10 anti-tank weapons which flopped

Just something to entertain you. After 10 flopped firearms now my 10 flopped anti-tank-weapons.

10. Nashorn (uses the otherwise needed Pz Mk IV Chassis, not exactly easy to hide)
9. M10 Tank Destroyer (just my opinion, open turret, gun not especially powerful)
8. British 2-pounder anti-tank-gun (very heavy for what it is)
7. Elefant Tank Destroyer (unreliable, very difficult to maintain, no sloped armour)
6. PIAT (difficult to operate, short range…)
5. French 25mm anti-tank-gun (too fragile to be towed although no lightweight, weak projectile)
4. Püppchen 8,8 cm Raketenwerfer (a Bazooka/Panzerschreck with the drawbacks of a small ATG)
3. Northover projector (who wants to operate it?)
2. Jagdtiger (unreliable, guzzles fuel, far too heavy for the suspension, there was a Jagdpanther already)
1. Soviet anti-tank dogs (ineffective, disgusting, even dangerous for the own tanks – the dogs were used to the Diesel-engined russian tanks)

Other opinions are always welcome!

 

British tommies issued the French 25mm for want of enough 2pdrs in Norway and France liked it. And on into the Sealion period as quite a few were brought home. Later it made a successful early portee in the Western Desert.

As for the Northover projector it never really saw service. BUT the Home Guard became frighteningly proficient with it. And loved it. Althought never tested in anger as an AT weapon... don't forget the Home Guard were to tackle tanks and other afvs from ambush; given some of the training manuals Ive seen, and their preparations for two-point distraction ambushes on roadways, the Projector MIGHT have proved useful in extremis...

It was what replaced it, the Blacker Bombard, that far too often caused horrific training accidents.

 

Do you really think, someone can hit a moving target effectivly with the Northover projector?

The Wehrmacht used the french 25mm ATG too, it wasn't completely useless. But it was as heavy as a Pak 36 and couldn't be moved around as easily as necessary. Which was no issue in the Atlantic Wall.

 

I cannot agree at all with several of these.

1. The M10 was certainly not a perfect vehicle, but it was a very useful one. It could hit harder than the Sherman and at longer ranges, especially when the British armed it with the 17 pounder. It also operated with some success in the direct infantry support and mobile field artillery roles, even though it had not been designed for either. US Tank Destroyer command found all self-propelled TDs to be superior tactically to the towed M5 3 Inch Gun, which was too large and heavy.

2. The 2 pounder gets a lot of criticism not for what it was but for what it wasn't--namely a 6 pounder. Its penetrating power was equal to or better than other guns in its class (37mm Pak, US 37mm, etc.) at the time it was introduced. The breech mechanism gave it a fairly good rate of fire, and it was effective against the early marks of Panzers III and IV the British faced in 1940-41. The carriage was indeed complex, but the wide traverse was useful. The Canadians also produced a more orthodox split-trail carriage for the gun. The real problem with the 2 pounder was its retention in front line service for at least a year after its useful life against German armor had come to an end.

3. The PIAT was heavy as hell and difficult to load, but it was an effective anti-tank weapon nonetheless. I have read a number of accounts of successful use of PIATs in Normandy by 43rd, 49th, and 50th divisions. The PIAT was also helpful against bunkers and houses and it could even be stood on end and used as an extempore mortar. As for the short range, that was true of every infantry anti-tank launcher of World War II. I wouldn't have wanted to carry one, but the PIAT was not a failure.

4. The 25mm Hotchkiss was afflicted with a rather fragile carriage, but I have read a report by British XIII Corps from late 1941 which rates it as a pretty good anti-tank weapon, I imagine mostly against lighter vehicles. The 25mm was issued to British infantry brigades in 1940, and if I was a brigadier I would have been happy to have some instead of having to wait for the divisional 2 pounders to show up and deploy. It could pierce some of the armor of German tanks of that era, and could definitely knock out the Panzer Is and IIs which still formed such a big part of the German tank force at that point. And by the way the French had also developed some fairly effective 47mm guns as well.

