My father used a PIAT gun for a while and apparently got pretty good with it. He told me a story of the liberation of Holland where he was walking down a street with a Dutch couple after things had supposedly cooled down when they were shot at by a sniper in a house nearby. He went and retrieved his PIAT and proceeded to blow the house apart with it to the cheers of the Dutch couple. He said it fired a projectile shaped like a turnip but I never got a detailed description of the weapon itself. So thanks for this video as now I know what it actually looks like and what a pig it must have been to use. Too bad you couldn't show a projectile from it as I'd like to have seen this "turnip".
Good one. There is a HS football field near me. I was over one day and looked at distance from the 50 yard line to the goal posts. I tell you it takes brass balls and a moron who would get that close to a tank to shoot this thing since most tanks move with a squad of infantry for protection from anti-tank missiles..
@@hddun However, in close terrain - particularly built up areas - and from ambush it can be quite possible to get that close under cover. Especially if you have a machine gunner to force their supporting infantry to take cover (keeps the tank closed up as well)
I wonder if there's going to be chrome plated future Ian talking about the history and mechanics of the FGM-148 Javelin and how we can bid on it at Rock Island's December of 2117 regional auction.
"You had to be a very courageous man to use this. Luckily, Americans had plenty of them during WWIII. If you want to protect your settlement from raiders with it, you can always place a bid here in Iantown, the safest place of Wasteland!"
A British officer disabled several tanks just after D-Day, by throwing PIAT charges at them, after the spring in his projector broke. He was decorated very highly for this action. He was, after the war, TV personality Jeremy Clarkson's Father in law.
That was in Operation Market Garden, aka A Bridge Too Far. Somewhat later on than D-Day. He also used a 2 inch mortar when his PIAT rounds ran out. This after being left for dead on a stretcher when a PIAT round prematurely detonated a few feet in front of him after glancing a wall. He lay there for a while and when his sight returned he got back up and went back to leading his men and knocking out tanks. He was awarded a VC for his actions as he helped hold the line against attack while the allied forces were awaiting rescue by the river. Apparently he did it all because he was so angry about his men getting killed and went nuts like someone protecting a younger sibling from a bully.
I think the whole documentary (hosted by Clarkson himself) is somewhere in youtube. Absolutely insane story. I swear some people in WWII had both literally guts of steel to do stuff like that...and the luck of the gods to survive ;).
Robert Henry Cain was awarded a VC... one of the things he did was attack German armour with a Piat at Arnhem... when he ran out of PIAT ammo he was seen hip-firing a mortar at tanks instead. There's a Wikipedia page about him.
Senbei01 it's why I never understand why people write war fiction - there's more than enough amazing real life stories still to be told to write thousands of books.
A few points you missed, Ian, because they are fairly obscure. The bubble level sight on the side is for using it for indirect fire at large, stationary targets (such as a house), and allows you to fire at up to 370 yards in that mode. Set the sight for range, turn the buttplate sideways, tilt the gun back on the buttplate util the bubble is centered in the sight, line that long white painted line with the target, and fire it to use it as a mortar. Also, that plastic looking tray in the chamber is only for firing the training rounds, which are much skinnier than the war shots or the loading practice inert bombs. The tray makes up the difference between the diameter of the warshot rounds and the firing practice rounds (which are basically solid steel batons with a hole bored out for the rod and propelling charge.) Cheap to make (literally they are entirely lathe work), impossible to mistake for live explosive rounds, and a ballistic match to warshots.
"in theory you could run up and hit the warhead on the side of the tank and it would be just as effective" Japan: "you guys were _launching_ warheads?"
@@reece42069 in ww2 and a little in Vietnam, they would strap an AT mine to their chests and lay down in front of a tank. Not sure why they didnt just set the mine down and run tho...
@@obiwankenobi2749 vietnamese did not use suicide attack like that. Only Chinese and Japanese. Why they do that cause only soldiers who lied under tank know exactly moment to trigger the bomb. Vietnamese use lunge mine but the users usually did not die cause of explosion (cause the hollow charge will donate inside tank) they mostly die from enemy infantry and machine gun or by the shock from explosion cause them disable.
Look up Hafthohlladung. It was a German magnetic AT grenade that you had to stick it to the side of the tank. It was obsolete later in the war because Panzerfaust was plenty enough though. There is also Panzerwurfmine and RPG-43, RPG-6. Not exactly running up to the sides, but you had to throw it yourself.
A Canadian soldier, Smokey Smith, won the Victoria Cross in Italy, he was a one man war against two German tanks and 40 soldiers...he used a PIAT to put down that counter attack...one of our heroes in Canada!
I think it's important to understand the "Wartime Utility" thinking behind British wartime weapons like the PIAT. Britain had a limited production capacity compared with Germany, and the high-end of that production capacity, the precision engineering end, was very good, but even more limited.. and was assigned by the War Department to where it was really needed. After Dunkirk, where we lost a lot of materiel, we were desperately in need of a mass of rapid solutions to infantry requirements. Time was a luxury we didn't have, and the new wartime-production weapons stood a much better chance of actually making it into the hands of the frontline troops who needed them if the designs were simple, cheap, easy and above all fast to manufacture. The War Department couldn't have cared less what people would think of the crude welding or simplistic design. They cared about whether a design would do the job to an adequate standard, how labour, resource and skills-intensive it was to produce, how quickly it could be got into the hands of the troops- and how easily inexperienced wartime conscripts could be trained to use it and keep it serviceable in the field. The Sten being a prime example: possibly the most minimal SMG ever made, looks like it was made in a shed, and indeed it probably could have been, if German bombing took the factories out. And it did the job. Same with the PIAT- which, incidentally, was a perfectly adequate tank-killer by the standards of the early 40's. I'd far rather use a PIAT than a Sticky Bomb to take a tank out, any day. These were not weapons designed to appeal to the connoisseur, they were designed to fight a war by a country pushing the limits of her production capacity every day, just to try to stay in the fight, and as such they were as much triumphs of resource-management as they were of design. The PIAT made it into the hands of the troops in sufficient numbers, who took German tanks out with them. Job done.
There is a problem with the common “Wartime utility” argument and that is lend-lease. If the British wanted bazookas for troops they could have got them from the US or produced parts while getting the rest. U-boats were not a particular threat in 43-44 as they had been in 41-42 (You said “Early 40s” I presume that’s a mistake as the PIAT was first used in 43) STENs are different as the Thompson was in ridiculously short supply due to its over design. But rather than dispute the PIAT this supports it. The British thought of the PIAT as superior or equal to a bazooka and I certainly agree that it was better. A bazooka has no chance against a panther!
