Wz. 35 anti-tank rifle

**Karabin przeciwpancerny wz.35**
Karabin przeciwpancerny wz.35
	Photo of a Karabin przeciwpancerny wzór 35 inFinnishservice in 1942 under designation 8 mm pst kiv/38.
Type	Anti-tank rifle
Place of origin	Poland
Service history
In service	1939 (Polish Military Service); 1939–1945 (SeeUsers)
Used by	Poland; SeeUsers
Wars	World War II Invasion of Poland;
Production history
Designer	Józef Maroszek[pl]
Designed	1935
Manufacturer	Państwowa Fabryka Karabinów
Produced	1938–1939
No.built	est. 6,500
Variants	None. Various redesignations under different armies:; PzB 35 (p)/PzB 770 (p); PzB 770 (i); Fucile Controcarro 35(P); 8 mm pst kiv/38
Specifications
Mass	10 kg (22 lb) (loaded); 9.5 kg (21 lb) (unloaded); 9.0 kg (19.8 lb) (unloaded and without bipod)
Length	1,760 mm (69 in)
Barrellength	1,200 mm (47 in)
Cartridge	7.92×107mm DS
Caliber	7.9mm
Action	Bolt action
Rate of fire	8–10 round/min
Muzzle velocity	1,275 m/s (4,180 ft/s)
Effective firing range	100 m (110 yd); 33 mm of armor penetration
Maximum firing range	300 m (330 yd); 15 mm of armor penetration
Feed system	4-roundbox magazine
Sights	Open Sights

TheModel 35 antitank rifle(Karabin przeciwpancerny wzór 35,abbreviated "kb ppanc wz. 35") was a Polish 7.9 mmanti-tank rifleused by thePolish Armyduring the 1939invasion of Poland.It was designated model 35 for its design year, 1935: It was also known by its codename "Uruguay",after the country(kb Urugwaj;orkb Ur) and by the name of its designer,Józef Maroszek[pl].

Secrecy

The weapon was initially a top secret project of the Polish Army, and was also known by various codenames. Until mobilization in 1939, the combat-ready rifles were held in closed crates marked: "Do not open! Surveillance equipment!". Another of the rifle's cover names was "Uruguay" (Polish:Urugwaj,henceUr), the country to which the "surveillance equipment" was supposedly being exported.

After the fall of Poland, the German army captured large numbers of thekb ppanc wz.35and renamed it "Panzerbüchse 35 (polnisch)"(abbreviated"PzB 35(p)"). The Italian army later received 800 of the captured weapons, renaming them"fucile controcarro 35(P)."Both names translate roughly as" anti-tank rifle model 1935 (Polish). "

In early 1940, one of the rifles, its stock and barrel sawed off, was smuggled out of Poland across theTatra MountainsintoHungaryfor theAlliesbyKrystyna Skarbekand fellow Polishcouriers.The rifle never saw service with the Allies, however. The drawings and specifications had been destroyed by the Poles during the invasion of Poland.

Description

It resembled a rifle with a longer-than-normal barrel supported by a bipod at the front of the wooden stock. It was aMauserstyle,bolt-action rifle,fed from a 4-round box magazine. The barrel had amuzzle braketo limit recoil. It absorbed about 65% of the shot energy, and the recoil was comparable to a standard Mauser rifle, even though the cartridge carried more than twice the amount of propellant. It had iron sights fixed for a 300-meter range.

Unlike contemporary anti-tank rifles, it lacked a pistol grip and fired a bullet with a lead core rather than an armour-piercing round with a hard core. Thefull metal jacket bulletweighed 14.579 g and, due to a high muzzle velocity, was effective even under shallow angles, as instead of ricocheting, the bullet would "stick" to the armour and punch a roughly 20 mm diameter hole. Calculated kinetic energy, by shot, before brake was about 11,850 J. The high energy was due to the relatively long barrel, and nitro powder giving a muzzle velocity of 1,275 m/s.^[1]

History

Ammunition

In the late 1920s the PolishGeneral Staffstarted the development of a light anti-tank weapon for the Polish infantry. In 1931 Lt. Colonel Tadeusz Felsztyn from the Institute of Armament Technology inWarsawstarted the first tests of various low-calibrecartridges.After the tests of German-madeHaglerbullets proved the possibilities of that type ammunition in perforating steel plate, the National Ammunition Factory inSkarżysko-Kamiennawas ordered to develop its own 7.92 mm cartridge with amuzzle velocityof over 1,000 meters per second. After a series of tests, the newDScartridgewas proposed.

