Use in War
During World War I, both the British and Germans deployed elephant guns obtained from their African colonies in an attempt to break the stalemate in the trenches. The British used elephant guns as a means of countering the German tactic of having their snipers advance towards Allied lines under the cover of a large, 6-10 millimeter (0.24-0.4 inch) thick steel plate. Though normal small arms were ineffective against the plate, the elephant guns of the era had enough force to punch through it. Likewise, the Germans deployed a specialized, mass-produced anti-tank rifle, the Mauser 1918 TuF Gewehr, to knock out lightly armored British tanks.
During the African campaigns of World War II in 1941, the Italians in East Africa faced the British. The Italian commander, the Duke of Aosta, gave his personal collection of elephant guns to his Italian soldiers to aid in armour penetration of British armoured cars, as Italian AT guns were in short supply.
The Finnish 20 mm anti-tank gun Lahti L-39 gained the nickname Norsupyssy (Elephant Gun) during the Continuation War because of its stopping power. It is not a true elephant gun, though, since it was not designed for pachyderm hunting but as a purely military weapon.
Read more about this topic: Elephant Gun
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