@@TopHatHat no, when England had just been kicked off the European continent they were sitting there staring at beaches back across the waters wondering how long it would take the Germans to melt down ALL of their equipment left behind and invade them there. They had one 15 MILE section of shoreline defended by FOUR antitank guns that had SIX rounds each. They had also just watched a few thousand tanks completely rip apart the French countryside and push them back till their feet got wet. Lend lease was a LONG WAY off at this point. You build anything you can dream up as fast as you can and produce it even faster at that point.
@@TopHatHat The Bazooka didn't exist when the PIAT was being developed, and lend lease came later anyway. Initially the British were procuring arms from the Us under the "Cash and Carry" system - which is a polite way of saying we were just outright buying them from US arsenals.
"what if we pointed the mortar lower.." "But sir, we're already at 30 degrees! I would have to either just lay it on the floor or hold it.." "Uhmmmmmmmmmmmm"
Wow. My Dad trained on these in WWll. I remember him telling me stories. Fortunately, in combat with the Canadian 2nd Antitank Regiment, he graduated to the 17 Pounder Anti Tank Rifle, towed by either a British "Quad" or later, a White Half-Track. His personal backup arm was a STEN MKll. He was Driver/Gunner and helped free Belgium. RIP, Dad... (He passed in 2010)
"A contemporary (1944-45) Canadian Army survey questioned 161 army officers, who had recently left combat, about the effectiveness of 31 different infantry weapons. In that survey, the Bren was ranked the number one most “outstandingly effective” weapon, followed by the PIAT in second place."
In its defence, maintenance of them must be pretty easy, since dirt getting into the barrel means diddly squat so long as the charge rests squarely on the pin, and for all its faults it is probably the most effecting anti-tank weapon in urban environments, since it is quiet*, effective, and has no back blast to char-grill your allies.
Sean Joseph I was always under the impression that it’s limited range made this an awful weapon but if it’s considered more reliable then a Bren then I’m seriously misinformed.
@@mweston25 this is hypothesis, from a number of memoirs and historical accounts, in those accounts it seems to have been mainly used in Urbana environments were it's short range was not n inconvenience. Almost all of the memoirs agree, that I have read, that it was uncomfortable to shoot and tricky to aim but whatever it hit stayed hit, which I assume is the basis for its high rating amongst users?
@@mweston25 While the PIAT itself was stupid by being nothing besides a spring loaded _yeet_ machine, the PIAT round design gave it enough credit by being supremely effective whenever it hit the target. There are cases of soldiers having used those as thrown charges with success, so getting in range wasn't as big of a problem as opposed to effectively disabling the tank by any means.
@@kevingooley8510 Library and Archives Canada, Record Group 24, Battle Experience Questionnaires, Vol. 10,450, Weekly Reports, Canadian Small Arms Liaison Officer Overseas, 1941-1945, C-5167
Another thought for the positive side of the PIAT. The lack of any back blast makes spotting the operator more difficult, and makes it ideal in an urban environment. It can safely be fired from inside a building or other confined space.
Several years ago we were sitting outside the Cafe Gondree at Pegasus bridge on a D Day 6 th June anniversary . We were privileged to shake the hand that fired the most important shot on D Day . The soldier who fired the PIAT knocking out the lead tank which had come down the road to investigate the bridge attack . Was Sargent " Wagger " Thornton of the parachute regiment . One of Sgt Thornton's comrades also there at the time pointed across the road and said " Yer he fired the PIAT from that door way over there ". Sitting there in the June sunshine enjoying a beer It was hard to imagine the history changing drama that had taken place on that very spot .It was humbling to realize for a short time we were in the company of heroes .
The book i read said that he only had two projectiles for the piat and the first one worked (they didnt always) and seeing this the other tank or tanks withdrew .
@@itchycooable I believe the PIAT was often confused for a slightly more formidable weapon by the Germans. Louis Hagen describes it well in 'Arnhem Lift'.
@@stevebranney8937 there a bunch of things that could have spelled doom for the Allies at Normandy. The biggest which is always ignored was the 82nd holding a causeway and bridge from German armor units trying to get to the beach. The casualties there were really high. The Germans counter attacked 7 times I think. If they broke thru, there goes 3 beaches, Utah, Juno, Gold...if I'm not mistaken. So 2 bridge heads needed to be held, not one. And those guys on both held, and we won. Lol
Weaponsandstuff93 two scenes, First when the SS tries to cross the Bridge with halftracks and armored scout cars,and then when this single tank break through!
I think it’s interesting that the piano is sort of like a longbow. The British went back to using a longbow. It’s powered by elastic force, it takes skill and muscle use it, and most importantly it’s silent and has no flash. It’s a spring powered weapon. They went back to what they knew.
No, I think he meant piano. They both take lots of practice to use, have tightly drawn strings, most of them were actually imported into England and when used correctly in large numbers can really mess up bunches of Frenchmen. Piano. Totally like a longbow! :D
@@mudcrab3420 And like they show on Top Gear many times, like a piano, you could drop this absolute chunky piece of equipment onto a vehicle from a decent height and utterly crush it.
@@edcrichton9457 An anti-tank crew actually had a decent chance of knocking out a tank, provided the infantry advancing with the tank could be pinned down. Tanks and infantry were to be mutually supporting.
Corporal Ernest Alvia "Smokey" Smith, of The Seaforth Highlanders of Canada , was a Canadian recipient of the Victoria Cross. "On the night of 21/22 October 1944 at the River Savio, in Northern Italy, Private Smith was in the spearhead of the attack which established a bridgehead over the river. With a PIAT anti-tank launcher he disabled a 44-ton Panther Mark V tank at a range of just 30 feet (10 metres), and while protecting a wounded comrade, he killed four panzergrenadiers and routed six others. When another tank was sent to take out his position, he used another PIAT to damage it enough to retreat. He then carried his wounded comrade and joined a counter-attack to disperse the Germans still attacking his previous position.[2] The squad destroyed three Panther Tanks, two self-propelled artillery pieces, a half-track, a scout car, and a few German soldiers. During his career, Smith was promoted to corporal nine times but subsequently demoted back to private nine times prior to his actions at the River Savio. He later achieved the rank of sergeant."
Sounds like a brave, fascinating, slightly wayward and amazing man. A deserved recipient of a Victoria Cross, not that there are any who aren’t deserving of theirs. I’d loved to have shared a pint with him and listen to his life experiences!
I would pay serious cash to see them attempt something like that. A PIAT styled Nerf gun. I mean, we already have a bloody double barreled one and an RPG looking one. So why not?