TheDSammunition was originated from thestandard 7.92×57mm cartridgeas used by both the Mauser rifle1898(wz.98) and its Polish variant theKarabinek wz.29.The length of the cartridge was extended to 131.2 millimetres (5.17 in) and the overall weight was 64.25 grams (2.266 oz). After an additional series of tests thecoppercartridge case was replaced with a case made ofbrass(67% copper/ 23%zinc).

The round's armor-defeating properties were not through penetration, i.e. by punching the core through the armor like a typicalpenetrator,but through the impact of the bullet flattening against the plate, transferring kinetic energy to the metal. The result was that the bullet would causespallingon the interior of the armor plate, ideally ejecting an approximately 20 mm-diameter fragment from the interior surface of the armour at high speed, which would then ricochet around the interior, hopefully killing crew and/or damaging equipment or engines (this is similar in concept to modernHESH anti-tankrounds, albeit less potent). Due to the physics of spalling, the size of this spall was larger than the actual rifle caliber, and could theoretically do more damage ricocheting around inside the vehicle than the bullet itself would if it penetrated. The downside was that since the bullet itself was not designed to penetrate, it could not be filled with anincendiarycomponent and used to ignite fuel tanks, or filled withtear gas(as used by the similar German7.92×94mm Patronenanti-tank rifle cartridge), which was intended to force the crew to evacuate, or at least greatly reduce their combat effectiveness, even if no-one was hit by the bullet itself.

The SovietPTRD 14.5×114mmanti-tank rifle also used a bolt based on the Mauser Gewehr 98 rifle, as this design is legendary for its strength and simplicity and has become the most widely adopted and copied designs of all time. The Wz. 35 is itself inspired by the13.2mm TuFanti-tank rifle, also a scaled-up G98 rifle. The main difference is that while the TuF and PTRD were chambered in a large-caliber round, the Wz. 35 used an oversized cartridge case mated to a rifle-caliber 8mm bullet, giving very high velocity at the expense of hitting power. The Panzerbüchse 39 also used an 8mm bullet, but with an out-sized8mm Mausercartridge case known as the 7.92×94mm Patronen, and a specialtool-steelcored bullet.

Rifle

Simultaneous to the development of the ammunition, a young graduate of theWarsaw University of Technology,Józef Maroszek[pl],was ordered to design an anti-tank rifle. On August 1, 1935, the Committee of Equipment and Armament officially ordered the rifle and in October the first tests of the new weapon commenced.

The rifle was based on his thesis projectKarabinek KP-32,which was a reworked and simplified MauserGewehr 98,with the action scaled-up to sustain the higher pressure and length of the new cartridge, as well as the barrel lengthened significantly. The first tests carried out inBrześćandPionkishowed that the new weapon was capable of penetrating a 15 mm steel plate at a distance of 300 metres with similar results against angled steel plate. Initially the barrel could withstand only about 30 shots, after which it had to be replaced with a new one. However, this drawback was soon corrected and the final prototype could fire approximately 300 shots. The committee accepted the new design on November 25, 1935, and in December the Ministry of Military Affairs ordered the delivery of 5 rifles, 5000 cartridges and a set of spare barrels for further tests.

After the tests carried out by the Centre of Infantry Training inRembertówproved the effectiveness and reliability ofkbk ppanc wz.35,the Ministry ordered 7610 rifles to be delivered to the Polish Army by the end of 1939. It is uncertain how many rifles were actually produced, but it is estimated that there were more than 6,500 delivered by September 1939.

Use

The rifle was the main anti-tank weapon of an infantryplatoon.Each infantry company and cavalry squadron was to be equipped with three rifles, each operated by a team of two soldiers. Additional anti-tank teams were to be created at a later stage. Although the weapon was successively introduced to the units, it remained a top secret. The rifles were kept in closed wooden crates, each marked with a number and a noticedo not open; surveillance equipment.The teams were trained in secret military facilities just before the war, beginning in July 1939, and had to swear to preserve the secret (approach similar to Germanwunderwaffeconcept).

