Soviet anti-tank rifles!

[Jarmo]

Originally posted by Zakalwe:

There are some references to 'the Lahti spine', a spinal injury caused by repeated firing of the ATR.

Not surprising, I've seen footage of firing the weapon and it looks ...unpleasant.

There was a thread with a picture of this weapon, but it was way back and I couldn't find it anymore...

[Guest tero]

URL to a Lahti 20mm ATR on an AA mount ?

http://www.tiko.sci.fi/museot/kuvat/rukmuseomv.GIF

[c3k]

Yes, the Soviet Anti-Tank Rifles DID kill tanks. Frequently. How? Okay, read on.

First, as noted, there were lots of them. Also as others have posted, they were somewhat accurate. The rifles were issued and used by special platoons using 3 ATR's per platoon. Sometimes entire Anti-Tank Rifle Regiments were fielded.

Now as to how they killed tanks. Looking at my copies of Jentz's works on the development of the Panther, the main reason cited for the skirts above the road wheels was that the Soviet 14.5mm round PENETRATED the hull at this location. (Thin armor, vertical angle.) The roadwheels protected it below, the angle and thickness above was adequate as well.

Von Mellenthin gives reference to how readily the ATR's damaged/destroyed lighter AFV's, especially half-tracks.

As for vision blocks (doctrinally one of the prime aim points), imagine you're a tank commander. First off, if you're not buttoned up, you just lost half your skull to a 14.5 mm round (Urrah, and an extra portion of vodka comrade). So, you're buttoned up and you've got your face pressed up to your vision block. POWW!! Impact by a 14.5mm round. It drives the vision block back into your head. What happens? One or both of your eyeballs explode; your nose breaks; you suffer a concussion; the fore portion of your skull gets driven into your occipital lobe; the vision block holders give way and the entire vision block apparatus lodges in your brain. Get the picture?

For the gunner with his eye pressed against the telescopic sight, the same held true. Kind of hard to aim with your eyeball on the floor of the turret. If that didn't happen, the sight would be knocked out of true, rendering any kind of aimed fire all but impossible. The tank would have to retire, install its backup optics (availability is an issue), sight in, and find the battle again.

How about a dented barrel?

Yes, the ATR teams needed to be relatively close to get good accuracy. Yes, they needed good nerves. The Soviets created teams which exhibited these abilities.

Ken

[Jasper]

See Below!!

[This message has been edited by Jasper (edited 03-20-2001).]

[Jasper]

There an article, translated from Russian, titled "Tactical Employment of Antitank Rifles" written in 1942 on the Spaceport site listed below. I seem to recall there being more than one in the collection, but the reader can always peruse the collection on their own.

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Check out http://www.geocities.com/funfacts2001/ or

http://hyperion.spaceports.com/~funfacts/ or

http://www.britwar.co.uk/members/FunFacts/ for military documents written during WWII.

[Guest Andrew Hedges]

I've read some accounts of even large German armored vehicles, such as elefants, being rendered combat ineffective due to ATR hits on the barrel from the side. Apparently they ATRs had enough punch to dimple the barrels and prevent if from being fired.

[Skipper]

It is not terribly difficult to move around with a 20kg weapon and a few rounds (make it 35 kg altogether). For a short time, at least, it is possible to even run with this sort of load. So, if anything, in combat they must be able to run, but tire somewhat sooner than the normal infantry.

As for the accuracy, we are talking about looooong smoothbore gun and 1000+ m/s initial velocity of the round. These rifles had a secondary role as long-range sniper weapons. And naturally enough they were assigned to the better shooters. By the way, skilled shooters were plenty, primarily thanks to the extremely widespread "Voroshilovsky Strelok" civilian rifleman training campaign.

Anti-Tank Rifle REGIMENTS??? You must be talking about IPTAPs (anti-tank artillery regiments) - but that's 45mm AT guns.

The mainstay of soviet AT defence early in the war was of course the venerable "sorokapyatka" (45 mm), and not the AT rifles.