 

That's fine. I had difficulties finding 10 but i've heard harsh criticism about the PIAT. It was effective when it works and hits the target, but there were quite a few which didn't work even when new. And reloading was a pain. And it was heavy.

Could you name other candidates?

 

How about the Japanese "lunge mine"?

 

Really, to be of any form of use, the list should be segregated into categories of "crew served weapon", "anti tank guns" and "vehicles". "Top 10s" are of questionable academic use to begin with but are good for entertainment - provided that we have some sort of structure. I don't see the point in saying for example a PIAT and Nashorn are on the same list as bein poor anti tank weapons. Apples and oranges. The Small Arms version went off the rails for that reason - I and a few others had attempted to make it into a factual and somewhat academic discussion, but that was undercut by the spirit of of original discussion and format. I am hesitant to post commentary here (including hands-on experience with some of of crew served weapons) for the same reasons as in the other thread - it seemed that academic discussion was not the intent, and those posts had no bearing on how the conversation progressed.

 

I would remove the M10, Nashorn and Elephant,
- M 10 once you got to guns weighting a ton or more self propelled mounts were a the way to go, the only issue was it used what was basically an M4 chassis with a lot less armor, and not that much better gun (especially if compared with an earlier introduction M4/76 that could have been built instead) but the M36 and British 17lb adaptations justified the design.
- Nashorn nothing wrong with it if used for the long range battlefield interdiction role it was designed for, on open terrain it could engage a T34/76 with accurate fire far beyond risposte range and, contrary to field carriage PAK 43, had a chance to bug out is things got too hot or, even more important, to redeploy to where it was needed in a fluid situation.
- Elefant should never have been built and the 90 chassis used for training instead, it was a logistics nightmare but I would not like to be an allied tanker facing one, its kill/loss ratio war very good (with the usual caveat about German claims) and most losses were due to mecanical failures so the crews survived.

I would add the Italian 47/32 instead, it was not a real anti tank gun, the Bohler was designed as an infantry gun with a secondary AT capability, has no shield, could not be towed and had poor penetration even compared with first generation weapons (PAK 36 and 2lb).
Also in the list should be most AT rifles, a single man portable AT gun was not doable once tanks got to 40mm plates or more, though some of them had pretty amazing penetration capabilities. Something like a modern Barret can be very useful in the hands of a specialist, but as the main AT defense of an infantry formation you needed something heavier even in 1939.

 

I interpret the OP as a "free for all" where the fun element outweights a more rigorous approach, and especially on this subject, a category based approach will fail too, AT doctrine was pretty different from country to country and that led to very different designs so it wound be very limiting to compare them on just technical characteristics. To have a really "academic" discussion you have to start from doctrine not the weapons themselves.
And even within the same country a Nashorn is a different beast from a Jadgpanther. an Elefant a PAK43 or a PAK43/41, but wich one was the better bang for the buck ?

 

Don't you think, that the american industry should have been able to develop something like a StuG? The M10 was really very similar to the usual M4 and no other nation copied the concept of a light armored tank destroyer with a proper turret.

There you are, needs a very specific battlefield to work
I struggled too, it is the no. 10.

The Sermovente 47/32 was very similar to the Panzerjäger 1, combining a totally obsolete chassis with an average anti-tank-gun. It arrived a little too late on the Battlefield but that's all.
Anti-tank-rifles were produced as long as they were effective and the Wehrmacht did use all captured russian PTRD and PTRS intensly against other targets. So i can't consider them as a "Flop".

The list is of no academic benefit, it is just something to entertain you. It is obvious, that a Jagdtiger is a capable weapon, but it isn't an effective or cleverly designed weapon. That's the basic idea behind the list: Was the weapon a clever or a stupid idea? The french 25mm ATG model 37 even had problems when towed by horses! You need a special truck to move them around. That's ok with an 88mm gun, but ridiculous for this tiny weapon.

