A reversed bullet was a German anti-tank method for penetrating the armor of the British heavy tanks of World War I.
A reversed bullet was a German anti-tank method for penetrating the armor of the British heavy tanks of World War I.
At their inception in 1916, the British Mark I tank proved nearly impenetrable to standard rifle fire. The first attempt at boosting the power of German infantry rifles was the "reversed bullet". This used the same case and bullet as a normal round, except with the bullet seated backwards and additional propellant added to the 7.92×57mm Mauser cartridge. When fired, the blunt end of the bullet hit the target first. The bullet did not as readily deflect or break apart against armor plating like a normal bullet would, but transferred most of its kinetic energy to the steel plate on impact. [1] Used against World War I tanks, the reversed bullet sometimes penetrated into the tank compartment, but more often it severely indented the plate armor of the tank. This caused a spray of metal fragments (spall) that injured or killed the crew of the tank, as effective as a full penetration into the tank compartment. [2] At short range, armor required a minimum thickness of one-half inch/12.7 mm in order to stop a reversed bullet. [1] The allies spread stories that reversed bullets were illegal, improvised, expanding bullets used by Germans against French infantry at short ranges. [3] German reversed bullets were however factory loaded and offered no advantage over non-reversed bullets if used against infantry.
The reversed bullet sometimes damaged German rifles, often injuring its users. This made it unpopular with German infantry. [1] Later in World War I, the Germans developed the armor-piercing K bullet for use against heavier British tanks.
Armour or armor is a covering used to protect an object, individual, or vehicle from physical injury or damage, especially direct contact weapons or projectiles during combat, or from a potentially dangerous environment or activity. Personal armour is used to protect soldiers and war animals. Vehicle armour is used on warships, armoured fighting vehicles, and some combat aircraft, mostly ground attack aircraft.
Self-propelled artillery is artillery equipped with its own propulsion system to move toward its firing position. Within the terminology are the self-propelled gun, self-propelled howitzer, self-propelled mortar, and rocket artillery. They are high mobility vehicles, usually based on continuous tracks carrying either a large field gun, howitzer, mortar, or some form of rocket/missile launcher. They are usually used for long-range indirect bombardment support on the battlefield.
The BMP-1 is a Soviet amphibious tracked infantry fighting vehicle that has been in service from 1966 to the present. BMP stands for Boyevaya Mashina Pyekhoty 1, meaning "infantry fighting vehicle, 1st serial model". The BMP-1 was the first mass-produced infantry fighting vehicle (IFV) of the Soviet Union. It was called the M-1967, BMP and BMP-76PB by NATO before its correct designation was known.
A recoilless rifle (rifled), recoilless launcher (smoothbore), or simply recoilless gun, sometimes abbreviated to "RR" or "RCL" is a type of lightweight artillery system or man-portable launcher that is designed to eject some form of countermass such as propellant gas from the rear of the weapon at the moment of firing, creating forward thrust that counteracts most of the weapon's recoil. This allows for the elimination of much of the heavy and bulky recoil-counteracting equipment of a conventional cannon as well as a thinner-walled barrel, and thus the launch of a relatively large projectile from a platform that would not be capable of handling the weight or recoil of a conventional gun of the same size. Technically, only devices that use spin-stabilized projectiles fired from a rifled barrel are recoilless rifles, while smoothbore variants are recoilless guns. This distinction is often lost, and both are often called recoilless rifles.
The .50 BMG, also known as 12.7×99mm NATO, and designated as the 50 Browning by the C.I.P., is a .50 in (12.7 mm) caliber cartridge developed for the M2 Browning heavy machine gun in the late 1910s, entering official service in 1921. Under STANAG 4383, it is a standard service cartridge for NATO forces, as well as many non-NATO countries. The cartridge itself has been made in many variants: multiple generations of regular ball, tracer, armor-piercing (AP), incendiary, and saboted sub-caliber rounds. The rounds intended for machine guns are made into a continuous ammunition belt using metallic links.
Anti-tank warfare originated from the need to develop technology and tactics to destroy tanks during World War I. Since the Allies deployed the first tanks in 1916, the German Empire developed the first anti-tank weapons. The first developed anti-tank weapon was a scaled-up bolt-action rifle, the Mauser 1918 T-Gewehr, that fired a 13.2 mm cartridge with a solid bullet that could penetrate the thin armor of tanks at that time and destroy the engine or ricochet inside, killing occupants. Because tanks represent an enemy's strong force projection on land, military strategists have incorporated anti-tank warfare into the doctrine of nearly every combat service since. The most predominant anti-tank weapons at the start of World War II in 1939 included the tank-mounted gun, anti-tank guns and anti-tank grenades used by the infantry, and ground-attack aircraft.