[KiwiJoe]

I hope they add some captured Finnish 20mm AT rifles.. these babies would be something to fear

[ScoutPL]

ATR Rifles = Early Death

When will the appeal of what looks "cool" or sounds "awesome" cease to be so attractive? ATR rifles are nothing more then a poor governments stop gap measure to deal with something it hadnt planned or researched enough in advance. Sounds an aweful lot like the US Army's 66mm LAW Rocket circa 1965-1980. A terrible weapon that couldn't penetrate WWII vintage armor and was wildly inaccurate, but hey, we sure did have alot of'em.

Yeah you can take out a vision block with an ATR rifle. Anybody know how easy it is to replace a vision block? Alot easier then replacing an entire Mk IV I'm sure. I'd like to know the survival rate on all these excellent sharpshooters. Even the Red Army's own doctrine says get as close as possible. Since German tanks operated in groups and with close infantry support, my bet is alot more ATR gunners bit the dirt then german vision blocks.

Also I thought the skirts were mainly a western european theater thing designed to deal with the allies Bazookas and Piats. The intent was to detonate the warhead before it hit the main armor plating or the road wheels. If the primary target for ATR's on the late war tanks were vision blocks and main gun barrels why bother with skirts that protected the sides and road wheels?

IMHO, ATR's rate up there with Kamikaze bomb dogs and remote contol AT drones, they sure look snazzy and sound "awesome" but get behind one with 30 tons of steel bearing down on you with two more metal behemoths just yards away and I think you'd sing a different tune. Then you'd stop singing and start dying.

[Bullethead]

ScoutPL said:

IMHO, ATR's rate up there with Kamikaze bomb dogs and remote contol AT drones, they sure look snazzy and sound "awesome" but get behind one with 30 tons of steel bearing down on you with two more metal behemoths just yards away and I think you'd sing a different tune. Then you'd stop singing and start dying.

Same goes for anybody in combat. You know as well as I do what the chances are of anybody on the firing line surviving even a few months' worth of a multi-year war. Yes, I've met a few such people. Hell, a cousin of mine was an Lt. in the 82nd AB and fought all through every single campaign that division did, from North Africa to the middle of Germany, without a scratch. But he was by far the exception (and if there's ever a war around here again, I'm using him as a shield )

Go look at this page:

http://history.vif2.ru/library/archives/losses/losses3.html

On it, you can see that most Soviet tank formations took 80-150% losses in every operation throughout the war. More to the point, there's another page on the same site, describing the experiences of an ATG officer defending the Sandomiertz Bridgehead in the fall of 1944. His unit took a 300% loss of ATGs in that time due to the usual result of taking out 1 tank per gun before the gun was destroyed by other tanks.

So there ain't nowhere safe and you ain't gonna survive no matter what you do for a living out there. I'm sure ATR gunners took just as heavy losses as any other Soviet troops. But this doesn't mean they didn't hurt the Germans.

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-Bullethead

In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria.

[Guest machineman]

I'm sure ATR gunners took just as heavy losses as any other Soviet troops. But this doesn't mean they didn't hurt the Germans.

All the armies had anti-tank rifles when they started out, eg 7.92 Panzerbuchse 39 for the Germans, .55 Boys Anti-tank Rifle for the British, the difference is that everyone else gave up on them and developed alternatives when they became ineffective, while the Soviets barged ahead.

"On the southern sector of the Russian front in one six-hour engagement a Tiger was hit 227 times by anti-tank rifle shots..."

Some decisions are just dumb. I'm sure the brave souls that manned those anti-tank rifles would have been much more effective with a copy of the Panzerfaust. (Which the Soviets finally got to in the 50's with the RPG-2).

[This message has been edited by machineman (edited 03-21-2001).]

[Michael Dorosh]

Some Canadian units found the Boyes ATR useful for shooting the locks off of doors (I believe at Pourville during the Dieppe Raid).

ScoutPL, your comments do come with the benefit of hindsight. I don't dispute that the weapon was not a good one, but given the types of armour and anti-tank doctrines in the world in 1939, it would be a bit much to expect the Panzerschreck to have equipped any of the world's armies at the start of the Polish campaign. Consider military budgets in Britain or the US between the wars - especially during the Depression.

