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Large caliber rifle, anti-materiel rifle
The
Solothurn S-18/100 20 mm anti-tank cannon
was a German and Swiss
anti-tank rifle
used during the
Second World War
. It had a semi-automatic action in a
bullpup
configuration. As a result of its large, powerful ammunition, the gun had a tremendous recoil, and its size made portability difficult. The feed was either from a five or (more usually) ten-round magazine that was attached horizontally to the left side of the gun. The gun used 20×105mm belted-case ammunition which it shared with the S 18-350 aircraft cannon that was developed from the rifle. A Finnish source gives armour penetration of the gun (probably achieved with the Hungarian
APHE-T
round, since it was the only type used in Finland) as 20mm at a 60-degree angle at 100-metre distance, decreasing to 16mm at 500 metres.
A variant of this design, the
Solothurn-Arsenal
, was manufactured without license in Estonia before WW2; however only 20 were produced prior to
Soviet occupation
.
In March 1940, with funds collected in Switzerland to help the Finnish war effort in the
Winter War
, Finland bought twelve S 18-154 anti-tank rifles from Solothurn, though the purchaser was nominally the
Swiss army
. The weapons arrived into Finland during the spring after the war had ended, but they were later used in the
Continuation War
. However, the guns were soon found to be obsolete in their intended role. Various models of the S-18 series, including the
Solothurn S-18/1000
and the
Solothurn S-18/1100
were also used by Switzerland, the
Kingdom of Hungary
,
Nazi Germany
, the
Kingdom of Italy
, and the Netherlands.
The
Waffenfabrik Solothurn
[
de
]
firearms company was owned by the German firm
Rheinmetall
, and used the Swiss company to manufacture arms which were prohibited for manufacture by any German firm to get around arms limitations imposed upon them at the end of the
First World War
.
Gallery
[
edit
]
Users
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See also
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Notes
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- ^
Казазян, Агоп. Противотанковите пушки в българската войска, Военноисторически сборник, кн. 2, 2005, с. 52-53. (Kazazian, Agop. Anti-tank Rifles in Bulgarian Army, Military Historical Collection, 2005, vol. 2, p.52-53.)
Archived
2008-07-03 at the
Wayback Machine
- ^
20 mm Solothurn gun during the testings. 1936. National Archives of Estonia
- ^
"AT-RIFLES PART 2: Foreign designs"
.
Jaeger Platoon
. JTV.
References
[
edit
]
- Pitkanen, Mika & Simpanen, Timo. 20 mm Suomessa - Aseet ja ampumatarvikkeet ennen vuotta 1945
20 mm in Finland - Weapons and Ammunition prior to 1945. Apali, 2007.
ISBN
978-952-5026-59-7
- Zaloga, Steven J. (2018).
The Anti-Tank Rifle
. Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing.
ISBN
978-1-4728-1722-8
.
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Assault rifles
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Anti-tank rifles
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Autocannons
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Grenade launchers
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Shotguns
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Submachine guns
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