It was a PIAT that stopped German armour advancing on Pegasus Bridge in the early hours of D-Day. This effectively sealed off that area from armour, & is often overlooked by many historians, particularly American. Pegasus was the earliest assault of the day carried out by lightly armed Glider borne troops, who carried the day against all odds.
Fired by Sgt. 'Wagger' Thornton, 2nd OBLI (Air Landing Brigade). Later transferred to 1st Airborne and fought for four days at the bridge in Arnhem. See 'Pegasus Bridge' by Stephen E Ambrose (yes, the 'Band of Brothers' guy).
My grandfather always claimed that he got his MBE for inventing the PIAT gun. Decades after his death, we started researching his involvement, but could find nothing. And we found that his MBE was for exemplary administrative work at a training establishment.
Yeah, national security would not have named the PIAT or the establishment it was done at. Have a look at where the training place was and what it did, and who else was there.
@@shermanfirefly5410 Read "Winston Churchills Toyshop" By Stuart McRea. He was #2 to Millis Jefferis at an outfit called MD1 (Ministry of Defence # 1) that reported directly to Churchill. They invented multiple special weapons during WW2. Jefferis was knighted by Churchill in his final honours list. There were very few others on this list except for the Chiefs of Staff. Jefferis is pronounced Jefferees. He was my wife's uncle.
About 115 feet maximum range, insufficient? ...calculating distance between my window and the neighbour’s noisy hen house... Yeah, good enough for me! I will order one, and I hope I’ll get it delivered before Sunday morning.
A lovely piece of work from the group called “Churchill’s Toyshop”, also omitted it was rated as one of the best AT weapons in use by the Canadian Army during WW2
I talked to an old fella at a small world war two armament museum in southern Canada awhile back. Apparently the training on the PIAT was fairly abysmal and you were basically just told how to aim and load it. Anyways the guy and his little squad had set up an ambush point on an important road in France to snag some tank frags. Sure enough, on runs a small panzer (He didn't know exactly what type, but judging on his description is was a III or IV) and a truck. So he ripped out his PIAT, aimed on target, shot, direct hit, annndd.... *bonk*. No explosion. So they tried again, same thing. The turnip just bounced off. So they used their better judgement and ran away before they were noticed. Turns out they were never told to remove the rubber safety caps from the projectiles lol.
Great as always, except for the common misnomer that shaped charges "burn" their way through armour. They cut using the immense pressure of the plasticised copper jet instead. See Walters, "Introduction to Shaped Charges", P.31, 2007. Army Research Lab
USA: We created this bazooka! USSR: Nice! Send us a bunch of those! Japan: Very nice! We're going to make our own version! Germany: So are we, but we're going to improve it! Britain: We have a springy bomb-lobber!
Yes you are right, some were good the Flame Throwers . This PIAT looks like a bit of tube thrown together. They were used against other targets including getting Germans out of houses and hiding places as the blast was nasty. Anything better than a Boys.
A study was done in Normandy amongst Canadian officers returning from the front on the most effective weapon they had and among the majority of officers they said the PIAT followed by the bren gun. The white stripe along the back of the PIAT was put on it for indirect fire and was aimed in that capacity like the 2" mortar line up the white line and fire later in the war the Canadians realized that when held at a high angle the range improved the range somewhat so in a pinch could be used like a mortar. If used properly the PIAT's recoil was harsh but manageable.
@@CruelestChrisThe Sten was amazingly cheap, so invaluable for arming all sorts of people, but far from ideal for infantry, since it lacked, range, accuracy, and reliability. Indeed, it could even fire itself if dropped or knocked.
@@CruelestChrisOf course those are characteristics of SMGs, but other SMGs were probably better in those respects, but that is beside the point, because I was making a suggestion as to why the Sten wasn't rated as highly as, say, a Bren.
Robert Henry Cain won the VC at Arnhem using a PIAT. Wikipedia - 'On 20th September (1944) a Tiger tank approached the area held by his company and Major Cain went out alone to deal with it armed with a Piat. Taking up a position he held his fire until the tank was only 20 yards away when he opened up. The tank immediately halted and turned its guns on him, shooting away a corner of the house near where this officer was lying. Although wounded by machine gun bullets and falling masonry, Major Cain continued firing until he had scored several direct hits, immobilised the tank and supervised the bringing up of a 75 mm. howitzer which completely destroyed it. Only then would he consent to have his wounds dressed.'
Hiya buddy robert henry cain is Jeremy Clarkson farther in law, there was a fantastic documentary about him, presented by Jeremy Clarkson called Jeremy Clarkson: War Stories, you can find it on youtube
my dad actually tested the piat as a volunteer. he was in the 48th highlanders. attached to the British 8th army. he said they were captured after using it but were freed quickly when the jerries were overrun . he was on the Bren thru most of his tour in Italy. had a shell around the house growing up.
My father used one of these in Normandy, until he nearly lost his right arm and was shipped home. It was interesting to hear the Pros and Cons to this weapon and to see how it was operated. Apparently, sometime you had to have both men pulling on it to reset it. Standing up to cock it under the circumstance described is not good for your health. My dad died when I was 14 and was very reticent about talking about his time in France.
My grandfather used the PIAT during the Indonesian war. He got quite proficient and was nicknamed Petey. He said that the best spot to aim for was the gap between the hull and the turret. His confirmed count was 31 tanks.
One of my favorite things is watching and enthusiast go from "try to look scholarly" to "oh boy is this cool!" on a video like this. It really brings things to life when that energy comes out.
Its almost as if the design of the PIAT painted it into a corner, so to speak. The way in which the projectile is fired/launched limits its effective range but since the is no muzzle flash and no backblast akin to the Carl Gustav or Mk 153 SMAW it allows the shooter to retain some concealment. The lack of any backblast is the single biggest advantage of this weapon besides the more effective projectile when compared to the Boys antitank rifle. With no backblast to speak of, one could fire the PIAT from inside some very confined spaces (for example from a basement window or in thick vegetation) and not suffer the consequences of overpressure. Backblast has been the bane of antitank infantry, as they say, “recoiless rifles, aren’t recoiless.” Thanks Ian for the video and keep up the great work!
They also weren't even short ranged compared to other similar weapons of the time. For example the most produced model of the panzerfaust only had a maximum range of 60m.
The Panzerfaust was also produced in larger versions with longer range (not to mention that this range was actually achievable). The advantages of the Panzerfaust are also easily visible: Since it wasn't a rocket, it had almost no backblast and thus could be fired from within trenches and buildings, it was significantly lighter and smaller, and much easier to use (which was a significant factor for the Germans at that point, because well trained troops became a rare commodity for them). The most important factor of all was the cost though. The Faustpatrone especially and the Panzerfaust as its successor were widely available for all German troops despite the material shortages, because they were dirt cheap to produce and required very little of basically anything.
