Bernd
10/11/2018 (Thu) 19:01:52
No.19980
del
Today's topic the the 44M. "Macelauncher" (Buzogányvető) or "Szálasi-rocket" which was a three person crew operated AT rocket launcher.
Ofc this also came late. The tests began in '44, the production went on from the summer till late December when the factory was took by the Red Army. All in all they produced maybe 6-700 pieces, two exists with the serial number of 441 and 448.
For the first test they used tripod as a mount - the soldier who fired the first shots was a convict with death penalty who got pardoned and forced to do the tests instead - then they used the Goryunov machine gun's wheeled mount as they not just find it very suitable but the army obtained many hundreds of it as spoils of war. A few was also placed on some Krupp Protze trucks and on Toldi tanks.
The rocket itself is 27-30 kg, 970 mm long and 215 mm wide at the fattest part, two was loaded into 700 mm long launcher tubes. It was capable of penetrating 300 mm armor and had a range of 500-1200 m but could fly about 2000. Ofc the effective range was much shorter, maybe about 200 m.
It only saw action around Budapest during her siege.