The RPG-43 (ruchnaya protivotankovaya granata obraztca 1943 goda, meaning hand-held anti-tank grenade) was a

high-explosive anti-tank High-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) is the effect of a shaped charge explosive that uses the Munroe effect to penetrate heavy armor. The warhead functions by having an explosive charge collapse a metal liner inside the warhead into a high-velocity ...

(HEAT)

shaped charge A shaped charge is an explosive charge shaped to form an explosively formed penetrator (EFP) to focus the effect of the explosive's energy. Different types of shaped charges are used for various purposes such as cutting and forming metal, ini ...

hand

grenade A grenade is an explosive weapon typically thrown by hand (also called hand grenade), but can also refer to a shell (explosive projectile) shot from the muzzle of a rifle (as a rifle grenade) or a grenade launcher. A modern hand grenade ge ...

used by the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. It entered service in 1943, replacing the earlier models

RPG-40 The RPG-40 was an anti-tank hand grenade developed by the Soviet Union in 1940. Description Upon contact, of explosives contained within it were detonated and produced a blast effect. This enabled about of armour to be penetrated and caused sec ...

and RPG-41; the RPG-40 used a simpler

high explosive An explosive (or explosive material) is a reactive substance that contains a great amount of potential energy that can produce an explosion if released suddenly, usually accompanied by the production of light, heat, sound, and pressure. An ...

(HE) warhead. The RPG-43 had a penetration of around of

rolled homogeneous armour Rolled homogeneous armour (RHA) is a type of vehicle armour made of a single steel composition hot-rolled to improve its material characteristics, as opposed to layered or cemented armour. Its first common application was in tanks. After World ...

at a 90 degree angle. Later in the war, it was improved and became the

RPG-6 The RPG-6 (Russian ''Ruchnaya Protivotankovaya Granata'', "Handheld Anti-Tank Grenade") was a Soviet-era anti-tank hand grenade used during the late World War II and early Cold War period. It was superseded by the RKG-3 anti-tank grenade. Histor ...

History

During the early days of

Operation Barbarossa Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named afte ...

, the USSR's only infantry anti-armour weapons were anti-tank rifles, anti-tank guns, and anti-tank hand grenades. These were adequate against early German tanks such as the

Panzer I The Panzer I was a light tank produced in Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Its name is short for (German for "armored fighting vehicle mark I"), abbreviated as . The tank's official German ordnance inventory designation was '' Sd.Kfz. 101' ...

and

Panzer II The Panzer II is the common name used for a family of German tanks used in World War II. The official German designation was ''Panzerkampfwagen'' II (abbreviated PzKpfw II). Although the vehicle had originally been designed as a stopgap while l ...

but, as the war progressed, they were found to be nearly useless against the heavier Panthers and Tigers. The RPG-43 was developed as a result, and it was produced in large numbers until the end of the war. After the war it was passed on extensively to Soviet

client state A client state, in international relations, is a state that is economically, politically, and/or militarily subordinate to another more powerful state (called the "controlling state"). A client state may variously be described as satellite sta ...

s, and was used in the many

Arab–Israeli conflict The Arab–Israeli conflict is an ongoing intercommunal phenomenon involving political tension, military conflicts, and other disputes between Arab countries and Israel, which escalated during the 20th century, but had mostly faded out by th ...

s. Despite being thoroughly outdated, it can still be encountered in many

third world The term "Third World" arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Western European nations and their allies represented the " First ...

nations, mainly due to its reliability and low cost.

Description

The RPG-43 externally was shaped like an oversized stick grenade with a 95 mm HEAT warhead on the end. It weighed of which was high explosive. When thrown, a cylindrical metal cone was released from the rear of the grenade and held by fabric strips to stabilise flight and increase the likelihood of a 90 degree hit. Its range was limited by how far a user could throw it, and was obviously shorter than the contemporary rocket-propelled US

Bazooka Bazooka () is the common name for a man-portable recoilless anti-tank rocket launcher weapon, widely deployed by the United States Army, especially during World War II. Also referred to as the "stovepipe", the innovative bazooka was among the ...

and recoilless German Panzerfaust, so that the user had to get closer and was in more danger of being seen. However, it was much smaller than rocket weapons and produced no sound, smoke, or light when launched, and thus did not betray a thrower's position. Despite its limits, it was cheap and fast to manufacture, allowing it to become the main Soviet infantry anti-tank weapon of World War II.

Tactics

Overall the RPG-43 was an awkward and difficult weapon to use effectively. To use it, the user had to get within throwing range of an enemy tank, which was often dangerous. Despite having a powerful warhead, it took a skilled user to make the most of it as, like all shaped-charge weapons, it was effective only if the striking angle was close to 90 degrees. It also had to hit hard enough to detonate the impact fuse, or it would bounce harmlessly off the tank.

Users

* - used by Georgian military and militia units during 1990s period. * * RPG-43 Antitank Hand Grenade. North Korea Country Handbook MCIA-2630-NK-016-97. U.S. Department of Defense, May 1997. page A-102

References

External links