The ISU-152 is a Soviet self-propelled gun developed and used during World War II. It was unofficially nicknamed Zveroboy in response to several large German tanks and guns coming into service, including Tigers and Panthers. Since the ISU-152's gun was mounted in a casemate, aiming it was awkward, and had to be done by repositioning the entire vehicle using the tracks. Therefore, it was used as mobile artillery to support more mobile infantry and armor attacks. It continued service into the 1970s and was used in several campaigns and countries.
An anti-tank rifle is an anti-materiel rifle designed to penetrate the armor of armored fighting vehicles, most commonly tanks, armored personnel carriers, and infantry fighting vehicles. The term is usually used for weapons that can be carried and used by one person, but is sometimes used for larger weapons. The usefulness of rifles for this purpose ran from the introduction of tanks in World War I until the Korean War. While medium and heavy tank armor became too thick to be penetrated by rigid projectiles from rifles that could be carried by a single soldier, anti-tank rifles continued to be used against other "soft" targets, though recoilless rifles and rocket-propelled grenades such as the bazooka were also introduced for infantry close-layer defense against tanks.
An anti-materiel rifle (AMR) is a rifle designed for use against military equipment, structures, and other hardware (materiel) targets. Anti-materiel rifles are chambered in significantly larger calibers than conventional rifles and are employed to eliminate equipment such as engines and unarmored or lightly armored targets. While modern armored vehicles are resistant to anti-materiel rifles, the extended range and penetration still has many modern applications. While not intended for use against human targets, the bullet weight and velocity of anti-materiel rifles gives them exceptional long-range capability even when compared with designated sniper rifles. Anti-materiel rifles are made in both bolt-action as well as semi-automatic designs.
A rifle grenade is a grenade that uses a rifle-based launcher to permit a longer effective range than would be possible if the grenade were thrown by hand.
The Sd.Kfz. 251 half-track was a World War II German armored personnel carrier designed by the Hanomag company, based on its earlier, unarmored Sd.Kfz. 11 vehicle. The Sd.Kfz. 251 was designed to transport the Panzergrenadier into battle. Sd.Kfz. 251s were the most widely produced German half-tracks of the war, with at least 15,252 vehicles and variants produced by seven manufacturers. The utility of this vehicle led the German Army to develop the similar looking but shorter and lighter Sd.Kfz. 250 as a supplement.
An anti-tank gun is a form of artillery designed to destroy tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, normally from a static defensive position. The development of specialized anti-tank munitions and anti-tank guns was prompted by the appearance of tanks during World War I. To destroy hostile tanks, artillerymen often used field guns depressed to fire directly at their targets, but this practice expended too much valuable ammunition and was of increasingly limited effectiveness as tank armor became thicker. The first dedicated anti-tank artillery began appearing in the 1920s, and by World War II was a common appearance in many European armies. To penetrate armor, they fired specialized ammunition from longer barrels to achieve a higher muzzle velocity than field guns. Most anti-tank guns were developed in the 1930s as improvements in tanks were noted, and nearly every major arms manufacturer produced one type or another.
A tank gun is the main armament of a tank. Modern tank guns are high-velocity, large-caliber artilleries capable of firing kinetic energy penetrators, high-explosive anti-tank, and cannon-launched guided projectiles. Anti-aircraft guns can also be mounted to tanks.
Military vehicles are commonly armoured to withstand the impact of shrapnel, bullets, shells, rockets, and missiles, protecting the personnel inside from enemy fire. Such vehicles include armoured fighting vehicles like tanks, aircraft, and ships.
The Model 35 antitank rifle was a Polish 7.9 mm anti-tank rifle used by the Polish Army during the 1939 invasion of Poland. It was designated model 35 for its design year, 1935: It was also known by its codename "Uruguay", after the country and by the name of its designer, Józef Maroszek(pl).
Armoured warfare or armored warfare, is the use of armoured fighting vehicles in modern warfare. It is a major component of modern methods of war. The premise of armoured warfare rests on the ability of troops to penetrate conventional defensive lines through use of manoeuvre by armoured units.
A heavy machine gun (HMG) is significantly larger than light, medium or general-purpose machine guns. HMGs are typically too heavy to be man-portable and require mounting onto a weapons platform to be operably stable or tactically mobile, have more formidable firepower, and generally require a team of personnel for operation and maintenance.
The 7.92×57mm Mauser is a rimless bottlenecked rifle cartridge. The 7.92×57mm Mauser cartridge was adopted by the German Empire in 1903–1905, and was the German service cartridge in both World Wars. In its prime, the 7.92×57mm Mauser cartridge was one of the world's most popular military cartridges. In the 21st century it is still a popular sport and hunting cartridge that is factory-produced in Europe and the United States.
The K bullet was a 7.92×57mm Mauser armor-piercing bullet with a tool steel core designed to be fired from a standard Mauser rifle.