Antitank Rifles and MGs. 1930-1945.

[Shortround6]

It's a testament to the quality of the M2 Browning that it was capable of being accurized into a single-shot sniper rifle.

Actually they were either Boys anti-tank rifle actions or captured Russian ( North Korean/Chinese) PTRD actions with Browning .50 cal barrels for easy ammunition supply. the resulting weapons were sometimes mount on .30cal MG tripods.

More like junior cannon than rifles.

 

[Clay_Allison]

Hathcock generally used the standard sniper rifle: The Winchester Model 70 .30-06 caliber rifle with the standard Unertl scope. On some occasions, however, he used a different weapon: the .50-caliber M2 Browning Machine Gun, on which he mounted the Unertl scope, using a bracket of his own design.[8] This weapon was accurate to 2500 yards when fired one round at a time.

In 1967 Hathcock set the record for the 20th century's longest combat kill with a Browning M2 .50 BMG machine gun mounting a telescopic sight. The distance was 2,286 meters (2,500 yd / 1.420 mi). Hathcock was one of several individuals to utilize the Browning M2 machine gun in the sniping role. This success led to the adoption of the .50 BMG cartridge as a viable anti-personnel and anti-equipment sniper round. Sniper rifles have since been designed around and chambered in this caliber.

I don't know who did it first, but it was done.

 

[CharlesBronson]

Some ugly images of the Irak war showed very well what happen when a sniper hit personnel with a .50 caliber Barret , wich is pretty much equivalent to ww2 AT rifles.

 

[Deanimator]

Some ugly images of the Irak war showed very well what happen when a sniper hit personnel with a .50 caliber Barret , wich is pretty much equivalent to ww2 AT rifles.

The videos I've seen purporting to show this were in fact videos of varmint hunters shooting small animals, such as prairie dogs, with .22-250 and similar rifles.

 

[CharlesBronson]

Well, I ve seen pictures, not videos, of insurgent after being hit with .50 caliber and believe me, they are really disturbing.

 

[CharlesBronson]

Somebody believed the Solothurns S-18-100/1000 were too big ?

Perhaps they were but definately no the biggest...check this one, Swiss 24mm Tankbüchse 41antitank rifle weight 61 kg, short recoil operated semiautomatic, 5 rounds magazine, 900mps muzzle velocity , penetration 43mm rolled homogeneous armor sloped 45º at 150 meters, figures wich ( at list teorically) allowed to penetrate the sides of T-34.

 

[B-17engineer]

Oh my gosh, that's huge.

 

[CharlesBronson]

Definately, the poor biker soldier hardly could move it

 

[fastmongrel]

I think that has gone past the Anti Tank Rifle thats a small artillery piece. It would have made an awesome aircraft gun though.

 

[Shortround6]

Going up hill is no problem......you don't.

Going down an alpine road.....

 

[CharlesBronson]

think that has gone past the Anti Tank Rifle thats a small artillery piece. It would have made an awesome aircraft gun though.

It does still there was some justification as teh fact it could be moved and operated by a sigle man ( rather triedly but possible)

Going down an alpine road.....

You got a good point there, probably would work in the plains of France or Russian but in a nonflat terrain like switzerland.... quite uneasy.

Thsi is the ammo, the one marked 24x139mm

 

[CharlesBronson]

Oerlikon SSG:

I find another big fat swiss rifle, the SSG, Schweres Selbtsladen Gewehr or heavy selfloading rifle.

Two types were made, one in 1935 wich used the short 20x72rb cartrigde at 545 mps. The other variant ( m1936), by far more usable for serous antitank purposes, employed the 20x110rb cartrigde at 790mps.

The gun used the famous non-locked system of Becker-oerlikon wich fired using the mass of the advancing bolt as opposing force to close the breech ( close for miliseconds that is).

An squematic of Becker-Oerlikon advanced primer ignition system, similar to an 22 or 380 blowback pistol but with the difference of firing at open bolt.

The rifle used 5 or 10 round side feed magazines. This is the SSG 36 20x110mm

Apparently it wasnt purchased by the swiss army neither by the germans.