Anti Tank Rifles
 

ATR's.

50 call, 12.7mm or other calibers. Are any anti-tank rifles really used in an anti-tank role?

They were once upon a time (like say WWII). Its been a long time since those calibres have been capable of taking out MBTs.

In my campaign the PCs obtained a Gepard anti tank rifle which was a (fictional) limited production "A2" 15mm BMG version of the original 14.5mm weapon. Only a couple of PCs and NPCs in their group had the strength and build to handle the weapon effectively but they used it to good effect on a number of occasions to take out APCs and punch through walls.

not today
 

In the inter war years and in WWII the antitank rifle had a place - but todays tanks are much to hardened to be taken out this way .

The old tanks had thinner armour plate etc .

I sometimes see someone writing that you could snipe the periscopes etc on a MBT . But imho that is a stretch.The tank will move,and of course look for you with a thermal imagimg system to deploy its maingun ..I think you wouldnt get many rounds loose before he runs you over or slams you with a 120mm round..

But there are APCs ,other vehicles and equipment that can be got- so up here we still use it ( Barret Light .50 and MacMillian M87 I think ) both .12,7X109 mm I think )

We call them AMR -Anti material rifles. ( MØR in our language ) .

Antitank rifles were obsolete even before they were issued. The reference to them being used against periscopes etc comes from the early stages of WWII (as early as the invasion of Poland in 1939) when it was found the projectiles simply bounced off armour that was virtually little more than tin foil.
The only hope was if the gunner managed to slot a shot through a vision slit, damage a track or burr the turrent so that it caught on the hull.

All in all they were heavy, with a huge recoil (the British .55 Boys had a well earned reputation for causing spinal injury), ineffective and extremely unpopular with the soldiers.

They did though eventually develop (in idea rather than design) into the antimaterial rifles HQ mentions, a role in which these high calibre and long ranged weapons excel (although I'd still prefer to hit the target with something possessing a warhead).

The first one was issued to the German Imperial Army in 1918 and they remained fairly efficient up to the mid-1930's. You are right about what you say on Poland but that was due to the poor quality of the German AT-rifle (light and using reinforced 7.92mm ammo). The poles also used a few but their model was directly derived from the German 1918 model.

Right again but when the .55 Boys started to be issued in numbers, the German tanks front armor had reached 50mm of strong alloy (nothing in common with the panzer I and II of poland). Panzer 38(t) already had a 38mm frontal armor.

Actually that came fast. The soviets had been issued large number of AT rifles that were fairly light, used 14.5mm ammo and were very simple designs (single bullet chamber). Of course, by 1941 they couldn't do much against tanks (even panzer II armor had grow to 35mm) but they were used by sniper units with great success, almost early version of the Garretts and Hecates (yes the Soviets invented the high penetration sniper rifle). However, this was dropped after WW2 for some obscure reasons and reintroduced by the US (someone must have gone through the well made intelligence reports of WW2:D).

The japanese 20mm rifle is interesting, however, as it was almost a portable Anti tank gun.

The situation changed again in 1943 when Germany started to develop high velocity AT tank gun that could penetrate thick armor while being small and manuverable (28mm and 50mm AT guns). The problem came from the tungsten used in the ammo as it was expensive and in short supply. In addition, the greatest weapon of WW2 had been invented: the Bazooka.;)

Lahti L-39 aka Elephant Gun aka flyswatter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lahti_L-39

Antitank rifles are a World War 1 idea; but by the time they were developed and fielded, they were already obsolete, and most were withdrawn quickly. Exceptions included the M-2 series, which were developed into heavy machineguns; the KPV, ditto; and several Russian and Finnish antitank rifles, which were primarily used as antimateriel and heavy sniper rifles. They never really filled their intended role as antitank weapons.

At Kursk the USSR fielded enormous amounts of AT rifle teams, which made the environment very deadly. They spent their time banging away at vision blocks and episcopes, and after over run they simply turned around and banged away at engine ventilators.

The nasty part about them was that they were near invisible to the tankers. The panzergrenadiers hated them as they'd get you through a stone wall or embankment, and they could stop a half track dead. German tank commanders usually conned their vehicles in an open hatch, which was a dangerous proposition with all the 14.5mm flying around.

It's a strange twist of fate that the 14.5mm round went from an AT rifle into a heavy machine gun round and then found its way back into what is essentially an AT rifle in Hungary. But, if you look at it, the Browning 12.7mm round was derived from a WW1 German AT rifle round, so its actually traditional! As to adoption, the M-82 Barrett heavy sniper rifle was avoided for a long time as it's actually illegal to use them on individuals, but when the US decided to circumvent the rule everyone else hastily got their own. Now they're well nigh universal. I can't see why they'd be considered inhuman personally, at least it's usually quick with something around 12.7mm.

The Barrett might be 'cool' - but the Boys ATR had Disney

part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rODm7...eature=related

part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9lIO...eature=related

part 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsifc...eature=related

Indeed, the Gepard I mentioned in my earlier post. Scary.

I agree. Stupid rule. Dead is dead.

I don't think it was really ever illegal, but maybe the it was idea that being a development of an "antiarmor" weapon it should be illegal to use against personnel.
Do I make sense?

As far as I know, that is a popular military myth or urban legend. That there is no actual law of war pertaining to .50caliber weapons such as those used on people, it isn't in any international convention, etc. Certain laws do address bullet and weapon types (chemical / flame ) but nothing like caliber.

