Tankgewehr M1918 - The World's First Anti-Tank Rifle

[dexter]

Nine months after British and French forces rolled their tanks onto the Western Front in World War I, Germany readied a wholly new kind of counter-weapon. Driven by the shocking and surprise appearance of a new mechanized foe, German generals contracted Waffenfabrik Mauser AG to build the first anti-tank rifle of its kind in history. It was the only such weapon used during World War I. The Germans made sure to distribute as many as could be manufactured to its soldiers, producing around 15,800 of them, to the point that they became the terror of tanks on the Allied side.