Here's an anti tank weapon
Posted on 11/29/2013 12:59:35 PM PST by Kolath
During World War II, the Disney company joined in the Allied war effort by producing animated movie material at cost for the US government (they also created insignia mascots for hundreds of aircraft and warships by request). These films number well over one hundred - although most are only partially created by Disney - and cover topics from antenna tuning to Beechcraft airplane maintenance to anti-German and Japanese propaganda. However, one piece in particular is of interest to us here at Forgotten Weapons: Stop That Tank!
Produced in 1942 for the Canadian military, it is a training film on the operation and maintenance of the Boys anti-tank rifle. The Disney contribution is in animated x-ray views of the various parts of the gun, and about 3 minutes of introduction featuring a section of Nazi tanks (the lead one driven by none other than Adolf Hitler) being surprised and driven back by a bunch of plucky doughboys hiding Boys AT rifles in bushes, outhouses, and horses.
The intro is pretty hilarious, but the meat of the film is actually a very informative piece on how the Boys works and how to use it. There are a couple copies of this already on YouTube, but thanks to reader Frank, we have this nice high-quality version.
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
hiding Boys AT rifles in bushes, outhouses, and horses.
Hiding rifles or ANYTHING in horses is just wrong.
How would YOU like it?
The .55 caliber boys took a big man to fire it and was more often used against buildings and such(would have been a great pill box buster)that it was tanks. Most tanks in Europe during WWII couldn’t be killed by that small of a weapon.
Wonder how it would do against the MRAPS?
The Boys AT Rifle, also known as the “This is gonna get me KILLED” gun.
The ONLY ones that used it effectively were the Finns vs. Soviet T-26’s with paper-thin armour, and that was only because the Ski troops could get behind them, and fire into the engine space from around a 100 ft. away.
They were reasonably ok vs. the PZ1A’s in France, which, along with wildly exaggerated kill claims, encouraged the Brits to distributed them widely in Africa, as an Anti-Armour stop-gap, where they were completely useless even against the German armoured cars by that stage. They were best used to disable trucks, or Italian Very Light Tanks by shooting the engine blocks, and even then it was dicey.
I am sure it would shoot through the APCs(armored personnell carriers I road in back in the sixties, but I don’t know how thick the armor is on the new fighting vehicles, such as the Bradly and others of that type. The boys would take out the flimsy Japanese tanks of the day, and I read somewhere that at least one Marine Raider carried one.
Great post.
Question: What kinds of armored vehicles would such a weapon be useful against today. (Obviously, Main Battle Tanks would be impervious, but what about MRAPs and the like?)
I read several years back that Japanese tank development had several challenges, but the primary one was the weight limits of ship-board cranes, to get them on and off transports.
For later
Standard trucks, some of the older light armoured cars, and not much else, I think.
I would imagine they could take out tank tread on the small-medium tanks.
RPG.
It didn’t help that the Boys was the worst anti-tank rifle design of the war, in a weapon type that was marginal for the times anyway. From the weight, to the monopod and over-designed recoil mechanisms, the Boys was a visible guide to everything wrong with pre-war Euro-democracy “weapons systems”.
The Soviet stripped down designs were head and shoulders above the Boys. In Soviet Russia, anti-tank rifle shoot you!
Here's an anti tank weapon
The Boys was generally known for making tanks mad.
Yes, but I qualified my statement by stating "killing tanks". Taking out a tread doesn't kill one, only stops its forward progress. It can still shoot. I would think they could do a job on heavy tank treads also, if you fired several rounds into them.
Yes, but I qualified my statement by stating "killing tanks". Taking out a tread doesn't kill one, only stops its forward progress. It can still shoot. I would think they could do a job on heavy tank treads also, if you fired several rounds into them.
At the time of WWII a 37MM was considered too light of a gun, although some of our light and medium tanks had them, also the German Mark III, one of their best in the early part of the war, was armed with a 50MM, it fell short rather quickly when it came to killing other tanks. The Mark IV, which was their main battle tank, had a 75MM, but it was out numbered by the Mark IIIs.
The .55 caliber boys was woefully under powered for tanks of that era. Even our bazooka at the start of the war was inadequate when it came to the Panther and Tiger. 2.75 inch if I remember correctly, led to the development of the 3.5 inch.
They do a pretty good job of knocking down palm trees!
The other oddball thing with Britain trying so hard to reduce recoil with the Boys, was their take on first generation shaped charge anti-tank weapons. When everyone else was going with recoilless weapons, the Brits came up with a shaped charge spigot mortar, the PIAT, whose recoil would knock your fillings out.
The Boys looked painful to fire. And the PIAT was just as bad but you could knock a panzer out with a lucky shot.
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