Donnerstag, 17. Februar 2011

Anti-Tank Rifle

An anti-tank rifle is a rifle designed to penetrate the armour of vehicles, particularly tanks. The usefulness of rifles for this purpose ran from the introduction of tanks in WW I and until the Korean War. While medium and heavy tank armour became too thick to be penetrated by rigid projectiles from rifles that could be carried by a single soldier, anti-tank rifles continued to be used against other targets, though shapped-charge weapons such as the bazooka were also introduced for infantry close-defense against tanks. Anti-material rifles of today, such as the Barett M82, are a development of the Second World War technology.

The first Anti-Tank Rifle was the German "Tankgewehr 1918" against the British Mark-tanks.
Their rifles was a new version of the big game hunting rifles of the 19th century.
cal 13.2x92mm 

At the beginning of the second World War the A-T Rifles were very effectively used by the Polish Army against the German tanks (lighter Tanktypes like the PzKpfW I,II and III).
They used their A-T Rifle, the "Wz. 35 Anti-Tank Rifle"
the cal was 7.92 x 107
 
Later as armour became thicker on the newer models, the effectiveness of a man-portable rifle lessened. A notable exception was against the light tanks employed by the Japanese in Malaya, where the British Boys rifle was used with some success.

After WW II the A-T Rifle was useless because of the thick armour of the newer tank models, so the military set their interesses on heavier ant-tank weapons like the upcoming shoulder firing rockets of the bazooka and "Panzerschreck".

Todays A-T Rifles are more used as Heavy Sniper Rifles.
Some well-known rifles are:

The "Barrett M82A1" of the U.S.A. (cal .50 BMG)


or the Hungarian "Gepard" (cal aslo .50 BMG)

 


EDIT:

Video of the Finnish "Lathi 20mm"
The Rifle with the biggest caliber in WW II which you can shoot "from the shoulder".
Even its magazine weighed almost ~7 kilogramms. The whole weapon weighed some 50 kilograms and it was usually towed by horses, but could be carried by several men.

21 Kommentare:

  1. A very good read, and nice videos to go with it!

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  2. I did not know they used these sniper rifles for anti tank weapons :O
    Learning every day!

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  3. For some reason that first rifle made me think of an imagine of a man fighting a tank with a dung fork.

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  4. that looks awesome, I want one lol

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  5. They should include some of these in video games, so we can "test" how they work.

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  6. Jeez, thats some serious firepower!

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  7. Wow, that can do some serious damage.

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  8. Though not useful for tanks anymore, I'm willing to bet it would punch through armored cars and such pretty easily.

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  9. Wish I could get to fire on of those bad boys!

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  10. damn... are that those things bullets??

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  11. dudeee, those bullets are the size of my shoes.

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  12. really informative, those things look scary.

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  13. Just add anti-tank gun to my x-mas list

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  14. Damn nice info and love the Barrett

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  15. Damn, before this blog, I thought most guns were the same -___-

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  16. Glad to see that this gun is still in use

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