Panzerfaust 60 size comparison to human re-enacter. Due rear blast dangers, warning of Vorsicht ! Starker Feuerstahl (German for Warning, Powerful Blast) inscribed on the firing tube. Panzerfaust is a recoilless gun, with steel tube and trigger mechanism for black-powder - percussion cap charge. Warhead shaft made from wood, stabilizer fins made from steel. When fired, warhead projected forward, while rear-blast funneled backward, thus equalizing the recoil.

Rollover : Modern successor to WW2 Panzerfaust was the West German's Panzerfaust 3 built for its Bundeswehr army between 1978-1985. Intention was to replace the bulky bazooka-like rocket launchers and enable the weapon to be fired from inside rooms without rear blast dangers. Warhead is automatically armed after its firing. Side joke, Bundeswehr in German means Federal Army, but in Brazilian Portuguese it sounds like the word for Old Lady's Buttocks.

Germans used Panzerfaust 3 versions in 1990s UN/NATO peace keeping duties and special forces operations. Weapon was cumbersome to carry, soldiers also had to close-in onto target for an effective shot, thus it was phased out of frontline use by early 2000s. Panzerfaust 3 - www.answers.com/topic/panzerfaust-3

Bottom photos depicts Switzerland's Radfuhrer (bicycle anti-tank) units in field training. In rugged European terrain, bicycles were more effective troop movers than motorized transports. In last months of WW2, German created Kampfgruppe Dora : mobile tank hunting team armed with panzerfausts and bicycles to peddle from one frontline fire alarm to another to seal off enemy armor breeches.

SS The Blood-Soaked Soil - www.amazon.com/gp/product/1897884141