The Great War and the Advent of Armor
The Great War, more commonly known as World War I, saw the advent of the tank. The British had a considerable number of them, such as the large rhomboid Mark I monsters. The French dabbled in them, with the little Renault FT beast forming pretty much the first version of the modern tank, with a tracked chassis, the engine in the rear, and the crew compartment in the front, an armored body, with a revolving turret containing the vehicle’s primary weapon, a 37 mm gun. The Germans had a few, the Sturmpanzerwagen A7V, an enormous beast the size of a school bus, with machine guns on the sides and a 57mm Maxim-Nordenfelt cannon mounted in the nose. This German beast looked like nothing so much as a perambulating house trailer bristling with machine guns, but it was the predecessor to the fearful German panzers of World War 2.
The World War 1 tanks were mostly slow, waddling, flatulent beasts, quite unlike their modern descendants. But they shocked a lot of infantry soldiers when they first appeared, and their appearance prompted all parties to start developing ways to knock them out.
This led to the rise of a weapon that was very quickly obsolete as armor improved, but which is interesting all the same: The anti-tank rifle. Both British and German armies employed them, the British fielding the 1937 Boys Anti-Tank Rifle, and the Germans, the Mauser Tankgewehr M1918.
Let’s have a look.
The Mauser Anti-Tank Rifle (Tankgewehr M1918)
Germany had a leg up on the Brits in developing their anti-tank rifle, but it didn’t come out in time to do them much good in the Great War.
The Tankgewehr M1918, built on an upscale Mauser bolt-action, fired a 13x92SR (semi-rimmed) cartridge with ballistics similar to those of the American .50 BMG (Browning machine gun). It was big and heavy, measuring 5 ½ feet from buttplate to muzzle, and weighing in at 39 pounds. German troops called it the Elefantenbüchse, or elephant gun. It saw some service on the Western Front against British armor and performed well enough, especially when employed to hit weak spots, like viewing slits and tracks.
Production of these rifles was limited to the Mauser-Werke in Oberndorf, Bavaria, with about 15,800 copies built before the war ended. Possibly because of the German loss in the Great War and the disarmament required by the Treaty of Versailles, only a few of these rifles are still in existence, and I’m not aware of one in firing condition. Because of this, the arm never saw use in German hands in World War 2.
The Boys Anti-Tank RifleThis monster was developed well after the end of the Great War, and serves as a remarkable example of how military organizations often prepare for the last war, not the next one. In any case, in 1936, one Captain Henry C. Boys, working at the Royal Small Arms Factory in Enfield, sat down to design an effective anti-armor rifle, and in 1937, his brainchild was already in production and being issued to British Army units.
Read More: Sunday Gun Day Vol. III Ep. XV - Rifle Fit for a Dinosaur, the .577 T-Rex
The Boys, known to British troops as “Charley the B**tard” for its brutal, collarbone-breaking recoil, was heavy, at 37 pounds. It launched the big .55-caliber bullet at 2,250 feet per second, a pretty impressive figure for a shoulder-fired rifle launching a slug of that size. It could penetrate 21 millimeters of armor at 100 yards, but it wasn’t overly accurate, and by the time World War 2 started, most armored vehicles had thicker armor than that.
Over 69,000 Boys rifles were made in all. They were used not only by British and Commonwealth forces, but also by Finnish forces in the Winter War, and American Marines in the Pacific, who may have gained these weapons from Commonwealth forces by the classic American practice of Strategic Transfer of Equipment to an Alternate Location, or STEAL.
Read More: Sunday Gun Day Vol. III Ep. XVIII - Curious Case of the Johnson Rifle
The problem was timing. In 1937, when the German army was mostly fielding the little Mark I Panzer, the Boys would have been effective. But against later German armor, even the big .55 caliber Boys was pretty much an exercise in futility, as one could bounce bullets off a Mark IV Panzer, Panther, or Tiger all day long without doing much more than scratching the paint. But against lighter vehicles, the Boys rifles were deucedly effective, and the Brits did put them to some of that use.
What Happened to Them?By the time World War 2 rolled around, advances in armor had already rendered these monsters obsolete. They still made good door-knockers and were effective against lighter vehicles, but tanks? Newer, more effective infantry weapons, like the American bazooka, the German Panzerfaust, and the British PIAT (Projector, Infantry, Anti-Tank) were required.
But the anti-tank rifle still holds an interesting place in firearms history. When they were needed, they were there, quick in the developing and employment, a classic case of “good enough is good enough.”
There may have been something of a renaissance, though, in form if not in purpose. American manufacturers like Barrett are building both bolt-action and semi-auto rifles firing the .50 Browning machine gun cartridge. The Marines use the Barrett M82/M107 rifles, not for armor but for long-range sniping and engaging lighter vehicles. Armalite, originator of the AR-10 and AR-15 rifles, makes the AR-50 in this caliber, and Barrett makes a variety of .50BMG rifles for the civilian market. There are others.
I’ve fired one Barrett, one magazine, it being the M82 semi-auto. It was surprisingly easy to handle. I’ve experienced more felt recoil from a 12-gauge shotgun firing a 3” magnum, and I was beaten up a lot worse by a 6 ½ pound .308 Winchester bolt gun I once put together in a misguided quest for an ultralight rifle for going after elk in dark timber. I traded that rifle away after one range session.
The modern .50 caliber guns are mostly a novelty, something to play with; they are great fun. Most states outlaw their use for hunting, so they are strictly a range-day proposition, but there’s certainly nothing wrong with that.
But in handling these big rifles, it’s interesting to remember the first of their type, and how they were inspired by the first tanks, those big, snorting, waddling, flatulent iron monsters of the Great War, over a century ago.
