Wz. 35 anti-tank rifle

Karabin przeciwpancerny wz.35
Karabin przeciwpancerny wzór 35
Type	Anti-tank rifle
Place of origin	Poland
Service history
Used by	Poland, Nazi Germany, Italy
Wars	World War II
Production history
Manufacturer	Państwowa Fabryka Karabinów
No. built	3500
Specifications
Weight	10 kg (22 lb) (loaded)
Length	1,760 mm (69 in)
Barrel length	1,200 mm (47 in)
Cartridge	7.92×107mm DS
Caliber	7.9mm
Action	Bolt action
Rate of fire	8–10 round/min
Muzzle velocity	1,275 m/s (4,180 ft/s)
Feed system	4-round box magazine

Karabin przeciwpancerny wzór 35 (abbreviated "kb ppanc wz. 35"; "anti-tank rifle, model 35"), also UR, was a Polish 7.9 mm anti-tank rifle used by the Polish Army during the Invasion of Poland of 1939. It was also known by its codename Uruguay (kb Urugwaj) (kb Ur), or by the name of its designer, Józef Maroszek.

The weapon was initially a top secret of the Polish Army, and was also known by various codenames. Until mobilization in 1939, the combat-ready rifles were held in closed crates enigmatically marked: "Do not open! Surveillance equipment!". Another of the rifle's cover names was Uruguay (Polish: Urugwaj, hence Ur), the country to which the "surveillance equipment" was supposedly being exported.

After the fall of Poland, the German army captured large numbers of the kb ppanc wz.35 and renamed it "Panzerbüchse 35 (polnisch)" (abbreviated "PzB 35(p)"). The Italian army received 800 of the captured weapons and used it under its own designation as "fucile controcarro 35(P)." Both names translate roughly as "Anti-tank Rifle 35 (Polish)."

In early 1940, one of the rifles, its stock and barrel sawed off, was smuggled out of Poland across the Tatra Mountains into Hungary for the Allies by Krystyna Skarbek and Polish fellow couriers. The rifle never saw service with the Allies, however, because the drawings and specifications had been destroyed by the Poles during the invasion of Poland; reverse engineering would have required too much time.

In appearance it resembled a rifle with a longer-than-normal barrel supported by a bipod at the front of the wooden stock. It was a Mauser style, bolt-action rifle, fed from a 4-round box magazine. The barrel was equipped with a muzzle brake to limit the recoil. The brake absorbed approximately 65% of the shot energy and the recoil was comparable to the standard Mauser rifle, even though the cartridge carried more than twice the amount of propellant. It had iron sights fixed for a 300-meter range. An unusual feature of this rifle was that it lacked a pistol grip, which was commonly seen on contemporary anti-tank rifles, and instead resembled an infantry rifle.