It worked reasonably well against early WWII tanks with a turret overhang [for room for the main gun to recoil] over the back deck. Later tanks that expanded the turret for room for radios, ammo stowage, etc were less vulnerable to the trick, though even the postwar M47 Patton had enough space to get a good-sized mine or satchel charge under it's rear.
I always thought the Finnish Winter War engineers trick of firing a few sniper rounds at a Soviet tank column and waiting for a patrol to be sent out after them, and then, as the enemy vehicles rolled out on the surface of the frozen-over lake, blowing the preset demo charges and sending them to the bottom was pretty neat. Then wait a few days for the lake to freeze over, and wait for another column run by guys who didn't know what happened to the last guys.