Mirdarion Late war Panzerfausts had a maximum range of 120m, and a too-late-to-see-action Panzerfaust had a 150m range. However, just like the PIAT, this was maximum effective range. To reliably hit a tank you really wanted to be within at least half of that. And, unlike the Panzerfausts, the PIAT was capable of volley fire out to over 300m. But this was inaccurate and reserved pretty much for buildings. I'm not sure if you misspoke or what, but the panzerfaust WAS a rocket propelled design and had a significant back blast. You couldn't fire it from an enclosed position, and it readily revealed the firer's location. Unlike the PIAT, which was not a rocket, and had none of those issues. My intention was not to say that Panzerfausts were bad. My intention was simply to put some context to the range of the PIAT, and why 100m is not bad at all.
No, the Panzerfaust range was not the maximum range (which could technically be far higher, depending on the angle you shot the weapon at), but the maximum engagement range as per doctrine. Hit probabilities were given as beyond 90% for trained troops in combat at 60m for the Panzerfaust 60 and at more than 80% at 100m for the Panzerfaust 100 - oh, and there never was a 120m version, they went directly from 60 to 100 to 150m. On top of that, the Panzerfaust 150 saw confirmed service during the Battle of Berlin, the experimental version you spoke of was a reusable AT weapon more akin to the Panzerschreck than the original Panzerfaust. And if you don't believe me, pick any number of books on the topic to confirm this: The Panzerfaust was not rocket propelled, it was basically a grenade launcher. There was no sustainer motor that fired after the warhead had left the firing tube, unlike say the Soviet RPG-7, which was indeed fitted with a rocket engine. There isn't even any space on the Panzerfaust or Faustpatrone warhead to place a rocket engine, that thing is way too small. P.S.: The backblast of the Panzerfaust had a range of less than 1m, and it was relatively cool. You could fire it from within buildings, but you shouldn't put your hand into the backblast.
if anyone wants to hear about the PIAT in action, check out Jeremy Clarkson's fascinating documentary on Major Cain who won what was described as the "finest Victoria Cross of the whole war" during the Battle of Arnhem. 1 man, a PIAT and multiple Tigers.
Nice video, interresting firearm but I have one litte complain; its a common mistake, but hollowcharges dont create molten metal to penetrate the armor, due to the speed the metal gets by the charge in the hollwocharge, its formed so fast that it doesnt get heated in time, its cold formed (dont know if thats the right word in english, in german it would be "kaltverformt"). That way its gets realy realy hard, just like hammering a sword to make it harder, and can penetrate the, in comparisson, soft armor quite easily. Just a thing to add from a tank fan, I enjoyed your video like always, keep up the great work :-)
Major Robert Cain VC, won his Victoria Cross using one of these during the battle for Arnhem in 1944. He was reportedly directly or indirectly responsible for the destruction or disabling of six tanks, four of which were Tigers, as well as a number of self-propelled guns (one of which was a StuG III), not just using a PIAT, but a 2in Mortar fired horizontally and a damaged 75mm AT gun.
A recent episode of the British TV show Combat Dealers had the hosts assistant live firing a PIAT at a skip. Those guys are currently renovating and rebuilding their 1944 Normandy Panther tank into an operating vehicle, very interesting and worth a watch!
@@bobthebuilder1360 the recoil. It's not a propelling spring, it's an impelling spring. A pull rather than a push. And yes, then it pushes the projectile. In theory at least, all this kinetic fuckery can improve accuracy, reduce kick, ease of use idk whatever
Yes. Most people who've never handled them, don't realize that some BB guns - particularly the lever-action ones, such as the Daisy "Red Rider" - are not air-pressure rifles, but instead use a spring and piston to propel the BB. Thus, these guns always fire a BB at the same velocity, more or less. (Which isn't enough to penetrate flesh and damage internal organs, really. I was shot by these guns a few times, as a kid and a teenager, and it never caused more than a big whelp. But it could destroy an eye, if you were hit there.) Furthermore, you cannot pump these particular BB guns to increase their firing power.
@@shugo541 Shugo--When I was a kid growing up in Lubbock, there were plenty of battles with our Daisy BB guns---I can't believe that we would go out on edge of town and find a country road with deep drain ditches on each side and choose sides for WAR!! If my Mom had found out she likely would have whooped me with a wooden spoon!!! We wore our War Surplus OD Green army jackets, WW2 surplus helmet liners, and sunglasses for eye protection--can you believe when a BB hit skin on hands how that stung. Then now that I am grown, my 2 sons convinced me to go out to a paintball range and DUEL it out with about 100 guys on each side--it was like I was back in 1956 in Lubbock all over again. And believe those paintballs STING like crazy on bare skin!!! LOL!
@@katrinapaton5283 Yes, but you had to hit below the main armour without hitting the tracks or the roadwheels. Happened often enough for the germans to engineer against it, but then the russians probably had thousands of the guns at a battle. Fling enough dung at the wall, and some of it will stick.
The springs role is not in giving it extra distance in firing but to act as a recoil reduction device. The black sight is for indirect fire when using the PIAT as an actual mortar. I guess I'll have to get my next video out so that the 3 people seeing this video who have enough drive to look up more info on the piat can eventually see how they were aimed and how to use the sight.
Thank you for saying that, I am constantly confused as to how anyone thinks the spring propelled the projectile. Springs can only do so much, and it still had to be able to be cocked.
Unfortunately a lot of info out there is missing, or just wrong about the Piat, I have been looking for info on the cartridges since I bought mine, and started making a practice round for her. Problem is most people repeat the same info, talk about people who fired them, and never get into technical detail about how it works, or even how it was used.
No, i'm on the canadian side, just saw the one you are talking about. I missed out on training rounds a few years back, and am still kicking myself for not getting them.
Yeah when he said it was spring fired I knew that it couldn't be true, as I am well acquainted with how crossbow's fire and it's essentially the same thing, and they'd have better range :p.
When you consider bazooka and panzershrek crews had the highest casualty rates then the fact there is no blast probably saved hundreds of lives and would allow you to fire more explosives before revealing your position. Still today rockets tend to get their crewmen killed.
I remember when these hit the US surplus market in the late '60's. The initial price was $9.95 plus shipping. After a few months the dealer decided to adjust the price in the hope to move them a little faster the new price was two Piats for $9.95. :)
Akm72 There was the Davy Crocket recoilless rifle but even if you mounted it on a Jeep, you literally couldn't get away fast enough to not be showered with radiation.
