The Second World War was a clash of peoples, ideologies, social and economic systems. And of course, it became a testing ground for the clash of military thought and weapons. The development of tanks in the 1930s forced all countries to develop new infantry countermeasures. One of the most popular and quite effective tools in this area at the start of the worst war in the history of mankind was the anti-tank gun.
The Red Army met the Great Patriotic War with anti-tank rifles chambered for 14.5 mm. In general, the calibers of heavy rifles and machine guns make the line between them and small-caliber flies extremely blurred. There were also such rifle calibers in the history of the war that made some guns pour cold sweat and burn with envy. The best example is the "Stalinist super cartridge" 20x150R.
Most of the German tanks of 1941 could be completely stopped with the help of the available ATRM and ATGM. Although a large-caliber rifle cartridge did not always cope with 30-40 mm armor. True, when the Sturmgeshutz self-propelled guns with 50-60 mm armor appeared on the battlefields, it became clear to everyone that the increase in the thickness of protective equipment would continue, and very soon the PTR would be completely useless.
The problem was not only in the guns, but in the ammunition used. Soviet designers took up the development of a fundamentally new cartridge of 20x150R caliber. The new RES anti-tank rifle, developed by designers Rashkov, Ermolov and Slukhotsky, began to be tested in the early spring of 1942. For the new ammunition, a 20-mm bullet was borrowed from the ShVAK aircraft cannon, and the 45-mm sleeve was completely inherited by the novelty from the anti-tank artillery projectile.
When the bullet flew at a speed of 1267.3 m / s, it was possible to pierce an armor plate 60 mm thick at a distance of 100 meters. True, it was only a bed of honey in a barrel of ointment. It turned out that the new gun has just disgusting accuracy. At a distance of the aforementioned 100 meters, it was possible to get into the silhouette of a tank, although there was little benefit from a gun in this case. The rifle and its cartridge were sent back for revision. The creators were constantly urged on, however, it did not work out to finish the work and release the first batch to the Kursk Bulge. The tests took place later, and, although the modified gun began to show itself much better, the German armor engineers put a noble "pig" on the Soviet riflemen: German tanks began to be massively equipped with side screens, which made any Soviet anti-tank systems virtually useless.
As a result, it was necessary to beat the German "zoo" mainly with the help of self-propelled guns, and in 1944 the first batches of the main Soviet "openers" in the face of the T-34-85 went to the front. They tried to finish the PTR RES until 1945, until the war ended. As a result, the project was closed, as a new anti-tank infantry weapon entered the arena - hand grenade launchers.
Continuing the topic, read about why the Mauser K96 pistol is called "sniper", and whether he could land a target 1 km away.