100 mm anti-tank gun T-12
2A19 or T-12 is a Soviet-designed 100-mm anti-tank gun. It was the first anti-tank gun to adopt a smoothbore barrel, and to introduce modern armor piercing shot, like the APFSDS. It uses long projectiles that are more powerful than its caliber suggests. The T-12 served as the primary towed anti-tank artillery in the Soviet and Bulgarian armies from the early 1960s to the late 1980s.
T-12 displayed in the Artillery Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia.
T-12 rear view showing only the two recoil tubes.
The mechanical S71-40 indirect aiming mechanism
Ukraine's first self propelled T-12
An anti-tank gun is a form of artillery designed to destroy tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, normally from a static defensive position. The development of specialized anti-tank munitions and anti-tank guns was prompted by the appearance of tanks during World War I. To destroy hostile tanks, artillerymen often used field guns depressed to fire directly at their targets, but this practice expended too much valuable ammunition and was of increasingly limited effectiveness as tank armor became thicker. The first dedicated anti-tank artillery began appearing in the 1920s, and by World War II was a common appearance in many European armies. To penetrate armor, they fired specialized ammunition from longer barrels to achieve a higher muzzle velocity than field guns. Most anti-tank guns were developed in the 1930s as improvements in tanks were noted, and nearly every major arms manufacturer produced one type or another.
French-designed DEFA D921/GT-2 90 mm towed anti-tank gun as mounted on a QF 17-pounder carriage
Two British officers with a captured Mauser 1918 T-Gewehr
German PaK 38 50-mm anti-tank gun
Postwar Soviet MT-12 100-mm anti-tank gun