Heavy machine gun TuF

In Germany, from the middle of 1917, the development of a 13,3 mm machine gun began. The company "Polte" has developed a cartridge in two versions - with an incendiary bullet against air targets and an armor-piercing bullet against tanks. The machine gun itself, which received the designation TuF (Tank und Flugzeug), was made as an enlarged modification of the MG.08 machine gun, even the cartridge belt was made canvas. As the work dragged on, it was decided to use an armor-piercing cartridge in a single-shot rifle, but the first anti-tank rifle, which appeared at the beginning of 1918, the 13,32-mm Mauser (Mauser Tankger), was ineffective. Parts for the TuF machine gun were ordered from several companies, assembly was carried out at the Machine-Factor Augsburg-Nuremberg factory. The TuF was mounted on a high-wheeled machine with a machine gunner seat. To carry a machine gun, he was disassembled into 5 large parts. The first TuF machine guns fell into the army only in October 1918, by the end of the war.

The truce concluded by 11 in November was the reason for the completion of the work. And the Versailles restrictions to the Reichswehr forbidden to have large-caliber machine guns. Reichswehr experts at the beginning of 1925 of the year concluded that "13-mm caliber targets are not responsible" and drew the attention of 20 mm to the caliber - in particular, the Swiss light automatic gun "Oerlikon", especially since it was based on the German gun Becker

Technical characteristics of the TuF machine gun:
Caliber - 13,3x92 (13,32-mm);
The mass of the "body" machine gun - 37 kg;
The length of the "body" of the machine gun - 1750 mm;
Initial bullet speed - 550 m / s;
Maximum firing range - 6400 m;
Maximum height reach - 3000 m;
The rate of fire - 500 shots per minute;
Combat rate - 300 shots per minute;
Tape capacity - 30 cartridges;
Magazine capacity - 75 cartridges;
Type of machine - wheeled;
Machine weight - kg 86;
Calculation - 4 person.

Based on: S. Fedoseev - Machine Guns in the First World War

Comments

[borisst64]

Maximum firing range - 6400 m;

Probably the range of a bullet?

[Gamdlislyam]

Yes, something is doubtful that the firing range was 6400 meters, and in height as much as 3000 meters ?!
The weight is also very doubtful ...

Powerful effective weapons (albeit with a significant weight of 133,7 kg) at a fairly high rate of fire (300 rounds / min) hit armor-piercing bullets at a distance of up to 500 m from all types of armored vehicles that were moving at relatively high angular speeds. At a distance of up to 100 m, a machine gun pierced a 22 mm thick steel plate. However, the difficulties encountered by the company in setting up production of a complex and expensive machine gun, coinciding in time with the surrender of Kaiser Germany, led to the production in January 1919 of the planned 4 units, only an installation batch of MG.000 in 18 units. The collapse of the empire and the subsequent signing of the Treaty of Versailles thwarted further attempts to develop this type of anti-tank weapon. Such an unfortunate end to an interesting program that promised a great future partially explains why the Germans later abandoned the development of a line for the development of universal heavy machine guns as too expensive weapons, and did not create an acceptable design for an infantry heavy machine gun, considering that the problem of projectile and armor confrontation should It’s not they who decide, but special artillery systems. Spontaneous attempts to remake large-caliber machine guns by German gunsmiths at the end of World War II proved the fallacy of this policy. The inertia of thinking was overcome when it was already too late.
From the site "First World War" http://www.firstwar.info/weapons/index.shtml?66

[Alex]

"Anti-tank machine gun ..." Sounds somewhat unusual. I wonder what would have been the real effectiveness against tanks of that time? Their protection remained much to be desired, their reliability did not shine either, would they withstand a massive shelling?