yet another question for gun knowledgeable peoole

[macelena]

I've been reading about a British ww2 weapon known as the Boys AT Rifle. It looks like a Bren gun on steroids, chambered in a "necked up" 50bmg cartridge and used to counter the lightly armoured german tanks early in the war, and later to destroy fixed emplacements by the British and some USMC unit until replaced with Browning M2s.

I was wondering if it could have been more useful if chambered in the 50 cal its cartridges derived from, and if not used as a predecessor to modern heavy sniper rifles, employed like the soviets did with their own all along the war as a support weapon.

[macelena]

Woops, sorry, i just read they indeed were used that way in Korea

[Snailman]

Very good question, I did not know little about that gun...

We had the 36M Solothurn, 20mm... with the Gamma telescopic sight. About that I know something but generally very little info on other "heavy rifles". Imperial japan also had a semi-auto 20mm, the Type97... (an automatic AA version was developed too). Finnland had the Lahti ATR  which was so good that it is still in use, as far as I heard...  the soviet PTRD evolved into the KPV 14.5mm heavy MG that was used in the AAA mount of ZPU series.

It would be really nice to know how they employed these guns other than the early AT role.

[+Gepard]

It is not only neccessary to punch a hole in a armour of a tank, but you must destroy critical parts in the vehicle too. Critical parts are ammo, crew, optics etc, but mainly the crew. It is relativly unlikly, that you will hit a crewmember directly by shooting through the armour plate. To increase the chance to harm the crew it is neccessary to increase the numbres of debris inside the tank. And a bullit with bigger caliber will cause more debris flying inside the tank. Thatswhy the bigger caliber was used.

At beginning of the war the main caliber of AT guns, Panzerbüchsen in german language, was around 7.62 mm (depends on the country, some had 7.92, other 7.7 or so) but this small guns were not powerfull enough so that till 1941 the caliber was rising to 14.5 mm. And such calibred AT guns you could not only use for AT but for sniper tasks or sometimes in the Flak role.

[B52STRATO]

There were also many reports about PTRD and PTRS AT rifles simply aimed at the tracks, return roller or wheels, breaking them and immobilizing the tanks.

[Snailman]

It is not only neccessary to punch a hole in a armour of a tank, but you must destroy critical parts in the vehicle too. Critical parts are ammo, crew, optics etc, but mainly the crew. It is relativly unlikly, that you will hit a crewmember directly by shooting through the armour plate. To increase the chance to harm the crew it is neccessary to increase the numbres of debris inside the tank. And a bullit with bigger caliber will cause more debris flying inside the tank. Thatswhy the bigger caliber was used.

At beginning of the war the main caliber of AT guns, Panzerbüchsen in german language, was around 7.62 mm (depends on the country, some had 7.92, other 7.7 or so) but this small guns were not powerfull enough so that till 1941 the caliber was rising to 14.5 mm. And such calibred AT guns you could not only use for AT but for sniper tasks or sometimes in the Flak role.

 

Yes that's what I told to someone, before. Not even necessary to penetrate a tank. Even if you have a  HE near hit, it might turn over and/or the crew inside get their bodies broken...

 

Can you confirm the name of the anti-armor rifle ammo the Imperial German forces used from regular Kar-98 rifles in the WWI? I heard it defeated homogenous armor, so later the british armor came with face hardened tank armor. (Hence Germany started using the "elephant" Mauser rifle13mm?) In that era rifle bullets were oval (ogival?) soft pointed, not sharp pointed with iron core.

[+Gepard]

For the name i must take a look into my archive. Hope that i will find something usefull. Maybe.

What i can remember now is, that in the first moment after the shock of the appearence of the tanks in Germany hastily a lot of big caliber guns were requisitioned (i hope this is the correct term) from large annimal hunters. This guns were used for a while till the Panzerbüchse came to the front. For the nomal 98K carabine armour piercing hard core bullits were developed and were used from 1917 or so.

[macelena]

Now that you mention that caliber issue, it seems i was inspired by a different kind of profile for the use of the gun. It could have been useful in 12.70mm against halftracks, autocannons, machinegun nests, et cetera, but there was a response to each threat. Indeed, while the Soviets experimented with PTRD/S guns as heavy sniper rifles, they considered them unsuited for precision shooting. I guess that if there was any scenario where a 50 BMG Boys rifle would have made a significant difference, if any, could have been Italy, where the rugged terrain made fighting was more static...much like Korea, where they were tried this way, but with milder weather and on the offensive for the Allies