Akm72 im sure you know but we had a recoiles rifle that shot nukes called the Davy crokett during the cold war, and used to give special forces backpack nukes...
PIAT training provided excellent “ammo” for slingshots. The inert round was balanced with small lead discs, these were recovered from the training location and proved to be very useful.
I remember being annoyed with this weapon in WWII sims, especially compared to the bazooka and the panzershrek(and even the panzerfaust to a lesser extent), it just performed miserably. Except when you actually landed a hit. Then it was quite devastating, but that is much easier said than done.
Hollow charge's jet of molten metal doesn't burn through armor, that would require way too much energy. The metal instead punches through armor with extreme speed and force, propelled by the explosion of the hollow charge's concentrated explosion.
all the same, still love this thing in Company of Heroes. the indirect fire capability gives it just that extra oomph particularly in urban environments.
The PIAT projectile did not use a shaped charge warhead. It used a squash head explosive charge, basically a large glob of plastic explosive that splatted out sideways when it hit, and stuck to the armor before the fuse detonated it. It did not penetrate the armor at all, but sent a concussion wave into it which caused chips and shards of the other side of the armor to fly off ("spalling"), wrecking things inside the tank. In British terminology of the time, this was called a "H.E.S.H." (High Explosive Squash Head) warhead.
Damienov not really, Ian forgot to mention it's actually recoil Operated meaning after firing the first shot it will discharge and be ready to fire another round.
Yes, the thermal damage to crew compartments comes from the copper rod (which is not molten according to US Army studies) moving through the armor and a lot of friction. Colloquially they are even more confusingly called chemical energy penetrators because of said energy used to shape the cone into a rod.
I have some of those copper penetrators from 3.5 bazooka and they kind of look like a long rain drop with the fat end being the end that hits the target and weigh about 7oz
RapperFlo I found them at an abandoned artillery range. Looked like they were firing bazookas at 55 gallon drums and down range from the tail fin sections were the copper penetrators. I think after hitting the drums the penetrators flew through the air and hit the ground behind them. The front of them is smooshed abit like a bullet that has hit the ground
You needed to keep the PIAT fully into the shoulder when fired to give it the best chance of recocking. A snap shot and duck (only natural in such close range for self preservation) was likely the most common cause of failure to recock. The PIAT in this video has its 2” mortar practice tray in place. It’s missing it’s sling… Thanks for the video, Ian
I have seen one of these fired with a dummy round. It is....umm...interesting. I am just going to say, not exactly a weapon I would want to use in the field for a lot of reasons, ha. Also it always struck me as something I could put together in my basement with spare junk. I mean it is a big spring in a tube. Not exactly rocket science...literally.
You have to remember that the BEF left all its wepons in France after Dunkirk and Britain needed to equip and rebuild the army quickly as we were alone and faceing invasion . The piat was an adaption of another wepon (tripod mounted) and if it wasn't the best it was at least effective. This also can explain the STEN gun cheap and nasty but can be made by any factory that can stamp metal. The sticky bomb and the delay in putting the 6pounder (57mm) anti tankgun into production.
I had never heard of the PIAT until yesterday, when I saw it in a short quoting the diary of one of the British paratroopers for D-Day. And not 24 hrs later, Ian delivers like a Boss.
First, I appreciate your pronunciation of PIAT (Pee-aht), very linguistically correct. Second, the funny part: When I was in U.S. Army Warfighter's College we received basic information on virtually any weapon we might have used against us in the world. When they got to the PIAT a soldier asked our instructor "What's a PIAT?"...and the instructor replied "A pee-aht's a pee-ahs of she-aht" and the whole room just about lost it. Okay the serious part: At Warfighter's College we had 30 mins between classes and if you wanted you could sit in the classroom and just kill time. They would show U.S. Army archive videos of each weapon covered just doing things. When they showed the PIAT they of course showed it being carried, fired, re-cocked, loaded, etc etc. But then they showed an armorer's assistant walking with his unit down a dirt road in France. In his backpack he had dozens of the PIAT springs in their compressed transport cartridges, each squeezed down to about 4 inches long. The man was standing right in the center of that dirt path and he was hit with a sniper round in the chest. The round went through him into his backpack rupturing one of the spring cases. The spring explosively uncoiled rupturing other springs and so on. It literally blew his torso to dozens of pieces raining everywhere with springs flying in every direction. I've looked everywhere as a civilian for that video and simply cannot find it. But if you do....fair warning, once you see it you can NEVER un-see it again. Even in 15FPS black and white it makes me shudder thinking on it.
Utter drivel... you could not replace the PIAT spring in tension, so the idea that you could carry pre-tensions springs is nonsense. The PIAT was one of the main tank killing weapons after D Day, and accounted for a lot of urban kills.
Another advantage with the PIAT is you can fire it from inside an inclosed space. if you did the same with a bazooka or panzersherk you would at best disorient and stun everyone inside or at worst the pressure from the backblast would kill everyone one said space, it depended on the sturdiness of the building.
You say that it has a very short range, but neglect to mention that that range is still on the high end of weapons in similar roles. For example, the most produced model of panzerfaust had a maximum range of only 60m, with later models of panzerfausts reaching 120m. The PIAT was also able to provide [albeit inaccurate] indirect fire at up to 350m for use against buildings and stuff. Something which the panzerfaust was not.
Wasn't the range of the early panzerfaust about 30 m (the main production model 60 m as you say) and it was the later Pansershreck that had a range of up to 120 m?
Lavrentivs Correct on the original panzerfaust only having a range of 30m. Not quite true on the Panzershrek though. The Panzershrek was a different weapon to the panzerfaust, which was in production at the same time. The Panzershrek was a reloadable rocket launcher, exactly like the bazooka. Whereas the panzerfaust was a disposable recoilless gun designed to be made on the cheap, and he used by an idiot.
