Molotov Cocktails, Whats the deal?

[Cross]

I just read an account by Von Ribbentrop ('a Panzer ace').

His tanks got ahead of their infantry and were going through a Russian held village. He felt a large explosion on his tank.

He radioed the tank following him to ask what happened, and that tank commander said something like 'errr... that was me, you had a Russian on the back of your tank with a Molotov cocktail so we shot an HE shell at him!'

Von Ribbentrop asked why they hadn't used the bow MG. Turns out it was jammed, and they believed they only had seconds to save Von Ribbentrops tank.

I thought that example of shooting a friendly tank with HE, was good illustration of how seriously the German tankers took Molotov cocktails.