When the war started in 1939, the infantry of all nations lacked powerful personal antitank weapons. Most armies had ineffective antitank rifles, which fired an armor-piercing round that ranged in diameter from 7.9mm to 20mm (the modern versions of these are now known as anti-material rifles). While armies experimented with antitank grenades and mines, the U. S. Army revolutionized the infantryman's antitank capability in 1942 by introducing a rocket launcher popularly known as the Bazooka. Weapons using the same principles were developed by other armies, and by 1944, had become a common feature of the battlefield. While German antitank rockets accounted for nine per cent of Soviet tank losses in the summer of 1944, this figure jumped to 22 per cent for the tank losses of the Soviet 2nd Guards Tank Army during the Berlin Operation in 1945.

Source for statistic: Red Army Handbook 1939-1945, S. Zaloga and L. Ness, Sutton Publishing Ltd., 1998