The difference is that the PzFaust was a cheapo one-use shoot-and-throw away item designed to give the regular infantryman (or rather by that stage the "irregular kid/oldman") some serious AT punch. It was MUCH lighter as a result of being so limited in it's requirements, and thus is a weapon that shouldn't really be compared with a PIAT, as they belong to a different kind of weapon alltogether. The PIAT was an AT-specialized weapon to be given to dedicated AT teams (usually of two men). The direct counterparts would be the Panzerschreck (a weapon that was never popular with the germans because they unanimously liked the panzerfaust's lightness better, not to mention that the rockets tended to keep on burning after being out of the tube, meaning serious burning risks for the operator) and the american Bazooka. And against those, the PIAT had incredibly short range. A Bazooka had a nominal maximum range of almost 400 yards, the Panzerschreck was around the same number. Both weapons had effective ranges of circa 150m, which is (depending of the source) two to three times a longer effective range than if compared with the PIAT's limited reach. The PIAT's advantages of no big telltales like smoke were huge, though. Pros and cons.
ramjb I've read the effective ranges of the bazooka and panzerschrek as 80 m and 120 m respectively and according to my father (swedish army mountain ranger for 40 years, now deceased) the bazooka was unpredictably inaccurate. Unrelated to the above sources however, I'd say that the ability to fire the PIAT from enclosed spaces, such as rooms without killing the crew, would be a huge pro in urban combat.
I tend to use the panzerfaust because that's the weapon that most people think of as some kind of super weapon. Bazookas had a claimed effective range of ~120m depending on source. Not that bad compared to the claimed effective range of 100m for the PIAT.
Dear Ian, thank you for your very interesting videos! :) I am not a big weapons fan, more interested in mechanics an so on, but your style, how you present and talk is very nice and plesant to watch and listen. You are the Bob Ross of Weapons, and of course i mean this as a compliment! :) With best regards, Tim
The recoil was enough to clip peoples ears nearly off. I talked with a man who had that happen. And if the blank didn't go off the range was shorter in the area of a dozen feet infront of you. The springs would bind or break. You are launching a 3inch morter via spring power and blank charge maybe 30yard. The best detinator fuse worked 7 out of 10 It is so doggy it worked the polish underground used them as morters to get over walls and to go from street to street.
In all seriousness it seems like a good weapon for fighting in cities, no backblast to worry about which enables you to fire from inside buildings unrestricted etc.
In October '44 at the Savio River in Italy, Private Ernest "Smokey" Smith of the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada used a PIAT and a Tommy gun to take out 3 Panthers, 2 self-propelled guns, a half-track, a scout car, and a bunch of dismounted Krauts...
My father in law was an instructor for this weapon in the build up to D-Day. He was lucky enough NOT to use it in action as he was classed as B2 in health terms and remained in the UK.
A better way to describe a spigot mortar is that it's an inside-out gun. The "bullet" is the spigot (or rod), the barrel fits around it and is part of the projectile and ends up going downrange. As heavy as the spring was, I don't think it contributed very much to the propulsive power used to send the bomb downrange.
Well, another advantage was that it was used as a heavy grenade launcher. Like a mortar to drop HEAT rounds. For example during the last offensive in Italy from one side of the Senio river to the other.
George MacDonald Fraser (of Flashman novels fame) used one against unarmoured targets in Burma there is a chapter devoted to his experience with it in 'Quartered safe out Here' his war time memoir .
Thats probably true for most anti tank weapons - used vastly more often against buildings and infantry positions. The M1, M9 and M9A1 Bazookas could only be used at very short ranges vs a tank and then only against the underside, top or rear and possibly sides. Patton wrote in May 1944 that vs a Panzer Infantry should regard it as a last ditch weapon and use it at 30 meters or less. Most allied infantry battalions would have an anti-tank platoon with (for British units) 6 x 6 pounder / 57 mm AT guns and of course would be working with other units in the parent formation (tanks, artillery and bigger AT weapons). So the PIAT was not the principle AT weapon - just the weapon a given platoon / Company had if the battalion and Brigade level weapons could not support them!
PIAT: For the times you can't crack open a cold panzer with the Boys anymore.
This is the best comment.
Underrated af
bravo
this is perfect
This is the only dad joke that is allowed.
Um actually, PIAT stands for Point It At Tanks.
DJ Thermite Um actually, PIAT stands for Pesky Idiots Are Terrible
edit: I would like to apologize for the lame joke I made and I know it's terrible
Wait, who got Whooshed?
No it doesn't... it stands for 'Super Army Soldiers'
No shit Sherlock
pain in the Arm!
My father used a PIAT gun for a while and apparently got pretty good with it. He told me a story of the liberation of Holland where he was walking down a street with a Dutch couple after things had supposedly cooled down when they were shot at by a sniper in a house nearby. He went and retrieved his PIAT and proceeded to blow the house apart with it to the cheers of the Dutch couple. He said it fired a projectile shaped like a turnip but I never got a detailed description of the weapon itself. So thanks for this video as now I know what it actually looks like and what a pig it must have been to use. Too bad you couldn't show a projectile from it as I'd like to have seen this "turnip".
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PIAT#/media/File:PIAT_projectile_diagram.jpg
Absolute madman
@stevie fisher-Cook Projector, Infantry Assault Turnip
@@jonc8074 lol
What military was he apart of?
Such a British thing to do--develop a really effective shaped charge warhead and then shoot it at tanks with a damn spring
Good one. There is a HS football field near me. I was over one day and looked at distance from the 50 yard line to the goal posts. I tell you it takes brass balls and a moron who would get that close to a tank to shoot this thing since most tanks move with a squad of infantry for protection from anti-tank missiles..
@@hddun However, in close terrain - particularly built up areas - and from ambush it can be quite possible to get that close under cover. Especially if you have a machine gunner to force their supporting infantry to take cover (keeps the tank closed up as well)
Very funny
Shaped charges were instrumental in developing the implosion plutonium nuclear bomb.
@@hddun or maybe your just a shitbag
I wonder if there's going to be chrome plated future Ian talking about the history and mechanics of the FGM-148 Javelin and how we can bid on it at Rock Island's December of 2117 regional auction.
bladudemovies hopefully
Unfortunately, we might be dead by then. Unless we also got chrome plated. Then that would be cool.
"You had to be a very courageous man to use this. Luckily, Americans had plenty of them during WWIII.
If you want to protect your settlement from raiders with it, you can always place a bid here in Iantown, the safest place of Wasteland!"
@WrathMachinemy god your so wise , ,no shit Sherlock,,
*Does crunches while intensely saying future*
I surprised there's not a bayonet fitting, fixture on this weapon.
It would be more effective if you just swung it like a club.
You wouldn't want that wrapped around the back of your head...
Well, its not Japanese. 😀
Lol...
It needs a blank firing adapter
Don’t worry, just hand it over to the Japanese
A British officer disabled several tanks just after D-Day, by throwing PIAT charges at them, after the spring in his projector broke. He was decorated very highly for this action. He was, after the war, TV personality Jeremy Clarkson's Father in law.