In a perfect world, there is no excuse for military unpreparedness, but we can forgive people for having other priorities occasionally - or of not being able to predict the future.

[KiwiJoe]

I disagree. These 2 man AT teams should be "cheap", hard to spot and have reasonable speed. I would suggest they would be the perfect cheap flank defense and HT/light armour defense for infantry. Bakookas are good for destroying med armour at close range... but their ROF, range and accuaracy are far too poor to deal with the HT/Light armour threat.

I can imagine buying 3-4 of these teams... placing 1 on each flank and a couple behind advandaning infantry up the middle. I wouldnt wanna get too close if I was in a german light tank.

[Skipper]

> Some decisions are just dumb. I'm sure the

> brave souls that manned those anti-tank

> rifles would have been much more effective

> with a copy of the Panzerfaust.

They would be even more effective with a Muha (modern russian mini grenade launcher). Problem is, there were no fausts around in 1937 (when the sovi4et military buildup started). Not even in 1942, as a matter of fact.

Some decisions are just made without a hindsight. Soviet military planners in their right mind could not anticipate the kind of disaster that awaited them in 1941. As it was, in the beginning RKKA had more than enough AT artillery (theoretically) to deal with all german armor.

Also, by any accounts, serving in an ATG battery was one of the most dangerous frontline jobs. Much more dangerous than an AT rifleman. These 45mm guns were nicknamed "Farewell, Motherland" for a reason.

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

OK, I have a theory. The information presented here has been valuable, and has revised a few of my previous views. I have put together a tactical picture of some of the strengths, weaknesses, and uses of the weapon. I present them for general comment.

There seems to be pretty general agreement about the penetrating power. On the order of 30mm at 100m, dropping to 25mm at 500m. While shots beyond that might be possible, with a non-automatic weapon and often moving targets, hits would probably become rare.

What do these penetrating numbers mean, for the tanks they faced in the early war period? Basically, it means they would not penetrate the front of a Pz III or Pz IV, unless they got lucky. But sides of any German AFV of the period, and fronts of the Pz II, armored cars, and halftracks, they could punch holes in.

If every penetration killed the target then that would be an enourmously effective weapon and we'd have heard a lot more about the wonders of it, and the trail of dead tanks it left. Instead, everybody who had a decent rocket AT weapons ditched them from HEAT rounds. Why?

I submit that the reason has to be the low amount of damage typically done by a single penetration, by one round. The Russian manual someone helpfully provided, stresses firing at vunerable areas of the tank, not in terms of areas with less armor, but in terms of places the bullet may do some effective damage when it penetrates.

A useful comparison was suggested by another fellow, a 50 cal. The energy of the ATR round is higher, by about a factor of 2 in his figures. But a 50 cal fires 8 rounds a second, not 8-16 rounds a minute. The Russian manual suggested firing 5-10 rounds from one location, before moving to another. That represents around 30 seconds of fire at max ROF. A 50 cal would deliver the same impact energy in a 1-2 second burst.

So the basic problem would seem to be getting a weapon that can indeed punch small holes, to add up to a dead tank, despite delivering an order of magnitude less energy per unit time. And having surmized this, then a couple of things come into focus.

First, the combat reports of the hits on particular spots. The vision block idea, and the main gun idea. Second, if you look at the manual on the site the fellow provided, the doctrine is to shoot from sides when possible. And the vunerable spots include - drive sprocket, fuel cells, engine. For halftracks, the spot to shoot for in the engine. Last,the concluding section is a somewhat sketchy bit about working with submachinegunners, grenade throwers, and molotov cocktail teams. What is that about? And it says, "if halted, disable the weapons first".

Here is my theory. The ATRs are suppose to fire with a view to getting a *mobility kill*. They shoot the drive sprocket, or they puncture the fuel and perhaps ignite it (though diesel burns poorly), certainly make it leak. They punch random holes through the engine block. If anyone knows anything about engine blocks, they are almost solid metal themselves, and telling someone to fire at them as "vunerable" means a definite focus on a mobility kill. The benefit is simply that it is a complicated thing that needs most of its parts in the right place to work.

