So Your Neighbor Has Tanks, And You Don't...

Indian troops in North Africa parade with a Boys anti-tank rifle and 'Molotov cocktail' petrol bombs, 6 October 1940.

Well, the fellow across the border bought a whole bunch of tanks, armored personnel carriers, self-propelled artillery, and even a bunch of armored cars. He paid for the deluxe tank bundle. You didn't have as much money, you run a small country, what are you going to do?

Those Indian fellows in the opening photo seem prepared to take on some Hun panzers, they've got grenades, Molotov cocktails, and an anti-tank rifle.

What? An anti-tank rifle, is that any good? Sure against smaller tanks, works well on older armored personnel carries and armored cars. Don't even have to get that close. But they are heavy sumbitches and they don't work on the bigger tanks. For that the Molotov cocktails work, but you need to get really, really close. Or have the tank drive by a building you're hiding in.

Ideally, you want something you can kill tanks with. Something like this maybe?

Hhmm, maybe not. How about this Panzerfaust thing I hear the Germans used?

Well, that seems to do the trick. But again, you need to get close, less than 100 yards, closer to fifty for it to work. The guy in the film is pretty close to that Panther by the look of it, and no one is shooting back at him, in combat he'd need guys covering him and hope the guys in the tank don't notice him as well.

To kill an armored vehicle you need to penetrate the armor protecting the crew or engine. Penetrate the crew compartment and bad things will happen, penetrate the engine compartment and you've immobilized the tank. If the crew doesn't panic, and the tank doesn't start to burn, they can still shoot. They're not as useful standing still, but they're still dangerous.

You can get the same immobilization effect by damaging the vehicle's running gear, like the tracks and wheels on a tank (in the video above the Panzerfaust destroyed at least one of the vehicle's road wheels, that tank isn't going anywhere). Mines will work as well, if you've got anti-tank mines embedded in the road or field the tanks have to cross, you will stop them that way. Either by damaging the running gear or, if they hit it right. by killing the crew. The underside of a tank isn't as heavily armored as the rest.

Here's what various rounds do to a tank -

Here's what happened in that video:

1. The first round seems to be high explosive, a big bang on the armor, probably made the crews' ears ring, but didn't penetrate.
2. The second round doesn't penetrate, but causes spalling inside the tank. Bits of the armor are knocked off and those will bounce around the inside of the compartment. A very bad day for the crew.
3. The third round is Armor Piercing Discarding Sabot (APDS). It's essentially a steel dart contained in the tank round, when the projectile is fired the sabot (French for sh0e) falls away and just the dart remains, traveling at very high speed, faster than a normal armor piercing round. When it hits the vehicle, it penetrates and bounces around the inside. Again,  bad day for the guys inside the vehicle.
4. The fourth round is what is known as a HEAT round, High Explosive Anti Tank. It's meant to burn through the armor spraying the occupants with hot gasses and molten steel. 

While those are modern anti-tank munitions, they had those in WWII as well. At least later in the war. Here's a film clip on American anti-tank weapons and tactics.

I almost feel sorry for the guys in the tanks.