 

I thought the Piat round was powered by compressed air within the base of shell, pierced by the spring loaded firing pin. I don't know where I got that idea.

Short vid explaining the Piat, and its shortcomings.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJPZX9QtXAQ

 

There is one big advantage to the PIAT over the Panzerfaust. Panzerschrek and Bazooka. It was a spigot mortar not a rocket or recoil-less rifle. It had no back blast and could be used safely from inside a building or bunker.

Clumsy though it may have been,. the PIAT delivered local anti tank defence to the British and Commonwealth units from 1943 onwards. It was a success not a failure

Unlike the anti tank rifle carried by early war infantrymen. An elephant gun wasn't going to KO WW2 tanks.

At the other extreme the very large calibre anti tank guns 128mm, 32 Pdr etc were far to big to be useful in a forward area.

There ought to be some consideration of the air launched anti tank weapons. Vertical panzerfausts on the stuka were a fail, but i am not sure that 47mm/40mm guns mounted on aircraft were cost effective. Aircraft had to get pretty close and were around ten times as expensive as tanks. Were they a masterful use of air power or a heroic self deludign fail? It depends on how many tanks you think they actually knocked out.
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You are right, i forgot the flying anti-tank-weapons. Do you think, they all were ineffective?

The Anti-Tank-Rifles were only produced when useful. The german tank-crews in the East feared them even later in the war, but I understand why they could be considered as a failure.

 

You confuse ability and desire. Ordnance tried a number of StuGish and Marderish vehicles, but there was zero demand from the using end for them, so they went nowhere.

 

The later super-heavy T-28 was StuGish.
Wasn't it just the quickest way to create a tank destroyer by staying as close to the M4 as possible? Or was the offensive warfare, the US Army was expecting, the reason for the turret?

 

The Two Pounder seemed weak... Hear why it had to be kept in production for too long...Heard it had no useful explosive round, at least when it mattered...Use what you have, and they did a good job of it.

 

Read Chamberlain and Ellis, British and American Tanks of WWII, which goes into detail on the myriad of SPG prototypes developed by the US Army. The closest thing to a StuG was probably the M8 HMC, which had the gun (75mm how) in a turret. A 75mm how in a fixed frontal mount on the Stuart chassis was considered but rejected. Rightly so, I think; why restrict the traverse when you don't have to?

 

I was referring to the base 47/32 anti tank gun not the 1942 SP version that was just a way for Ansaldo/Fiat to sell some of the L40 chassis that the Army had repeatedly refused. But I agree the troops issued with the SP and having to face M4s and T34s were not likely to be happy about it. The gun had a lot of the same issues of the French 25mm though being basically an infantry gun it had a useful HE round, had the Regio Esercito fielded a true AT weapon alongside it would have been a nice complement to it, as the only AT defense available it heavily contributed to some Italian disasters.

If your standard medium is a 30+ tonner you do not have to go to casemate for a 75mm SP and a 75mm is usually enough for direct fire support though the Soviets and Germans had some specialized units with much bigger guns.

There was no requirement for Stugs in the US Army, late war infantry divisions usually had an attached tank batallion that did that role, but the SP on the half tracked M3 chassis were "Marderish" in concept.

A tank might be cheaper than an airplane (would have to lookup some figures) but German aircraft production far surpassed tank production, around 40.000 Me 109 and 20.000 Fw 190 versus "only" 8.000 Pz IV and 5.000 Pz V, so if you trade tanks vs aircraft you will soon run out of tanks. This is partly compensated by the fact that a non burnt out tank can usually be repaired, if you manage to drag it to a repair shop, a crashed aircraft is usually only good for recovering scrap metal.

 

I don't know if the M3 75mm really had much of a "concept" at all; it was just a quick Rube Goldberg way of getting an obsolescent gun onto a mobile chassis to serve as a kind of ersatz tank destroyer or training vehicle until the real TD (M10) arrived in service.

 

The British soldiers often had to cope with bad weapons. They had much experience then

To lower the profile? To reduce the weight? To ease production?