Wz. 35 Anti-tank Rifle - Secrecy and Confusion

Secrecy and Confusion

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!"

One 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 used it as "Panzerbüchse 35 (polnisch)" (abbreviated "PzB 35(p)"). The Italian army also benefited from the booty 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.