have to be a ****load of small shaped charge projectiles. You could see that they were desperate at that point.
Arg0n.

[Heeresarmee]

@King_Tiger_Tank

Haven`t found anything on a Panzerfaust 90, as far as i could find the Panzerfaust had the following names;

Faustpatrone
Panzerfaust 30 (improved Faustpatrone) produced untill August 1944
Panzerfaust 60 (improved Panzerfaust 30) prod. untill end of WW2
Panzerfaust 100 November 1944 untill the end of the war
Panzerfaust 150 March 1945 produced untill the end of the war
Panzerfaust 250 Development stage 1945, scheduled, but never produced
GroBe Panzerfaust Development stage 1945, never produced

You can check yourself at the link i posted in my ealier post. If the site is down, check back later. It`s a Geocities page

[mooxe]

Those are clearly antitank weapons, but was this an aircraft employed for antitank duties? It looks more like a scout plane with some weapons added on for targets of opportunity. This plane is to slow and unarmoured to really be used in an antitank role, even later 30s and early 40s.

[king_tiger_tank]

hmmmm... i thought it went up by 30 meters but a 250 meter range would be crazy

[Arg0n]

Mooxe the airplane was a prototype for the antitank but the project was discontinued. But think for just a second: Who would be crazy enough to fly this thing? I personally think there's not a chance in hell that that thing would be sucsessful. When you are flying a ground attack plane with cannons and rockets you only have a few seconds to score a hit, no more, and with the PF you would have a 0.5 seconds window of oportunity. Usually I don't insult people but that guy that thought of the idea is an idiot.

P.S. 250m in an airplane is like 10m on foot so draw your conclusions.

[RD_Roach]

[Dima]

That's not early war pic for sure, guess late 1944 or 1945.

But while such armament is useless vs tanx/planes or any mobile targets it could be v effective vs big stationary targets like houses, towers and etc. And low speed of that type of plane could allow it to be rather accurate vs such targets.

[Luft_Karabiner]

I think that aircraft is a Fieseler Storch reconnaisance plane. That would be way too slow to use in combat, and was probably just to test this method of rocket installation.
By the way, here is an Fw190 mounted with a better version of rockets -

These were WGr.28 anti tank rockets. Some Fw190s also carried 88m
panzershreck 2s, Panzerblitz 1s and R4M rockets.

[StormGrenadiar]

you would have to be flying pretty fast to not get by the main gun, and what if the tank was in trees

[Luft_Karabiner]

The tank main gun would not shoot as its elevation would not be high enough. The plane would attack from an 80 degree or so angle as to pierce the top of the turret.

[Nembo]

I would assume that that was more of a test bed then any thing realy meant to see combat. It was common practive to test out new weapons/engines on old planes that weren't needed at the front. What the germans realy needed was more Hs 129 known as the Panzerknacker, (tank cracker). Thou slow and ungainly that small plane was well armored and carried a good punch. One of the final varients mounted a modified version of the same 75cm cannon as the Pz IV.

[rufus]

take a look here http://www.luft46.com/profiles/paother.html at what the germans were trying to develop in ground attack aircraft.some vvery weird designs there.

[Luft_Karabiner]

[Cytral]

they would have loved the a10