AT-Rifle Team

The AT-Rifle team is a unit in Flames of War availble for the German army to recruit. In reality, German AT-rifles were largely an ad hoc collection of captured equipment, outdated weapons, or typically overengineered weapons that were introduced just too late to be relevant in the battlefields of WWII.

IRL

"If ze Soviet tanks are as strong as they say, what good is das Gewehr gonna be?"

The Origin of the Anti-tank Rifle started in the battlefields of WWI. See, there were these big fat METHUWL BAWKSES called armoured cars, which both sides hated very much. Now, early attempts by both sides to make standard infantry rifles work as AT rifles... range from interesting but overdone to absolutely terrible, look it up for a good laugh. By the time even the kinks in these weapons had been ironed out, the Germans brought up their own solution: just manufacture a dedicated rifle meant to shoot armoured vehicles in the first place! Enter the Mauser M1918, also known as the Tankgewehr. While it had a good chance of breaking the user's collarbone if shouldered incorrectly and produced a ton of noise, the design was surprisingly effective. The design was relatively straightforward: combine the idea of a bolt action rifle and a breech loading cannon, strap it into a system that can be fired from the ground, throw a big fucking round into the gun, aim at a tank, and turn the occupants into mush.

After the end of the war, AT rifle development slowed, with very few actually being developed outside of Poland, Britain, Germany, the USSR, Japan, and Finland. The most likely weapons you'll be looking at on these models is the Panzerbüchse 38, a renamed Mauser M1918, and Panzerbüchse 39, a version with a slightly larger round, but otherwise had no real changes compared to his daddy the 38. In spite of this, the PzBs both shared the traditional German weapon problem of being way too complex to operate reliably on a battlefield. Its mechanical system was incredibly complex, which slowed production and made maintenance a pain in the ass. Worse was that the Russians and British had both made 5 shot versions (The Boyes and the PTRS-41). Even the Katana wielders figured out how to make their Type 97s take 20mm ammunition. Once the allies discovered the AT-rifle had become irrelevant against heavier armor, they simply replaced them with M2 Browning machine guns to deal with lighter threats, and developed Bazookas and PIAT's to deal with heavier armour.

In spite of its shortcomings they were retained until 1944 (when armor technology had long exceeded the ability for the AT rifle to remain relevant) and was completely phased out in favor of more powerful weapons such as the Panzerfaust and Panzerschreck, or were converted to fire rifle grenades. Today, the AT rifle concept is still in service as an "anti-materiel rifle". After all, why chuck an expensive guided missile at a target like a truck or car when a couple of .50 cal bullets/shells will do the work just fine...