Challenge; successful use of anti-tank rifles in WW2.

The Germans very much appreciated and admired the speed of the Crusaders, and Guderian is on record as preferring a fast runner to a heavier, slower tank.

And as for speed, the Cromwell could pull 40mph, and it was governed to that speed as otherwise it had a disturbing tendency to shed tracks.

Except the 'real' Cromwell design wasn't fielded until 1943, with the Meteor engine. Crusader didn't see battle until June of 1941, either. All after the PoD (Battle of France).

As for Guderian's line about the engine being as much of a weapon as the main gun...yes, I think that reinforces my point.
 
Lest we forget, anti-tank rifles can also be used to target lighter vehicles like trucks...and people.

(Incidentally, does anyone know how effective the Boys .50 Cal Antitank rifle was? (I know a guy who has one, I know the ATF & FBI were worried about David Koresh's one, and I've seen Disney's "Stop That Tank" about said rifle.))

The Boys anti tank rifle fired a 13.9 mm (0.55 ins) steel cored bullet at about 990 m/s (3250 ft/sec), & could penetrate 15mm (0.6 ins) of hardened steel armour at 230m (250 yards).
As such, it was probably the best ATR of it's time period, & one wonders, what it's armour piercing performance would been, if a Tungsten Carbide penetrator round had ever been delvoped/issued for it, in a similar manner to the Soviet PTR series...
 
What about tactics? Perhaps ATR men could be trained to primarily shoot at command tanks or comms vehicles? Or perhaps they could be aimed at winning the recon battle, shooting at light recon vehicles in order to deprive the PzDiv of information?
 
The Boys anti tank rifle fired a 13.9 mm (0.55 ins) steel cored bullet at about 990 m/s (3250 ft/sec), & could penetrate 15mm (0.6 ins) of hardened steel armour at 230m (250 yards).
As such, it was probably the best ATR of it's time period, & one wonders, what it's armour piercing performance would been, if a Tungsten Carbide penetrator round had ever been delvoped/issued for it, in a similar manner to the Soviet PTR series...

An interesting PoD for this would be better British performance in Asia. Burma was the world's major producer of tungsten at this point, and the British failure in Malaya lead to its loss.

Without this, I suspect the British (and the US), would make a greater use of it.
 
Burma wasn't lost until 1942, tungsten could have been incorporated into the ammo in time for the early battles against the lighter AFVs which would be vulnerable to ATRs.
 
Burma wasn't lost until 1942, tungsten could have been incorporated into the ammo in time for the early battles against the lighter AFVs which would be vulnerable to ATRs.

That's true, but I think that the need has to be demonstrated first by those early battles, before they'll start the work.
 
How can anti-tank rifles be considered successful prior to being replaced by bazookas and the like.

For one conflict, if Lahti L-39 is produced in quantity before the Winter War. This can be achieved by settling the caliber dispute earlier than OTL. As a result it is possible (but not certain) that Mannerheim Line is not broken and the initial Soviet casualties much higher than OTL when Finnish forces had to rely on Molotov coctails as a close-in AT weapon, resulting in much lower Finnish casualties.

Without the Mannerheim line crumbling Stalin may come to his senses with Western Intervention threat upon him. Peace terms are more lenient, Finland does not join Germany in 1941, the war is over in late 1944...
 
The Boys anti tank rifle fired a 13.9 mm (0.55 ins) steel cored bullet at about 990 m/s (3250 ft/sec), & could penetrate 15mm (0.6 ins) of hardened steel armour at 230m (250 yards).
As such, it was probably the best ATR of it's time period, & one wonders, what it's armour piercing performance would been, if a Tungsten Carbide penetrator round had ever been delvoped/issued for it, in a similar manner to the Soviet PTR series...

Boys was an average rifle, not the best. The Swiss companies Solothurn and Oerlikon both made 20mm rifles at the time.
 
As others have pointed out, ATRs worked just fine for the most part, it's just that their employment and the tactics prevalent at the beginning of the war were the problem. The Soviets' success with the PTRD shows that it wasn't the dead-end weapon many seem to think it is. The Boys ATR was successful against armored cars, halftracks, and other light vehicles, but less so against tanks.

France 1940 might have looked very different if the French and Belgians had a good ATR that was distributed at the platoon or squad level. Remember that one of the main factors in the success of the German Blitzkreig was the use of halftracks and armored cars, which ATRs would have had little trouble destroying.
 
IIRC the BEF had 3 Boyes rifles per battalion, this strikes me as too few to make any sort of difference in any scenario.

ATRs come up against the same constraints as all infantry weapons designed to defend against powerful war machines. To have any sort of killing power they get so big and heavy that infantry can't use them.
 
IIRC the BEF had 3 Boyes rifles per battalion, this strikes me as too few to make any sort of difference in any scenario.

ATRs come up against the same constraints as all infantry weapons designed to defend against powerful war machines. To have any sort of killing power they get so big and heavy that infantry can't use them.

The advantages of ATRs are that they can be mounted on light vehicles like the Bren Carrier, and are much more easily transportable than anti-tank guns. Heavy machine guns and mortars can't be easily carried by individual infantrymen either.
 
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