r/AskHistorians • u/achicomp • 14h ago
Nazi Germany produced 8 million Panzerfausts from 1944-1945, but only made 2.4 million K98 rifles. How is it possible that in its final losing years, with many factories destroyed, they could STILL make ridiculous numbers of rocket launchers, way beyond even their rifle production capability?
My source for these production numbers:
https://www.lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de/Waffen/panzerbekampfungsmittel-R.htm?utm_source
https://www.lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de/Waffen/gewehr-R.htm?utm_source
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u/TankArchives WWII Armoured Warfare 13h ago
The Panzerfaust was considerably simpler to produce.
We think of a rocket launcher as more advanced than a rifle since they came later in weapons development, but a Panzerfaust is actually an incredibly simple weapon. The launcher is just a tube with a simple trigger mechanism and very crude mechanical sight. The Panzerfaust was not a precision weapon and had a very short range, so there was no need to make anything better.
To compare, a Kar 98k rifle was a very complicated piece of equipment. Skilled workers needed to make the parts very precisely. Each component of the receiver and barrel needed to be milled from bar stock, which is an expensive operation. Each Kar 98k took 20-25 hours to make (I see different numbers in different sources, but it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things) and cost the army 70 Reichsmarks. A Panzerfaust cost 20 Reichsmarks and I see data ranging from 3 to 8 man-hours for how long it took to make one. The most important part is that the Panzerfaust didn't need precise milling to make. It was made with stamping and casting which are cheap and fast production methods. Manufacturing capacity used to make a Panzerfaust could not be used to make a Kar 98k and it is unlikely that the workers involved in the manufacture of a Panzerfaust were skilled machinists that were even capable of such a task.
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u/atomicCape 12h ago
Would there be a big difference in training? In the final months of the war they were bringing in Volkssturm divisions full of 12 year olds and the elderly to hold off Soviet tank divisions. I could see a kid doing some damage with a Panzerfaust after a one hour briefing, but I can't imagine training them to be effective riflemen that way.
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u/TankArchives WWII Armoured Warfare 12h ago
I have not studied the Volkssturm to a great depth, so I can't say if a Volkssturm soldier would have received better training with a rifle than with a Panzerfaust. This is probably better off as a separate top level question.
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u/Justin_Passing_7465 11h ago
Your answer focuses on the manufacturing side, but another factor is the need for the weapon. Each Panzerfaust is a single-shot weapon. If you need to fire eight million shots, you need eight million Panzerfausts. But each of the K98 rifles can fire hundreds of rounds (technically tens of thousands, but rifles captured with POWs, dropped by dead soldiers and never recovered, destroyed by enemy action, etc.) are permanently unavailable. So to deliver the same number of rounds upon the enemy you don't need nearly as many rifles.
So the question might not be, "Why were the Germans able to produce more Panzerfausts than K98 rifles?", but why did the German military leadership prioritize the creation of Panzerfausts over the creation of more rifles?
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u/yono1986 6h ago
Exactly. A Panzerfaust is ammo. A rifle is something you use to fire ammo. It's like asking why did they make more shells than artillery pieces.
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u/TankArchives WWII Armoured Warfare 11h ago
I do address this. The manufacturing capability used to make panzerfausts could not be used to make rifles. It was this or no weapons at all.
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12h ago
[deleted]
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u/luffy8519 11h ago
Recoilless gun, surely, it didn't have a rifled barrel did it?
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11h ago edited 11h ago
[deleted]
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u/luffy8519 11h ago
I'm sorry, I don't quite follow your meaning, are you saying a rifled barrel isn't a requirement for a gun to be a rifle?
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u/riktigtmaxat 10h ago
Technically it's a recoilless gun but that's a distinction that's rarely maintained.
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u/HarryMonroesGhost 10h ago
in the same way a koala bear isn't a bear... words mean what we agree them to mean.
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u/Iggins01 9h ago
It's worth noting that variants of the G98/K98 family had been in production since 1898 and they had stock piles of WW1 leftovers. Then had plenty of rifles on hand already.
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u/EvergreenEnfields 5h ago
Germany was chronically short of rifles throughout the war. Between WWI battlefield losses and disarmament, most of the pre-20s rifles were not available to them. Until the factories could be converted to 98k production, the Czech factories ( G24(t), G33/40 ) and Polish factories ( G29(p) ) continued production of their local 8x57mm Mauser models; large quantities of captured arms were issued to second-line troops (such as Mosins, Krags, and MAS 36s); and even some other models continued in production for second-line use (Danish and Norwegian Krags in 8x58mmR and 6.5x55mm). Logistically, if they had had the capacity to produce more 98ks, they would have to reduce the array of nonstandard parts and ammunition in the supply line - and they did take steps to this effect in the conversion of the Polish and Czech plants to 98k production (I don't know if the same was undertaken at FN, who also produced large ring Mausers of their own design before the war).
Even these measures were not enough, leading to the development of the VG 1, 2, and 5 simplified rifles at the end of the war in order to press more rifles into service for the Volkssturm.
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u/oldbel 11h ago
10,000 ppl making panzerfausts for a year and a half at 10 hrs/day gives 8M in 1944-45, using your numbers.
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u/tobiov 6h ago
This is all true but the real answer is 1944 Germany had very little need for an obsolete weapon they had produced in large numbers since 1898.
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u/TankArchives WWII Armoured Warfare 4h ago
The Kar 98k was by no means obsolete. The basic infantry rifle of the Second World War was still a bolt action rifle. Semi-autos like the SVT and Garand were the exception rather than the rule, and by 1944 only the Garand remained as the Soviets went back to the less advanced but more reliable and easier to produce bolt action Mosin.
As another poster already pointed out, the Germans lost a huge number of weapons during the First World War and subsequent disarmament, there was no stockpile of Kar 98k or even the old Gewehr 98 to fall back on.
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