The rifle was carried by the leader of the two-man rifle team on a carrying strap. The other member of the squad was his aide and provided him with cover while he was reloading. The weapon was usually fired from prone supported position with the bipod attached to the barrel. However, it could be also used in other positions, like prone unsupported and crouch. The effective range was 300 metres and the weapon was effective against any German tank of the period, includingPanzer IIIandPanzer IV.It could penetrate all lightly armored vehicles in any range. It could penetrate 15 mm of armor, sloped at 30° at 300 m distance, or 33 mm of armor at 100 m.^[2]

Panzerbüchse 35(p)

TheKarabin przeciwpancerny wz.35was extensively used during theInvasion of Poland of 1939by most Polish units. After Poland was overrun by Germany and theSoviet Union,large numbers of the weapon were captured. By 1940, Germany had pressed 800 into service asPanzerbüchse 35 (polnisch)(PzB 35(p)) and later PzB 770(p), and sped up work on their own simplified, one-shot anti-tank riflePanzerbüchse 39(PzB 39)^{[citation needed]}.Germany replaced some of the captured Polish DS ammunition with their own 7.92 mm hardened-steel-core bullets.^[2]

Hungary confiscated some of these rifles from Polish forces withdrawn into the Magyar land.Finlandbought 30 of them in March 1940 but they arrived after the end of theWinter War.They performed poorly during theContinuation Warand were used for training.^[3]

In 1941, Germany transferredPzB 35 (p)to the Italian armed forces,^[2]which used them in combat under the designationFucile Controcarro 35(P)until the end ofWorld War II.^{[citation needed]}The German Army recaptured some of these rifles after theItalian armisticeand designated them asPzB 770 (i).^[2]

Users

Poland- Standard anti-tank rifle during the late 1930s.
- Home ArmyandPolish resistance- At least 25 copies of wz.35 AT rifles recovered by the Home Army after being buried in anticipation ofPolish capitulation.Only a few of these were likely operational after recovery due to inadequate preservation.^[4]
Nazi Germany- Captured, asPzB 35 (p)and then later renamedPzB 770 (p).Some copies wereacquiredfrom Italy after theArmistice of Cassibileand designatedPzB 770 (i).
Italy- Approximately 800 copies purchased from Germany in 1941, asfucile controcarro 35(P).
Finland- Used under designation8 mm pst kiv/38.
Kingdom of Hungary- Unknown number confiscated from retreating Polish forces into Hungary. Probably not operational, at least 30 sold to Finland.^[3]
Romania^[5]
Soviet Union:captured during theSoviet invasion of Eastern Polandin 1939, unlikely to ever see action in Soviet service, but were used in the development of theDegtyaryov-madePTRD-41

Survivors

There are at least three in the United Kingdom. One is on exhibit in Poland, at Warsaw'sPolish Army Museum;another is located in Armament Museum inPoznań Citadel,another is inMuseum of the Second World WarinGdańsk,and one is in Australian War Memorial in Canberra. The Norwegian Armed Forces Museum holds several specimens of the Wz. 35.

Notes

^"Archived copy".Archived fromthe originalon 2014-12-16.Retrieved2012-09-26.{{cite web}}:CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
^^a ^b ^c ^dZaloga 2018,p. 13.
^^a ^bZaloga 2018,p. 58.
^Stefan Korboński,The Polish Underground State,Columbia University Press, 1978,ISBN 0-914710-32-X
^Zaloga 2018,p. 43.

References

Departament Broni Piechoty (1938).Dodatek do instrukcji o broni piechoty. Część I. Karabin wzór 35.Polish Ministry of War.
Gwóźdź, Zbigniew; Zarzycki, Piotr (1993).Polskie konstrukcje broni strzeleckiej.SIGMA NOT.ISBN 978-83-85001-69-0.
Smoliński, Aleksander (1992). "Wybrane problemy z historii karabinu przeciwpancernego wz. 35".MWP Bulletin.
Sadowski, Jerzy (1995). "Karabin przeciwpancerny wz.35 w fortyfikacjach II RP".Nowa Technika Wojskowa.11.
Nowakowski, Tadeusz (1995). "Karabin przeciwpancerny wz. 35".Nowa Technika Wojskowa.6.
Zaloga, Steven J. (2018).The Anti-Tank Rifle.Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing.ISBN 978-1-4728-1722-8.

External links

[1] "Archived copy".Archived fromthe originalon 2014-12-16.Retrieved2012-09-26.{{cite web}}:CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)

[FOOTNOTEZaloga201813-2] Zaloga 2018,p. 13.

[FOOTNOTEZaloga201858-3] Zaloga 2018,p. 58.

[Korb-4] Stefan Korboński,The Polish Underground State,Columbia University Press, 1978,ISBN 0-914710-32-X

[FOOTNOTEZaloga201843-5] Zaloga 2018,p. 43.

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