The Mauser Tankgewehr M1918: TuF cartridge, T-Gewehr, and New Zealand at Grévillers

German accounts start at the Somme, September 1916: Mark I tanks, no German answer except the MG 08, which could not stop them. 7.92 mm K (SmK) armour-piercing ball could worry 6–8 mm plate; the Mark IV of 1917, with about 12 mm on the crew spaces, largely defeated it. Mauser received the rifle order in 1917. The result, as the German Wikipedia puts it, is an überdimensioniertes Gewehr 98: Einzellader, extra locking lugs on the bolt, a stock so large it could not be grasped in the usual way, so a pistol grip was added. Prototype by January 1918. Mass production at Oberndorf from 10 May 1918. Issue: special anti-tank detachments, then about two or three rifles per infantry regiment. Nickname: Elefant-Gewehr.

The rifle

German plate: overall length about 1,670 mm, barrel about 960 mm, weight about 16.6 kg (English figures 15.9 kg bare, about 18.5 kg with bipod). Eight grooves, right-hand twist. Calibre given in German as 13,25 mm; cartridge 13 × 92 mm HR. Early guns (first few hundred) used a shorter heavy barrel and a Gewehr 98-style leaf to 2,000 m. Production guns have the longer barrel and a 100–500 m anti-tank sight. Senich (Deutsche Scharfschützen-Waffen) also records use against Allied MG shields, not only tanks.

How many were made

Oberndorf, 1918–19. Printed figures do not agree to the last rifle. English Wikipedia: about 16,900, of which about 14,700 before the Armistice and about 1,490 after (to April 1919). Other tallies: about 15,800, or ‘about 16,000’, with a wartime rate of up to 300 a day. Working band: c. 15,800–16,900; 14,700 as the usual figure by 11 November 1918. Far more rifles than MG 18 TuF machine guns, which did not become a 1918 service type in numbers.

Ammunition: weight, Stahlkern, and the tungsten note

German designation: 13 × 92 mm HR, developed by Polte (Magdeburg) with Mauser. de.Wikipedia (13 × 92 mm HR) gives the projectile as a streamlined Vollmantelgeschoss 64 mm long, diameter 13.46 mm, mass about 52 g, with a Stahlkern 10.4 mm in diameter and 51.6 mm long. German blogs (Feuerkampf und Taktik) say the same: a 52-gram bullet with Stahlkern. German dealers often write Hartkern. Muzzle velocity from the long barrel is about 770–785 m/s. German penetration at 100 m is given as 20–25 mm of Panzerstahl (English plates often 26 mm at 100 m, 18 mm at 500 m).

English-language pages sometimes call the core ‘tungsten steel’. Treat that as a translation of Hartkern / tungsten-steel in the older engineering sense (hard steel), not as a tungsten-carbide core of 1940s Panzerbüchse type. Photograph a sectioned projectile before repeating a metal. The cartridge is not 7.92×57, not 13.2 TuF machine-gun ball as a collector synonym without checking the case, and not a loading recipe.

Bipod and how it was fired

Issue bipod is the MG 08 / MG 08/15 family pattern, not a light rifle bipod. Recoil is violent. German and English accounts describe two-man teams, a pad, and standing or kneeling fire from a trench parapet as much as prone fire. The pistol grip exists because the wrist of a Gewehr 98 stock would not hold the cartridge. Do not fire a surviving Tankgewehr. This article is identification, not a shooting brief.

British armour, and New Zealand at Grévillers

The Mark IV’s extra plate was a reply to SmK. The Tankgewehr was a reply to that plate. It was not a tank-killer of 1943. At combat ranges it could hole early tanks and MG shields; later armour and range reduced the claim. New Zealand infantry took examples in 1918, including at Grévillers. A captured T-Gewehr in a Dominion collection is a battlefield object, not a German depot spare. Photograph the serial, the bipod lugs, and the sight before arguing about a ‘bring-back’ story.

A 16 kg single-shot 13 mm rifle is a 1918 answer to armour. It is not a K98k, and it is not a curiosity without a cartridge.

Sources compared: de.Wikipedia Tankgewehr M1918 and 13 × 92 mm HR; English Wikipedia production figures; Senich; Feuerkampf und Taktik on Stahlkern. Catalogue photograph is a study image. No loading data.