So suppose the ATRs have light up the flanks of a tank for 10-40 hits, and the thing has holes in its side and is leaking fuel, and the engine is leaking oil, and seizing, etc. Kerchunk, kerchunk, bahhhhaaa. Stalled out tank. Right? What is the next thing it says. "If halted, disable the weapons first". First? It is already halted. My thesis here - the manual means, *before* trying to tackle it with the molotovs etc.

See the idea? First you stop it. The plan is to KO it with a close assault. But first, bang that hull MG, smash that sight, so they don't kill the close assaulters. The ATRs are doing this, maybe grenades or grenade-bundles are helping too by this point. The manual suggests that MGs fire at the vision slits. Get 'em hunkered down in that tank, in other words, blind and stopped and weapons not all there. They were already leaking fuel and oil. Somebody gets close enough to throw the gas-bomb, or the grenade-bundle. Whoosh, up she goes. And the submachinegunners are there to get the guys that bail out.

Now, that is the tactical doctrine I am seeing in that last section. That is what puts together the sorts of vunerable spots listed, with the idea of working as part of a team with SMGs and grenade and molotov men. The main role of the ATR in the whole piece, is to *stop* the beastie. Then the infantry can go after it with a will.

This would also, to me, fit with the general fact that most abandoned these weapons. I mean, if an infanryman could have a gun that reliably killed tanks outright from the flank at 500 yards, why would anyone want a bazooka or panzerschreck instead? These probably didn't kill tanks outright, then.

The point is, that on this theory the ATRs could indeed disable tanks, but it was a relatively slow process. Take 5 or 10 shots - then switch positions, it says. So 5-10 shots, with a number of hits, are not taking the thing out immediately, are they? I mean, you have to worry about it firing back, and switch positions. Not bang, it went in, tank is history. More like bangs repeated for 30 seconds, and maybe she is mobility dead. Or maybe you need to keep it up for another 30 seconds and punch a few more holes in her, before something essential breaks.

Make any sense?

[Jarmo]

Originally posted by jasoncawley@ameritech.net:

The point is, that on this theory the ATRs could indeed disable tanks, but it was a relatively slow process.

Sounds about right, but a few things more to consider. Someone mentioned soviet AT rifles worked in platoons. That would be maybe 3 rifles working together, cutting down the needed time considerably.

I'd guess 3 rifles banging at PzII (or something similar), would make short work of the vehicle. Bullets going all around the place would make the crew very uncomfortable.

PzIII and PzIV would also be possible to disable, but the weapons were not designed to work against such targets. The weapons are really WWI relics, despite being built after it...

[Mattias]

Jason paints a clear picture of the faith that might await an insufficiently armoured tank, death of a thousand needles

As we have seen the flanks and rear of the common German tanks are almost protected from direct penetration though filled with weak spots and externally mounted systems.

Now, the skirts were a very reasonable response to this problem as they added only limited amount of weight (about 600 kg), protected a much larger area than an up armouring would done and gave sufficient protection from ATR's.

To put more armour, say 40 mm, on the tanks to make them ATR safe would simply not have be cost efficient.

The ability to prematurely detonate incoming rounds HE, APHE or later HEAT was seen as an added benefit.

Primarily the skirts worked by disrupting the path of the incoming ATR round (possibly even larger calibre AP?), thereby making it miss the targeted weak point or simply hit the armour at an unfavourable angle.

Secondarily the ATR gunner was given a much harder time to find the weak spots to begin with, simply because they were covered.

M.

[KiwiJoe]

They were actually modeled pretty well in Close Combat 3. When they hit the 1st time they usually killed a crew memeber. A 2nd or 3rd penetration would often cause the HT/light armour to be abandoned.

[rum]

PTRD-41

http://www.sinopa.com/sor/bo001/bo05sv/bo05sv12/ptrd001.htm

PTRS-41

http://www.sinopa.com/sor/bo001/bo05sv/bo05sv12/ptrd001.htm

Its all in russian, but you can look and photos and i could translate some fragments if you want.

Remember, Soviet Army didnt tryed to use this rifles against Tigers and Panters. This weapon was widely used in the early period of war, mostly against PzKw III and less armored vehicles.

