Miniatures Little Soldiers

Anti-Tank Guns

3 inch M5

Originally I needed 4 of these guns for the Mortain scenario. After that I realized they would be useful for other scenarios as well.

The gun barrel was made from two pieces of a small wood dowel on top of 3mm wide card laminated to get the right looking thickness. The gun carriage was made from balsa and has paper tires[1] from the PTA Kubelwagon.

25mm SA-L mle 1934

The French Hotchkiss factory produced these guns in the 1930's. During the battle for France they were used by the French to good effect against the Panzers. The flash hiders made them hard to spot in concealment. One account says a hidden gun killed 7 panzers (3 Pz II and 4 Pz III) before running out of ammo and being discovered.[6]

I designed this one in paper using Inkscape and some line drawings from a foreign encyclopedia[8]. I am very pleased with how it came out.

Hotchkiss 25mm ATG
Hotchkiss 25mm ATG

47mm SA mle 1937 (APX)

At some point the French realized that they needed a better anti-tank gun and wrote specifications that resulted in a gun that was very good for its time.[10] Unfortunately there were not enough built before the war started. From what I can tell, it used a similar round to the one in the S-35 and B1 Bis, but the barrel on this gun was much longer and gave a better performance.

Reference Links

[1] Paper wheel techniques

[2] Scratch-build: 3-inch gun M5

[3] Anti-Tank Artillery 1941-45

[4] 25mm French Hotchkiss

[5] 20 mm - 37 mm Guns

[6] The Battle of Gembloux

[7] French WW2 25mm Anti-Tank Gun 1937

[8] Encyclopedia entry for the 25mm SA-L with blueprints.

[9] Artillery Limber

[10] 47 mm APX anti-tank gun pictures

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