That was in Operation Market Garden, aka A Bridge Too Far. Somewhat later on than D-Day. He also used a 2 inch mortar when his PIAT rounds ran out. This after being left for dead on a stretcher when a PIAT round prematurely detonated a few feet in front of him after glancing a wall. He lay there for a while and when his sight returned he got back up and went back to leading his men and knocking out tanks. He was awarded a VC for his actions as he helped hold the line against attack while the allied forces were awaiting rescue by the river. Apparently he did it all because he was so angry about his men getting killed and went nuts like someone protecting a younger sibling from a bully.
I think the whole documentary (hosted by Clarkson himself) is somewhere in youtube. Absolutely insane story.
I swear some people in WWII had both literally guts of steel to do stuff like that...and the luck of the gods to survive ;).
ex-father in law
Robert Henry Cain was awarded a VC... one of the things he did was attack German armour with a Piat at Arnhem... when he ran out of PIAT ammo he was seen hip-firing a mortar at tanks instead.
There's a Wikipedia page about him.
Senbei01 it's why I never understand why people write war fiction - there's more than enough amazing real life stories still to be told to write thousands of books.
A few points you missed, Ian, because they are fairly obscure.
The bubble level sight on the side is for using it for indirect fire at large, stationary targets (such as a house), and allows you to fire at up to 370 yards in that mode. Set the sight for range, turn the buttplate sideways, tilt the gun back on the buttplate util the bubble is centered in the sight, line that long white painted line with the target, and fire it to use it as a mortar.
Also, that plastic looking tray in the chamber is only for firing the training rounds, which are much skinnier than the war shots or the loading practice inert bombs. The tray makes up the difference between the diameter of the warshot rounds and the firing practice rounds (which are basically solid steel batons with a hole bored out for the rod and propelling charge.) Cheap to make (literally they are entirely lathe work), impossible to mistake for live explosive rounds, and a ballistic match to warshots.
When the RE boys get sick of that house across the river. They brake out the spring-bubble level-bomb tosser
Thank you for the clarification.
Nice 👍🏻
Don’t ever correct Ian again
I didn't know the PIAT fired bombs.
Bazooka and Panzershrek: “rocket propelled technology is the only way to go!”
PIAT: “haha spring go ping”
SIR GERMAN TANK ON THE HORIZON
PRIVATE, GRAB THE PING SPRING WE GON BLOW THIS BUGGER
"Sarge, that's not a regular ogre. That's a...
*PanzerShrek"*
@@AslanW funnily enough “Shrek” is German roughly translates into frightening or terrifying.
@@Bobbymaccys Nah, *Schreck* is, but not Shrek.
@@AslanW hence why I said roughly
"in theory you could run up and hit the warhead on the side of the tank and it would be just as effective"
Japan: "you guys were _launching_ warheads?"
Check out Lunge mines, essentially a mortar shell on the end of a stick
@@reece42069 in ww2 and a little in Vietnam, they would strap an AT mine to their chests and lay down in front of a tank. Not sure why they didnt just set the mine down and run tho...
@@obiwankenobi2749 vietnamese did not use suicide attack like that. Only Chinese and Japanese. Why they do that cause only soldiers who lied under tank know exactly moment to trigger the bomb. Vietnamese use lunge mine but the users usually did not die cause of explosion (cause the hollow charge will donate inside tank) they mostly die from enemy infantry and machine gun or by the shock from explosion cause them disable.
Look up Hafthohlladung. It was a German magnetic AT grenade that you had to stick it to the side of the tank. It was obsolete later in the war because Panzerfaust was plenty enough though.
There is also Panzerwurfmine and RPG-43, RPG-6. Not exactly running up to the sides, but you had to throw it yourself.
@@kdh6387 if you take the safety off an rpg7, you can just ram said tonk and it would probably work
"BLOOP"
-PIAT, 1944
*Blewp
*weeeeeooooowww*
-JU87D (Stuka), 1939
The sound you hear before your death!
I've repeated the "bloop" part at least 20 times by now..
I am very amused indeed..
One of these saved the day at pegasus Bridge on the glider assault to capture the bridge by knocking out the German tank guarding it on D day
A Canadian soldier, Smokey Smith, won the Victoria Cross in Italy, he was a one man war against two German tanks and 40 soldiers...he used a PIAT to put down that counter attack...one of our heroes in Canada!
Met him once when he visited Hong Kong. Great guy! Still making trouble, even though he was in a wheelchair by then...
I think it's important to understand the "Wartime Utility" thinking behind British wartime weapons like the PIAT. Britain had a limited production capacity compared with Germany, and the high-end of that production capacity, the precision engineering end, was very good, but even more limited.. and was assigned by the War Department to where it was really needed. After Dunkirk, where we lost a lot of materiel, we were desperately in need of a mass of rapid solutions to infantry requirements. Time was a luxury we didn't have, and the new wartime-production weapons stood a much better chance of actually making it into the hands of the frontline troops who needed them if the designs were simple, cheap, easy and above all fast to manufacture. The War Department couldn't have cared less what people would think of the crude welding or simplistic design. They cared about whether a design would do the job to an adequate standard, how labour, resource and skills-intensive it was to produce, how quickly it could be got into the hands of the troops- and how easily inexperienced wartime conscripts could be trained to use it and keep it serviceable in the field. The Sten being a prime example: possibly the most minimal SMG ever made, looks like it was made in a shed, and indeed it probably could have been, if German bombing took the factories out. And it did the job. Same with the PIAT- which, incidentally, was a perfectly adequate tank-killer by the standards of the early 40's. I'd far rather use a PIAT than a Sticky Bomb to take a tank out, any day. These were not weapons designed to appeal to the connoisseur, they were designed to fight a war by a country pushing the limits of her production capacity every day, just to try to stay in the fight, and as such they were as much triumphs of resource-management as they were of design. The PIAT made it into the hands of the troops in sufficient numbers, who took German tanks out with them. Job done.
There is a problem with the common “Wartime utility” argument and that is lend-lease.
If the British wanted bazookas for troops they could have got them from the US or produced parts while getting the rest. U-boats were not a particular threat in 43-44 as they had been in 41-42 (You said “Early 40s” I presume that’s a mistake as the PIAT was first used in 43) STENs are different as the Thompson was in ridiculously short supply due to its over design.
But rather than dispute the PIAT this supports it. The British thought of the PIAT as superior or equal to a bazooka and I certainly agree that it was better. A bazooka has no chance against a panther!
@@TopHatHat no, when England had just been kicked off the European continent they were sitting there staring at beaches back across the waters wondering how long it would take the Germans to melt down ALL of their equipment left behind and invade them there. They had one 15 MILE section of shoreline defended by FOUR antitank guns that had SIX rounds each. They had also just watched a few thousand tanks completely rip apart the French countryside and push them back till their feet got wet. Lend lease was a LONG WAY off at this point. You build anything you can dream up as fast as you can and produce it even faster at that point.