[Guest Germanboy]

Originally posted by ScoutPL:

Also I thought the skirts were mainly a western european theater thing designed to deal with the allies Bazookas and Piats. The intent was to detonate the warhead before it hit the main armor plating or the road wheels. If the primary target for ATR's on the late war tanks were vision blocks and main gun barrels why bother with skirts that protected the sides and road wheels?

I have seen a picture of a Panzer III with skirts around the turret (where the Panzer IV had them too) dated around Kursk. Only a short time after Bazookas were encountered in North Africa. This would point to me to a different reason for putting the skirts on the tank. Anyone knows exactly why?

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Andreas

Der Kessel

Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission.

[tss]

ScoutPL wrote:

If the primary target for ATR's on the late war tanks were vision blocks and main gun barrels why bother with skirts that protected the sides and road wheels?

Maybe because an ATR hit on a road wheel can knock it out and after that you are in a severe danger of immobilization. At least two Finnish Stugs were hit on road wheels by ATRs during summer '44. Neither was lost, but both retreated for repairs immediately.

Sure, destroying an enemy tank completely would be the best result but only forcing it to retreat is still much better than letting it stay in combat.

BTW, no Finnish Stugs were hit in vision blocks or main guns by ATRs. Two or three had their weapons knocked out by tank gun hits on the barrels.

- Tommi

[gunnergoz]

Machineman's comments about the "dumbness" of Soviet military leaders in persisting in the fielding of AT rifles has merit, but the facts must be judged in the light of historic limitations that those leaders were working within.

By the time that these rifles were issued in quantity, Russians had already lost a great deal of their industrial and economic base. The nation was barely held together. Soviet leaders had to make do and in matters from tanks to artillery, frequently opted to sacrifice technological advancement in order to improve their ability to produce workable weapons in massive quantity. Remember the old saw that "the best is enemy of good enough?"

These AT rifles, like the woefully inadequate light tanks the Soviets kept in production (they could be made in automotive factories, which gave those factors something useful to produce), were a stop-gap measure that was intended only to retain some measure of effectiveness on the battlefield while the country bought time for its armies to build up again.

Now with the comfort of hindsight we can endlessly debate and decry these types of decisions by wartime leaders. Many decisions were foolhardy, make no mistake, and have been well discussed in other threads. But other decisions, like the one to mass produce AT rifles, had merit at the time. Hindsight is 20/20 of course and we now know that there were viable alternatives soon to become prevalent on the battlefield.

These weapons existed, were made to work as intenden and need to be reflected accurately in the next CM simulation.

[M Hofbauer]

The theory presented here that the skirts were added with the purpose of defeating ATR rounds and not as spaced armor vs. shaped charges can be easily disproved by pointing to the fact that even mesh wire skirts were made for the Pz IV.

[This message has been edited by M Hofbauer (edited 03-21-2001).]

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

I am always somewhat amused by the "woefully inadequate light tank" sort of statement. In case anybody forgot, the Germans were using Pz(38), Pz IIs, and Pz IIIs with 37mm guns, well into 1942.

None of these tanks had a main armament as capable as the 45mm/L46 ATG on most of the Russian light tank fleet. The Russian light tank gun could hole any German tank at ranges up to 1 km, until the Tiger came out.

Incidentally, Pz III production switched to the 50mm/L42 in 1941 (a similar gun), and to the long 50mm only in 1942 (definitely a better one). In the course of 1942, the Germans uparmored their tanks and switched the Pz IV to a long 75mm. At that point, they were matching the T-34/76, basically (and the gun was better). Also in 1942 and into 1943, the Germans gradually uparmored their III and IV chassis AFVs - but only the front, really.

Once the Germans uparmored the IIIs and IVs, the Russian light tanks and small towed ATGs (same 45mm caliber) could still hole most of the German fleet, but now only at ranges of about 500 yards, unless using special APCR ammo. Against the heavier late-war armor (E.g. Pz IVG) they needed flank shots. The flanks of the Germans StuGs and Pz IVs could still be penetrated at 1 km using standard ammo. The Panther was of course invunerable to these small guns from the front. From side and rear they needed to be close, around 500 yards again.

