Molotovs don't really get much of a mention outside of Stalingrad due to being a pretty damn specific weapon that is really only useful in urban environments where you have the time to set a bunch of bottles up all ready to go.
Anti tank rifles were pretty useless even from the first days of the war. Even with a penetration about the best you can hope for is taking out a crew member or getting real lucky and setting some ammo cooking. On light skinned vehicles like half tracks they could be useful for putting the engine out of action.
I also like that soviet literature on how to take down a Tiger tank from FlyXwire, that is some positive thinking right there.
Here are some quotes from 'Germany's Tiger Tanks Book 3 - Tiger I & II combat tactics' by Thomas Jentz (An ex-girlfriend bought me this book, cost over $100...)
South of Krassnyl Bor from 19th to 31st March 1943 -
"The enemy doesn't have anything to oppose us of equal value to the Panzer VI. Not more than four Tigers were in operation at the same time. In open terrain these few Tigers totally dominated the battlefield. The Tigers knocked out 160 enemy tanks altogether..."
In the month of March the unit scored 48 kills with zero of their own tanks lost although three crew were taken casualty.
Another quote in relation to fighting near Rostov on the Don river in 1943 -
"During further development of the battle, Leutnant von Koerber was shot in the head while he was looking out of the commander's cupola to gain contact with the infantry. Two other Panzers of this Zug fell out due to anti-tank rifles"
There is some nice evidence of anti tank rifles managing to knock out some Pz. IIIs which are very similar to the Pz IV that will appear in Heroes of Stalingrad. It goes on to mention that those knock outs were down to crew injury, not mechanical damage from the anti tank rifles. One Pz. III took three crew wounded for example.
Also another example of computer games sometimes getting it right, whenever a person pops their head out of a tank in any FPS I've played they immediately get a bullet planted in it from some sniper.
"One Tiger headed south, climbed over the rail line, and destroyed four anti-tank guns and several drawn vehicles by running over them."
Tehehe.
This is probably one of my favourite sources for how tough Tigers were -
"After a short artillery preparation, the Kampfgruppe started to attack at 0900 hours. Far in front of the slowly following Panzer-Kompanie from Panzer-Regiment 20. In spite of heavy enemy defensive fire from tanks and anti-tank guns the Tigers reached the Kolchose and pushed into the compound. The enemy pulled back to the east. By running over them, the Tigers destroyed enemy infantry weapons of all types.
One Tiger had to return because of transmission trouble. A shot grazed Leutnant Zabel's head and he also pulled back because his weapons were knocked out by hits. As night fell, the Kampfgruppe broke off contact with the enemy and turned back to Sapadnyj. Proof of the toughness of the opponent's defense is the fact that just on the Tiger of the Zug leader, over 250 hits of all types were counted (ten 7.62 cm anti-tank gun, 14 4.5 cm anti-tank gun and the rest anti-tank rifle).
So yeah no knock outs but the Russian's followed their training to the letter and managed to destroy everything destroyable on the tanks such as weapons and vision ports.
