Anti-tank warfare in the context of "Rocket launcher"

Combat arms (or fighting arms in non-American parlance) are troops within national armed forces who participate in direct tactical ground combat. In general, they are units that carry or employ weapons, such as infantry, cavalry, and artillery units. The use of multiple combat arms in mutually supporting ways is known as combined arms. In some armies, notably the British Army and Canadian Army, artillery and combat engineer units are categorized as combat support, while in others, such as the U.S. Army, they are considered part of the combat arms. Armored troops constitute a combat arm in name, although many have histories derived from cavalry units.

Artillery is included as a combat arm primarily based on the history of employing cannons in close combat, and later in the anti-tank role until the advent of anti-tank guided missiles. The inclusion of special forces in some armed forces as a separate combat arm is often doctrinal because the troops of special forces units are essentially specialized infantry, often with historical links to ordinary light infantry units.

An anti-tank guided missile (ATGM), anti-tank missile, anti-tank guided weapon (ATGW) or anti-armor guided weapon is a guided missile primarily designed to hit and destroy heavily armored military vehicles. ATGMs range in size from shoulder-launched weapons, which can be transported by a single soldier, to larger tripod-mounted weapons, which require a squad or team to transport and fire, to vehicle and aircraft mounted missile systems.

Earlier man-portable anti-tank weapons, like anti-tank rifles and magnetic anti-tank mines, generally had very short range, sometimes on the order of metres or tens of metres. Rocket-propelled high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) systems appeared in World War II and extended range to the order of hundreds of metres, but accuracy was low and hitting targets at these ranges was largely a matter of luck. It was the combination of rocket propulsion and remote wire guidance that made the ATGM much more effective than these earlier weapons, and gave light infantry real capability on the battlefield against post-war tank designs. The introduction of semi-automatic guidance in the 1960s further improved the performance of ATGMs.

The 8.8 cm Flak 18/36/37/41 is a German 88 mm anti-aircraft and anti-tank artillery gun, developed in the 1930s. It was widely used by Nazi Germany throughout World War II and is one of the most recognized German weapons of the conflict. The gun was universally known as the Acht-acht ("eight-eight") by the Germans and the "eighty-eight" by the Allies. Due to its lethality, especially as a tank killer, the eighty-eight was greatly feared by Allied soldiers.

Development of the original model led to a wide variety of guns. The name of the gun applies to a series of related guns, the first one officially called the 8.8 cm Flak 18, the improved 8.8 cm Flak 36, and later the 8.8 cm Flak 37. Flak is a contraction of German Flugabwehrkanone (also referred to as Fliegerabwehrkanone) meaning "aircraft-defense cannon", the original purpose of the weapon. In English, "flak" became a generic term for ground anti-aircraft fire. Air defense units were usually deployed with either a Kommandogerät ("command device") fire control computer or a portable Würzburg radar, which were responsible for its high level of accuracy against aircraft.

Rheinmetall AG (German pronunciation: [ˈʁaɪnmeˌtal]) is a German automotive and arms manufacturer, headquartered in Düsseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. The group was promoted to the DAX, Germany's leading stock market index, in March 2023. It is the largest German and fifth-largest European arms manufacturer, and produces a variety of armored fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers, in both wheeled and tracked versions, as well as warships through Blohm+Voss. It also manufactures artillery, air defense systems, anti-tank weapons and ammunition. Its name is derived from the German-language words Rhein and Metall, translating to "Rhine-metal" when combined.

A technical, known as a non-standard tactical vehicle (NSTV) in United States military parlance, is a light improvised fighting vehicle which has been modified to mount small arms and light weapons (SALW) and heavy weaponry.

The vehicles most commonly used to make technicals are open-backed civilian pickup trucks and vehicles with four-wheel drive capabilities. Armaments used include machine guns, automatic grenade launchers, anti-aircraft autocannons, rotary cannons, anti-tank weapons, anti-tank guns, anti-tank guided missiles, mortars, multiple rocket launchers, recoilless rifles, and other support weaponry. Technicals perform a similar function to gun trucks and self-propelled guns, but are helpless against more advanced weaponry and superior air power.

An anti-tank grenade is a specialized hand-thrown grenade used to defeat armored targets. Although their inherently short range limits the usefulness of grenades, troops can lie in ambush or maneuver under cover to exploit the limited outward visibility of the crew in a target vehicle. Hand launched anti-tank grenades became redundant with the introduction of standoff rocket propelled grenades and man-portable anti-tank systems.

Grenades were first used against armored vehicles during World War I, but it wasn't until World War II when more effective shaped charge anti-tank grenades were produced. AT grenades are unable to penetrate the armor of modern tanks, but may still damage lighter vehicles.

Armour-piercing ammunition (AP) is a type of projectile designed to penetrate armour protection, most often including naval armour, body armour, and vehicle armour.

The first, major application of armour-piercing projectiles was to defeat the thick armour carried on many warships and cause damage to their lightly armoured interiors. From the 1920s onwards, armour-piercing weapons were required for anti-tank warfare. AP rounds smaller than 20 mm are intended for lightly armoured targets such as body armour, bulletproof glass, and lightly armoured vehicles.