Some of the Russian lights used 20mm, the same as the Pz II. That was only useful against the Pz II, halftracks, and armored cars. The reverse was also true, of course, since those German types had the same sort of armament (a few 37mm on platoon-leader gun halftracks). The Russians made 6000 of this type, the T-60, during the war, all of them during 1941 and 1942. They were used to scout for KV and T-34 companies in independent tank battalions. The Germans used Pz IIs for the same purpose, in the same period.

For comparison, the Russians fielded 28,000 light tanks armed with 45mm, including the pre-war T-26 and fast BT series, and the T-70, which replaced the T-60s covered above. The T-70s were built until the fall of '43, by which time all the chassis were switched over to SU-76 SP guns.

So 82% of the Russian *light* tank force was armed as well as the Pz III was, until the J model. They were all lightly armored, about like a Pz II, and they had speeds in the 30mph range. The BT series could run on the road wheels for road movement at 1.5 to 2 times that speed, to act as armored cars when desired.

As with all light armor, they were eggshells against AT weapons, but in the early war period they were well enough armed to kill German medium tanks, as well as lights. The lighter German armor was not well enough armed to kill Russian medium tanks, as the 20mm on the Pz II, and the 37mm on the Pz(38) and early Pz III models could not kill KVs and T-34s. Indeed, the German mediums needed flank shots against the Russian mediums.

The Russian tank forces in the early war certainly had problems, especially with doctrine, crew skill, insufficient radios, and small turrets. But "woefully inadequate light tanks", is a silly statement. In tank fighting gun&armor terms, they were better than the German light tanks and strong enough to be useful against the German mediums.

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

OK, here is my CM "operationalization" (what a word) of my previous theory about the ATRs. The idea is to simulate the low kills per penetration.

Model the ATR as a 2 man team with medium speed, or fast but easily tiring, like the Panzerschreck. Give it 25 ammo, each representing a number of shots, and have it fire like an infantry weapon or MG, around 4 times a turn, plus or minus for skill. Each of these "shots" represents a handful, much like MG "shots" represent a handful of bursts.

Check to see if the range and armor allows penetrations to be possible. Then roll on the appropriate table below (instead of the normal hit/penetration stuff).

No penetration, roll 1d100

1 - weapon is disabled

2 - the crew is "shocked"

3-4 - a *bog* result

5-100 - no effect.

With penetration, roll 1d100

1-2 - vehicle abandoned

3-5 - 1 crew casualty and shocked

6-7 - weapon disabled

8-10 - immobilized

11-13 - shocked

14-16 - bog result

17-100 - no effect

Some might think the chances low. But consider, in the case of the penetration, if the firing is kept up for 1 turn by 1 ATR, then the cumulative chance of doing something is 50%. 1 - (1 - .16) ^ 4. Even without penetration the cumulative chance of causing some damage is 15%.

If 3 ATRs shoot up the same target for 2 minutes, they have a 5/8ths chance of doing something to the target even without being able to penetrate it. The chance that a target survives such treatment if the rounds can get through is tiny, 1.5%.

If the effectiveness seems too low when penetrations are possible, then expand the numbers somewhat, for that case. For example, if the "table" runs up to 30, with 4-6% chances for each result listed, then the cumulative chance of damage is 76%, in 1 minute of firing, by 1 ATR. There is essentially no chance a vehicle would survive a couple of minutes of fire by several ATRs, if penetration is possible.

The tactical result would put the emphasis in the right place, it seems to me. If the ATRs can be suppressed and their firing halted before they have time to blaze away, then the danger from them is not enourmous. But if they can plink away in relatively safety, for a decent period and especially with several doing it, then the target's chances aren't very good.

Also, if a tank gets immobilized and has its weapon KOed, then it should be abandoned (or most of the time). And if the effect rolled is duplicated, then drop it to the next down, raising the severity as it were.

Incidentally, I think it would be neat to have the sense of facing the "thousand cuts", as vehicles suffered minor effects over and over until they've had it.

Comments?