In the process of searching for interesting materials for new articles, sometimes you come across articles or videos about weapons that are well-known, but of little interest in their design. So a video was discovered about the Maroshek anti-tank rifle, better known as the Wz.35. The video was embarrassing a lot, but most of all I liked how the presenter tried to shove the non-pushable, namely the German cartridge 7, 92x94, into the Polish PTR chambered for the 7, 92x107 cartridge, the sleeve of which is much smaller in diameter. However, it's not for me to talk about the mistakes of others, I myself regularly make them.
One way or another, but this video forced a more detailed study of the weapon and its ammunition, but in the process of searching for information, a mass of conflicting data was discovered, from the capacity of the store to the drilling of the barrel. Let's try to make out all the interesting points I found and, if possible, clarify somewhere with facts, and somewhere just resorting to common sense.
In this material, I do not pretend to be the ultimate truth, let's just call it a discussion of some well-known controversial points.
Designation of the anti-tank rifle Wz. 35
The full name of the Maroshek anti-tank rifle (and Lieutenant Felshtyn, Szetke and Vilnivchits, we will not delete people from history) Karabin przeciwpancerny wz. 35, in Germany it was designated as PzB 35 (p), in Italy it was designated Fucile Contracarro 35 (P). However, you can often find the designation of this weapon Maroszek Kb Ur wz. 35. Part of the name Ur, according to the most common version, which is considered to be the official one, appeared due to the atmosphere of secrecy around the weapon. So Ur means that the weapon is not intended for the Polish army, but for export to Uruguay.
It cannot be ruled out that this is completely true, however, in the weapon itself there are absolutely no new solutions that would need to be hidden. The anti-tank gun itself is absolutely unremarkable from a technical point of view, the ammunition is more interesting. Well, the PTR is a highly specialized weapon, you can understand the secrecy around projects for aviation, navy, classified development of armored vehicles, even for hand firearms at the development stage, secrecy can be justified if it is used massively and to a level higher than that of the enemy. In this case, it is just an enlarged "bolt" rifle. Although the big bosses are sometimes still those entertainers.
Much more is believed in the version that Maroshek's PTR was actually originally designed for export to Uruguay, but either the deal did not take place, or they decided that "such a cow is needed by yourself", but even now they do not always bother to correct all the documentation when it is enough to press a couple of keys. Unfortunately, the documents confirming this have not survived, or they did not exist, so it will not be possible to prove something reasoned, however, and the version of secrecy has no good reason behind it.
In favor of the "secrecy" of the weapon is also the fact that the anti-tank gun was supplied to the troops in sealed boxes from all sides and the personnel were not allowed to get acquainted with the weapon, and unpacking was allowed almost in the personal presence of the commander-in-chief. There is another explanation for this phenomenon, which concerns the resource of the barrel, the ammunition for this weapon and the number of Maroshek's anti-tank rifles, but more on that below, so this argument can be ignored.
Cartridge for anti-tank rifle Maroshek
As mentioned above, the anti-tank gun itself does not have any remarkable features, much more interesting is the ammunition that was used in it. There is little information about the cartridge 7, 92x107, and it is also contradictory.
First of all, the information about how the armor-piercing effect was achieved when using this ammunition does not fit in some sources say about a tungsten armor-piercing bullet core. In others, it was said that the core was lead, and the destruction of the armor was achieved due to the high speed of the bullet, more than 1200 meters per second.
Let's start with the tungsten core cartridge version. Usually in the text, where there is a mention of the cartridge 7, 92x107 with a bullet with a tungsten core, it is also said that the Poles were the first to use tungsten for these purposes, that it was due to the high armor-piercing of the bullets of these cartridges that the weapon had the status of a secret. Well, first of all, the first were not the Poles, but the Americans. In particular, Charles Stone received a patent for a bullet with a tungsten core in 1918. But this is if we are talking about pure, rather expensive tungsten. If we are talking about alloys based on tungsten carbide, then the Poles were not the first. In 1935, the same Germans were already producing cartridges with an armor-piercing bullet with a tungsten carbide core. So, returning to "secrecy", there was no need for this secrecy. By the way, cartridges with such bullets are far from the cheapest pleasure, which may explain the lack of access to weapons in the army - a banal economy.
