Anti-tank gun
An anti-tank gun is a form of artillery designed to destroy tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, normally from a static defensive position.
[3] To penetrate armor, they fired specialized ammunition from longer barrels to achieve a higher muzzle velocity than field guns.
[2] As World War II progressed, the appearance of heavier tanks rendered these weapons obsolete, and anti-tank guns likewise began firing larger and more effective armor-piercing shot.
[3] The development of the compact hollow charge projectile permanently altered anti-tank warfare, since this type of ammunition did not depend on a high muzzle velocity and could be fired from low-recoil, man-portable light weapons, such as the Panzerfaust and the American series of recoilless rifles.
[3] The later generation of low-recoil anti-tank weapons, which allowed projectiles the size of an artillery shell to be fired from the shoulder, was considered a far more viable option for arming infantry.
[3] By the late 1930s, anti-tank guns had been manufactured by companies in Germany, Austria, France, Czechoslovakia, Belgium, Great Britain, Denmark, and Sweden.
[5] All fired high-explosive and solid armor-piercing shot effective at ranges up to roughly 500 m (1,600 ft), and an increasing number were manufactured with protective gun shields in addition to a split rail mounting.
[9] Introducing improved ammunition and increasing muzzle velocity initially helped compensate for their mediocre performance, but small-caliber anti-tank guns clearly would soon be overtaken by yet more heavily armored tanks.
[10] This helped earn the Pak 36 the moniker of Panzeranklopfgerät ("tank door knocker") because its crew simply revealed their presence and wasted their shells without damaging the T-34's armor.
[5] Meanwhile, the effect of very compact hollow charge warheads was being noted, and a number of countries began producing man-portable anti-tank weapons using this ammunition.
Unlike anti-tank guns, their light weight made them easily portable by individual infantrymen on the battlefield, and they offered similar degrees of firepower whilst being quicker and cheaper to produce.
[11] At the end of the war, German engineers had proposed a new, large-caliber anti-tank gun that used less propellant than a rocket or recoilless weapon, yet fired similar compact hollow-charge shells.
[6] German forces subsequently fielded the 8 cm PAW 600, which was an extremely lightweight, low-pressure weapon still able to fire the same ammunition types as higher-velocity anti-tank guns.
[12] Its design inspired the lightly rifled French DEFA D921 anti-tank gun, which fired fin-stabilized shells and was available on a towed carriage or as a vehicle mount.
[20] The introduction of tank destroyers also put an end to the traditional tactic of suppressing anti-tank gun batteries with heavy artillery bombardments, as their crews were now well-protected under armor.
[20] They were not without their own series of disadvantages, however, namely presenting a much larger target than a towed gun, the added responsibilities of vehicle maintenance and logistical support, and the limited spaces in which the crew had to operate and stow all their available ammunition.
