Equipment/Proposed/Anti-Material Rifle
Description
An anti-material rifle is what a lot of people call an anti-tank gun. They're very heavy, extremely accurate, long range, and can pass through a good deal of solid material between itself and its target with only minimal loss to its integrity. Their use in destruction of light vehicles, or in firing through hard materials to hit a well-defended target would probably still be in use some time into the future for the same reason sniper rifles, assault weapons, and shotguns would be; they're simply very useful in numerous situations.
I'll just add a link to a really big one for everyone to get a better picture: http://world.guns.ru/sniper/sn56-e.htm
Battle Implications
An anti-material rifle shouldn't need to be researched, we use them now. It would be a sniper-type weapon, but more expensive than a sniper rifle. Also, firing it would require substantially more TUs, but it would be extremely accurate and very damaging. It's a much heavier type of weapon as well, and would curtail movement substantially. Being a support weapon though used at a great distance, often with the aide of spotters to fire through material in the way, there isn't a huge need to move, except to get to a safe position first. An anti-material rifleman wouldn't be running first into the breech, but seeking a safe hide and offering distant fire support. It would probably only be obsoletable by a weapon that can reproduce the range, stopping power, and accuracy the weapon exhibits, while being cheaper and lighter.