So after all, was there an armor-piercing core in cartridges 7, 92x107 or not? The results of tests that were carried out at the Art Academy of the USSR in 1941-1942 will help to give a reasoned answer to this question. Two types of weapons took part in these tests: the Polish Maroshek anti-tank rifle and the German PzB-39 anti-tank rifle. The test results turned out to be approximately the same for both PTRs, the German weapon only slightly won in terms of armor-piercing over the Polish one. Such a comparison is not entirely correct, however, nevertheless. The bullet of cartridge 7, 92x94, fired from the German PTR has an initial speed of 1210 meters per second with a mass of 14.58 grams, the bullet has an armor-piercing core based on tungsten carbide. The bullet of cartridge 7, 92x107, fired from a Polish anti-tank gun, has an initial velocity of 1275 meters per second and a bullet mass of 15.93 grams.
It is logical to assume that with similar results on the penetration of armor, the Polish bullets had at least some kind of armor-piercing core, otherwise why would the Germans then have placed it in their bullets? Such a comparison can be considered incorrect only because the mass and velocity of the Polish bullet was taken for a projectile with a lead core.
The existence of lead-core bullets is not questioned, since cartridges with such bullets have survived. Much more interesting is the description of the behavior of such bullets when they hit the armor of equipment. So, in the cloaca of the collective mind of Wikipedia, it is said that, due to the high speed, the bullet broke through the armor, and the lead core flew into this gap with a running start and struck the crew and equipment units. Something tells me that everything was a little different. Due to the high speed and soft core, the bullet could really destroy the armor, due to the rapid transfer of its kinetic energy to point armor plastics, but the striking element would not be soft lead, but fragments of armor. And this, by the way, is also not a discovery, the crews of armored vehicles got acquainted with this phenomenon back in the First World War, so there is no secret here either. By the way, in the same place on Wikipedia there is a description of how such bullets "worked" when hitting a person who is in a bad mood and wants a little humor - feel free to come in and smile.
In my opinion, there were both types of ammunition, but the presence of cartridges with a bullet in which a capsule with an irritating chlorine-based composition was placed raises some doubts. It cannot be ruled out that such ammunition was developed, but it is very unlikely that this development ended successfully. An example of this may be that domestic designers carried out similar studies for ammunition 14, 5x114, and came to the conclusion that the amount of irritating composition in the pool is not enough for the crew of the armored vehicles to experience at least something more than discomfort. In addition, such ammunition had a limited storage time, and a lower ability to penetrate armor. Unfortunately, the shooting manuals referred to by the presenter in the above video could not be found, and, to be honest, I didn't really try, since Polish is only available with a translator from Google. The presence of the lines shown in the video cannot be ruled out, since it is quite possible that at the time of printing the instructions, work on the study of the possibility of making a bullet with an irritating composition had just begun and, looking ahead, a description was made in the text of how to operate with this ammunition.
The design of the barrel of the anti-tank rifle Wz.35 and its resource
One of the common myths about this weapon is the presence of a tapered barrel and the use of Gerlich's bullets in it. Apparently, the halo of "secrecy" around this MTP became fertile ground for various speculations. Seeing information about the speed of a bullet, people began to look for an explanation where this speed came from, and stumbled upon tapered barrels, because a more complex and exotic explanation always seems correct and correct.
In fact, no conical drilling of the bore was used in the Wz. 35, which can be seen at least from the bullet of the cartridge for this weapon, because there are no leading belts-skirts on the bullet, which means that the barrel from which the bullet flies is cylindrical, and not conical.
