Seeing that some book friends questioned the possibility of the appearance of anti-tank guns in 1914, a little sweat, the tank appeared, can the anti-tank gun drag on for so long? Besides, anti-tank guns originally appeared in the First World War. 8. If you have a question, you are a good comrade, hehe!

So let's give you some information about anti-tank guns here!

**************

A special firearm for shooting at armored targets. Formerly known as the War Defense Gun. It is used to equip infantry and combat tanks and armored vehicles within 300 meters, and can also be used to shoot at civil fortifications and fire points within 800~1000 meters. It resembles a rifle and can only fire a single shot. The caliber is 6.5~20 mm, and most of them are large-caliber ones. Launch high muzzle velocity steel (or cemented carbide) core armor-piercing bullet or armor-piercing incendiary projectile, the whole gun length is 1200~2000 mm, the gun weight is 10~60 kg, the muzzle velocity of the warhead is generally 800~1200 m/s, and the armor-piercing depth is mostly within 35 mm. Due to the large mass of the warhead, high muzzle velocity, and large recoil, high-efficiency muzzle brakes are often used, and cushions to protect the shooter are installed on the butt. It was widely used in World War I anti-tank.

Anti-tank rifles appeared along with tanks in the First World War. On September 15, 1916, the British used MK-I tanks for the first time in the Battle of the Somme to storm German positions, inflicting heavy losses on the Germans. Faced with this metal monster, the Germans were at first at a loss. Although field guns can inflict lethal damage on tanks, the accuracy of direct hits against tanks in motion is low. At that time, machine gunners and snipers in the German army were equipped with a "K" type bullet - which contained a tungsten carbide core, which was heavier than ordinary bullets, and was used for accurate fire at long-range targets and protected targets. During a campaign in 1917, the Germans accidentally discovered that the "K" type could penetrate the armor plates of the British MK-I and MK-II tanks (between 5-10mm thick). After that, "K" bullets were quickly distributed to each soldier to use against British tanks. Impressed by the penetrating power of the "K" bullets, the British immediately increased the armor thickness of the new generation MK-IV tank to 6-12mm to resist the "K" bullets. After learning that the "K" bullet could not penetrate the protective armor of the MK-IV tank, the Germans immediately handed over the task of manufacturing an anti-tank gun to the Mauser Company. In February 1918, a prototype of the world's first real anti-tank weapon, the Tank-Gewehr M1918, was born. The gun is a Mauser 7.92mm rifle scaled up to 13mm, and the barrel is lengthened, the gun is about 1.9m long, weighs 15.9kg, single-shot loading, and has a large recoil, and the armor penetration of the new gun is 26mm at a distance of 100m and about 10mm at 200m. As long as the angle of fire is appropriate, it is possible to penetrate the protective armor of the MK-IV tank at a distance of 100m. In May, anti-tank rifles began to be produced in large quantities, and by the end of the war, about 15,800 were produced, mainly to specialized anti-tank units, but before they could show their skills, the First World War was declared over.

************

In 1918, the successful development of the Mauser anti-tank gun greatly inspired the German high command, so much so that they resolutely decided to develop another variant of the anti-tank machine gun. As a result, the machine gun was created, still manufactured by Mauser, using the principles of the Maxim machine gun. In fact, this machine gun is nothing more than an enlarged version of the Maxim machine gun, just as the Mauser anti-tank gun is an enlarged version of the Mauser rifle. The guns performed well, but by the end of the war, only a few were built, and they all ended up in the Berlin Museum. It remained there until 1944, when it was completely destroyed in an air raid on Berlin by the Allied Air Forces, and only a few photographs remain. A weapon just disappeared without a sound. If the Germans had studied it earlier in wartime, it would have posed a great threat to the Allied tank forces. The fact that a machine gun could destroy a tank was naturally an invaluable treasure for the German army, not only because it was much cheaper than the field guns that had to be used at that time, but also because it freed field guns from anti-tank combat and dedicated them to the usual artillery combat missions. There is every reason to believe that the first point fire from a 13 mm machine gun could stop the early tanks.

During the same period, in the summer of 1918, a proposal for the development of a light individual anti-tank rocket launcher was recommended to the US Army. The proponent of this proposal is R. Murphy. R. H. Goddard H· Dr. Goddard, who later became one of the founders of rocket technology in the United States. Goddard designed a variety of rocket launchers and recoilless guns, but in the end only one rocket with a caliber of 2 in (51 mm) was selected, which was the most suitable as an infantry anti-tank weapon. It had a launch tube length of 66 in (676.4 mm) and weighed 7.5 lb (3.41 kg), with a front support on the shooter's shoulders and a light bipod in the rear. The main reason for this arrangement is to maximize the direction of fire when firing at moving targets. The rocket was 20 in (508 mm) long and weighed 8.5 lb (3.86 kg), including a warhead weighing 4 lb (1.82 kg). In early November 1918, the bazooka had been tested at the Aberdeen Range for a maximum range of 750 yd (685.5 m), and it seemed to be a promising weapon, but the end of the First World War put an end to the development of Dr. Goddard's work, which was a great blessing for tankers and tankers in the first three years of World War II. If the European armies had been able to use the Bazooka instead of the anti-tank guns at the outbreak of the Great War in 1939, the outcome of the German "blitzkrieg" would probably have been a different story.