For interest sake, do you have any official verification?

Simultaneous post.
That's what I wanted to say, but better explained. :D

Thanks, Fusilier.

It came under Section II, Article 23 of the Hague Convention, (HAGUE, II) (29 July 1899)To whit;

'- To employ arms, projectiles, or material of a nature to cause superfluous injury; '

It was and is considered that the .50 round caused excessive injury, and in the wording of the convention 'to ensure the death of the combatant'. The idea is you should be able to survive, no matter how torn up.

It's worth noting that this convention, while still binding, is abrogated in many areas by many nations. Chemical gas, flame weapons, collective punishment, superfluous destruction of property, all are banned by Article 23.

In a cyberfantasy game, two PCs picked up .455 and .405 Magnum rifles to use against a cyborg and kept them around "just in case" but the were civilian big game rifles.

In my weird WWII campaign, there was one PC who was *almost* strong enough to shoulder-fire a Boys without increased recoil penalties. I actually found this more impressive than him being a werecentipede ...

Colonel Charlie Beckwith, the founder of Team Delta, survived being shot through the torso by a 12.7mm round so there goes that idea.

Of course he wasn't your average human...

I'm familiar with this. But haven't seen anything that lists specific weaponry or anything less vague and open to interpretation.

Do you have anything more? Something that identifies these particular weapons?

Of course, the round had passed through the bottom of the helicopter he was a passenger in so it wasn't at full velocity by the time it hit him having passed through the hull and then the floor...

Another, more graphic, account of a soldier being hit by a 12.7mm round is the British soldier who was hit in the upper arm. He was fighting in the Falklands at the time and the round tore away the muscle essentially ending his use of that limb.

Absolutely true and I thought about that at the time I made my post. The thing is though, 12.7mm/.50 cal rounds at full velocity or at reduced velocity are likely to do pretty much the same damage to the human body because unless they have spent nearly all their energy they will pass right through a meat target and out the other side without tumbling (thus imparting only a small fraction of their energy into the target). The round that hit Beckwith had, as you say, come through the bottom of a Huey and lets face it, a couple of layers of thin aluminium wouldn't slow a 12.7mm round very much at all.

As you say, the .50 BMG is still going to have a lot of power behind it but I like to have as much information as I can get about a subject before drawing conclusions from it. In Beckwith's case, the round had travelled some distance from the ground and then hit the helicopter so it may have lost enough energy to not kill him outright.
Don't misunderstand me, he was a tough bastard - the medics said it wasn't worth doing triage on him because he was obviously dying, they obviously underestimated the man's will to live - but the loss of energy suffered by that round, no matter how small, is a significant factor in his survival.

Everything you say about the circumstances of Beckwith's shooting is true but perhaps I haven't been clear enough. The thing about a round like the 12.7mm or .50 cal is that they are a long, AP bullet. They don't fragment when they hit a human body, they don't expand and they don't tumble. This means that whether they hit you at 20 feet or at a kilometre they are still going to punch right through you. My point is that if the round doesn't fragment, expand or tumble there is a finite amount of energy it can impart to a human body before it punches out the other side, and that energy transfer is roughly the same whether the round is at full velocity or not.

This is a different situation to that of a pistol or rifle round that fragments, expands or tumbles when it hits a meat target, as those sorts of rounds are much more efficient at dumping their energy into a target.

That is in fact a widely-believed urban myth, even in the military (at least the US military). But many of the laws of war in the Geneva and Hague conventions about weapons use are very poorly-written -- it almost seems as if the writers wanted them to be misunderstood. There are some that read like anything more deadly than a paintball would be considered to cause superfluous injuries.

(Hmmmmm...maybe it would be better that way...fight wars with paintballs rather than killing people.)

And we have yet another thing that RPG rules in general don't really simulate very well.

Sadly true. I guess its a case of finding a rules set that does hmm? As I have done. What is the rules set I use again? I can't quite seem to remember...

:D

The term "hydrostatic shock" springs to mind as being somewhat relevant....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrostatic_shock

Agreed and I did have hydrostatic shock in the back of my mind as I was writing my posts. I have a couple of points the first is a quote from the end of that Wikipedia article:

"Maximizing the ballistic pressure wave effects requires transferring maximum energy in a penetration distance that meets this requirement. In addition, bullets that fragment and meet minimum penetration requirements generate higher pressure waves than bullets which do not fragment."

Also, the fact that Beckwith suffered a single, narrow wound channel injury and was in a helicopter descending to drop off its passengers suggests to me that the round that hit him had retained a significant fraction of its initial velocity. What's the max effective range of a 12.7mm AA gun, 1.5km or so? The helo was probably at only a couple of hundred metres or less in altitude, and the round only had to go through a layer or two of thin aluminiun to hit Beckwith. It still had sufficient energy after leaving Beckwith's body to punch through the top of the helicopter and continue on its way. If it had been significantly slowed before it hit Beckwith it it would have been wobbling all over the place.

I'm not saying you guys are wrong by the way. I'm not an expert in this field. I'm just sharing my opinions based on the facts as I understand them.

I'll have you burned at the stake for such blasphemy!

There's another thing that needs some work in the original T2K rules - burning. :cool:

In T2K any sort of significant burn would probably lead to death through infection.

There's another thing that needs some work in the original T2K rules - infection. :D