Word: mm
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...their western-front offensive, the Germans used new weapons. One was a leviathan tank, the 75-ton Königstiger (Royal Tiger), whose turret could turn through the full circle, whose hitting power was a greatly elongated version of the high-velocity 88-mm. gun. In one model the monster's frontal armor was six-inch steel plate, slanted at high angle to bounce shells off. But in another version the Königstiger was reportedly a true land battleship-its turret faced with twelve inches of armor, probably impenetrable to all but the heaviest field-artillery projectiles...
Another effective enemy weapon: a 45-ton modernized tank-destroyer. It carried the same 88-mm. high-velocity gun as the Royal Tiger, but in a heavily armored boxlike compartment...
Against the German weapons were some new U.S. guns and tank-destroyer types still on the secret list, but the basic ground-taker was still the medium Sherman tank, carrying either a 75-mm. gun (outclassed by the 88-mm.) or 105-mm. howitzer. The Allies have nothing of comparable size to the Königstiger, consider such monsters too road-bound to be of great value...
Bearing the brunt of U.S. antitank defense were two reliables: 1) the M36 (Slugger) with a high-velocity 90-mm. gun; 2) the fast, low-slung M18 (Hellcat) and its 76-mm. pieces. But the best antitank weapon of all is the rocket-firing fighter-bomber-weather permitting...
...Relatively few"-ten or twelve-.50-caliber machine guns and a 20-mm. cannon are the armament the B-29 carries to fight its way in & out. But the big airplane's remote-control firing system enables the few to do the work of many. It can throw a multi-gunned punch instantly in any direction...