Due to their weight, these were normally thrown from very close range or directly placed in vulnerable spots onto an enemy vehicle. The destructive properties of the stick grenade relied on its explosive payload, rather than the fragmentation effect, which was advantageous against hard targets.ĭuring World War II, various nations made improvised anti-tank grenades by putting a number of defensive high explosive grenades into a sandbag. In combat, after arming, the grenade was thrown on top of the slowly advancing tank where the armor was thin. During World War I the Germans were the first to come up with an improvised anti-tank grenade by taking their regular "potato masher" stick grenade and taping two or three more high explosive heads to create one larger grenade. The first anti-tank grenades were improvised devices. AT grenades are unable to penetrate the armor of modern tanks, but may still damage lighter vehicles. Grenades were first used against armored vehicles during World War I, but it wasn't until World War II when more effective shaped charge anti-tank grenades were produced. Hand launched anti-tank grenades became redundant with the introduction of standoff rocket propelled grenades and man-portable anti-tank systems.
Although their inherently short range limits the usefulness of grenades, troops can lie in ambush or maneuver under cover to exploit the limited outward visibility of the crew in a target vehicle. Diagram of a Soviet RPG-43 antitank grenadeĪn anti-tank grenade is a specialized hand-thrown grenade used to defeat armored targets.
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