On one of the Polish forums, it was possible to find information that in 1938, the development of a PTR with a tapered barrel and a cartridge with a bullet with two leading belts was really started. This PTR was supposed to use a barrel with a muzzle diameter of 7, 92 millimeters, and 11 millimeters at the chamber. In 1939, the documentation for this project was exported from the country to France, and that was probably the end of it. So, it is possible that the confusion of everything and everyone in a bunch gave rise to the Wz.35 with a tapered barrel, though not in reality, but only on the Internet.
There is also a breakdown according to the information on the resource of the barrel, as many sources say about 20-30 shots, which is hard to believe, since with such a resource no one would start mass production of weapons. In reality, the resource of the barrels was really low - about 300 shots, this explains the presence of as many as three interchangeable barrels complete with an anti-tank gun. By the way, this is another argument in favor of the fact that the weapons remained in sealed boxes in the troops not for reasons of secrecy, but because of banal economy.
Information about the barrel resource of 20-30 shots apparently originates from the results of the start of work on ammunition and weapons for it, there are no other options for explaining this, except that one zero could have been lost.
The device and characteristics of the Maroshek anti-tank rifle
As mentioned above, there is nothing remarkable about the Wz.35 PTR, both in design and in characteristics, this is a common PTR of its time. However, this does not prevent Polish journalists from talking about its uniqueness and that with this weapon they could have defeated Germany back in 1939 if the USSR had not intervened, but not about that now.
By design, the weapon is a manual reloading rifle with a bolt that locks the barrel bore by three stops - two in front and one in the back. The anti-tank rifle has a safety device controlled by a ring at the rear of the bolt. So in order to remove the drummer from the combat platoon with the shutter closed, the ring should be turned 90 degrees. For the subsequent cocking of the drummer, the ring turns again and is pulled back, leaving the bolt closed. Thus, it is relatively safe to move around with a weapon with a cartridge in the chamber, which is important for calculating an anti-tank rifle, which unmasks itself after a couple of shots.
Compensation for recoil when firing is achieved by the mass of the weapon, 9 kilograms, as well as a muzzle brake-recoil compensator, there are no other devices that make the weapon more comfortable during operation.
The barrel length of the weapon is 1200 millimeters with a total length of 1760 millimeters. Complete with an anti-tank rifle, in addition to three barrels and a key for replacing them, there were three detachable box magazines with a capacity of 4 rounds and a tool for servicing the PTR.
A clear advantage of the Maroshek anti-tank rifle is that even one fighter can easily move with it, carrying not only the weapon itself, but also some ammunition.
If we talk about the combat characteristics of the Wz.35, then at a distance of 100 meters, one could count on the penetration of 30 millimeters of armor when a bullet meets armor at an angle of 90 degrees. In general, the weapon could be really effective in skillful hands against lightly armored vehicles, but it must be borne in mind that there were no crews trained to handle this weapon.
In total, about 3500 units were produced out of the planned 7600, although there are serial numbers indicating the release of more than 6 thousand PTR units. For each gun, there were about 5,000 released cartridges, which was clearly enough in excess, taking into account the low resource of the barrels of the weapon. It was the abundance of ammunition that apparently became the reason why this weapon was put into service first in Germany, and then in Italy. It was the number of cartridges that became the reason why these ammunition, although rare, can be found in collections - the weapon ran out, but the cartridges remained.
Conclusion
Summing up all of the above, one cannot fail to notice once again that the weapon does not possess any super qualities that should be hidden. It is much more logical to explain everything concerning this anti-tank gun not by secrecy, but by a combination of factors such as the need to redo the documentation and the elementary economy of the resource of weapons and ammunition. Even if we rely on the recollections of contemporaries that sealed boxes were supplied to the unit with inscriptions stating that inside medical equipment, medicines, etc., etc. exactly what is written. Still, the country was preparing for the inevitable war.
How much could the course of history have changed the presence of the possibility of calculating anti-tank rifles to practice on new weapons? The fastest way is that no significant changes could have occurred. No matter how hard the designers tried, light anti-tank rifles became irrelevant even before the outbreak of World War II. Of course, there were targets for them too, the fire at which was very effective, but this weapon is too "special" to believe that it can play a decisive role on the battlefield.
