Antitank Rifle

a firearm with a rifled barrel, designed to destroy armored targets (such as light and medium tanks and armored vehicles) with armor-piercing incendiary bullets at distances of up to 500 m.

The first antitank rifles appeared at the end of World War I. During the Great Patriotic War of 1941‣45 the Red Army was armed with 1941-model 14.5-mm antitank rifles with single-shot systems designed by V. A. Degtiarev (weight, 16 kg) and semiautomatic antitank rifles designed by S. G. Simonov that used a five-cartridge magazine (weight, about 21 kg). After the war, antitank rifles became obsolete.