Evolution of Anti-Tank Systems

The never-ending battle between round and armor has only escalated since September 15, 1916, when around forty British Mark I tanks charged across no-man’s-land at a lightning two miles per hour. However slow, nothing in the hands of the infantry could be used to stop them. German rounds merely bounced off the sides of the tanks, or “Landships,” causing mass hysteria throughout the German lines.

Since that day, tanks and armored vehicles have been used in almost every major conflict. And since that day, engineers have been finding new ways for infantry to stop them. The first anti-tank or anti-armor system easily used in direct fire by infantry against an armored vehicle was the German Mauser 1918 T-Gewehr or Mauser 1918 Tank Rifle. This was a bolt action rifle that chambered a 13.2 mm round, the first in a long line of anti-tank systems.

All of the first major anti-tank systems were rifles with larger and larger rounds to penetrate armor. Other than the T-Gewehr, the Boys anti-tank rifle and Lahti L-39 are the most famous and successful. The Boys anti-tank rifle was introduced in 1937, made by the British, and used by Britain and sixteen other nations. It chambered a .55 caliber round. It was used to take out light-skinned vehicles, bunkers, and was even used in Korea by the United States Marine Corps as a sniper rifle after they attached optic sights on the rifles. What the Boys brought was a more reliable anti-tank system; although phased out fast due to the quickening of thickness of armor on vehicles, it was an important leap forward. The second notable anti-tank rifle was the Lahti L-39. This was a Finnish, semi-automatic rifle that chambered a 20mm shell. This rifle was used by the Finnish army at the start of World War II against the Soviet Army; it had a decent penetration rate against most vehicles but was useless against newer vehicles such as the T-34 or the KV-1. After newer tanks came out, it, too, was used as a sniper rifle. The technique used by the Finns was to dress a mannequin as a Finnish officer; after a Soviet sniper shot it, giving away his position, the Finns fired back and the 20mm shell obliterated the sniper. This rifle gave an even better anti-tank penetration rate and a faster firing weapon.

The next leap forward was handheld rocket launchers. The first was the American M1 Bazooka. This was a recoilless rocket anti-tank weapon. Initial rockets fired from the weapon held a round-headed tip (the M6). It was unreliable and did not penetrate much. Next came an improvised round, the shaped-charge, which is key to the proper destruction of armor. This is a rocket with a warhead in the shape of two cones back to back. it is effective because, when the rocket hits armor, the front cone collapses, folding in and hitting the back cone, which then causes the metal to melt due to the extreme heat and be angled back at the armor in a thin jet of liquid metal, able to penetrate over 60mm of armor. This shaped charge technology was taken and used in the German Panzerfaust and the Soviet RPG. The Panzerfaust, or “Tank Fist,” was a German invention designed to be used, then thrown away; the rocket was able to penetrate nearly all Allied armor and was simple to use.

The next leap was the RPG or rocket propelled grenade, a system designed by the Soviets. It took the Panzerfaust and made it more accurate, and with a bigger rocket. These designs have lead us to the modern systems we now such as the M2CG, RPG 7, FGM-148, and many others.

As rifles and rockets got better, so did mines, as well as grenades used to take out armored vehicles. Today the most effective weapons against armor are artillery, air strikes, and other tanks. But as infantry still face tanks, anti-tank systems will keep advancing with them.