@@TopHatHat The Bazooka didn't exist when the PIAT was being developed, and lend lease came later anyway. Initially the British were procuring arms from the Us under the "Cash and Carry" system - which is a polite way of saying we were just outright buying them from US arsenals.
Amen!
@@sadwingsraging3044 the British still had one little thing called ROYAL Navy!!!
First used in Sicily? PIAT vs. FIAT!
the french did, not the italians
It was only a gun carrier, not an anti-tank Vespa haha ! Even if I'm sure someone tried to fire from the scooter at some point
Isnt that what that one Marine did to cheat the Iran wargame that one time?
PIAT Vs FIAT
Which is more unreliable?
FIAT = Fix It Again Tony
"what if we pointed the mortar lower.."
"But sir, we're already at 30 degrees! I would have to either just lay it on the floor or hold it.."
"Uhmmmmmmmmmmmm"
Wow. My Dad trained on these in WWll. I remember him telling me stories. Fortunately, in combat with the Canadian 2nd Antitank Regiment, he graduated to the 17 Pounder Anti Tank Rifle, towed by either a British "Quad" or later, a White Half-Track. His personal backup arm was a STEN MKll. He was Driver/Gunner and helped free Belgium. RIP, Dad... (He passed in 2010)
“Now let’s head out to the range and put a few rounds through it.”
ruclips.net/video/ktp_wJW8fKI/видео.html
First Name, Last Name what’s up bro
Americans : rockets
Germans : rockets
British : *HANDHELD MOOORTAAAAAR*
Americans: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_(nuclear_device)
CROSSBOW/MORTAR WEIRD THINGY!
you do know that the first bazookas did no damage whatsoever - they were useless, and had to be fired in the open
@@baker607102 I'm guessing they never used a shaped charge then.
Americans = John Wayne.
Germans = Arnold Schwarzenegger.
British = Mr Bean
"A contemporary (1944-45) Canadian Army survey questioned 161 army officers, who had recently left combat, about the effectiveness of 31 different infantry weapons. In that survey, the Bren was ranked the number one most “outstandingly effective” weapon, followed by the PIAT in second place."
In its defence, maintenance of them must be pretty easy, since dirt getting into the barrel means diddly squat so long as the charge rests squarely on the pin, and for all its faults it is probably the most effecting anti-tank weapon in urban environments, since it is quiet*, effective, and has no back blast to char-grill your allies.
Sean Joseph I was always under the impression that it’s limited range made this an awful weapon but if it’s considered more reliable then a Bren then I’m seriously misinformed.
@@mweston25 this is hypothesis, from a number of memoirs and historical accounts, in those accounts it seems to have been mainly used in Urbana environments were it's short range was not n inconvenience. Almost all of the memoirs agree, that I have read, that it was uncomfortable to shoot and tricky to aim but whatever it hit stayed hit, which I assume is the basis for its high rating amongst users?
@@mweston25 While the PIAT itself was stupid by being nothing besides a spring loaded _yeet_ machine, the PIAT round design gave it enough credit by being supremely effective whenever it hit the target. There are cases of soldiers having used those as thrown charges with success, so getting in range wasn't as big of a problem as opposed to effectively disabling the tank by any means.
@@kevingooley8510 Library and Archives Canada, Record Group 24, Battle Experience Questionnaires, Vol. 10,450, Weekly Reports, Canadian Small Arms Liaison Officer Overseas, 1941-1945, C-5167
Another thought for the positive side of the PIAT. The lack of any back blast makes spotting the operator more difficult, and makes it ideal in an urban environment. It can safely be fired from inside a building or other confined space.
ruclips.net/video/DttwyZFTdv4/видео.html
A PIAT being fired
Howard. Good link.
It also had a relatively high rate of fire for an effective man-portable AT weapon in WWII.
"Safely" ;-)
I'd rather take a mere 90lbs recoil force than having half of my skin blowtorched off by a rocket motor set off inside an enclosed space.
It's a spring operated crossbow that shoots bombs😍
Jörg Sprave would like to have a word with you.
No, its better, its a giant muzzle loading nerf gun that fires HEAT rounds
Several years ago we were sitting outside the Cafe Gondree at Pegasus bridge on a D Day 6 th June anniversary . We were privileged to shake the hand that fired the most important shot on D Day . The soldier who fired the PIAT knocking out the lead tank which had come down the road to investigate the bridge attack . Was Sargent " Wagger " Thornton of the parachute regiment . One of Sgt Thornton's comrades also there at the time pointed across the road and said " Yer he fired the PIAT from that door way over there ". Sitting there in the June sunshine enjoying a beer It was hard to imagine the history changing drama that had taken place on that very spot .It was humbling to realize for a short time we were in the company of heroes .
According to Ambrose, who wrote the book about the attack on Pegasus bridge. That single shot with the PIAT was the most important of D Day.
The book i read said that he only had two projectiles for the piat and the first one worked (they didnt always) and seeing this the other tank or tanks withdrew .
@@itchycooable I believe the PIAT was often confused for a slightly more formidable weapon by the Germans. Louis Hagen describes it well in 'Arnhem Lift'.
Steve Branney that was an amazing book, I hoped they would make a TV adaptation like they did for some of his other work.
@@stevebranney8937 there a bunch of things that could have spelled doom for the Allies at Normandy. The biggest which is always ignored was the 82nd holding a causeway and bridge from German armor units trying to get to the beach. The casualties there were really high. The Germans counter attacked 7 times I think. If they broke thru, there goes 3 beaches, Utah, Juno, Gold...if I'm not mistaken. So 2 bridge heads needed to be held, not one. And those guys on both held, and we won. Lol
If I remember right, there's a great scene in a Bridge too far where the soldiers are shooting down at the bridge with the PIAT.
Best moive ever tho
Weaponsandstuff93 two scenes, First when the SS tries to cross the Bridge with halftracks and armored scout cars,and then when this single tank break through!
Hahaha yea. Didnt they use a M24 Chaffee disguised as a German tank?
Maby
Weaponsandstuff93 So good!
I think it’s interesting that the piano is sort of like a longbow. The British went back to using a longbow. It’s powered by elastic force, it takes skill and muscle use it, and most importantly it’s silent and has no flash. It’s a spring powered weapon. They went back to what they knew.
It is not silent or 'powered' by the spring. Most of the launching power comes from the black powder charge going off.
Piano you mean piat
No, I think he meant piano. They both take lots of practice to use, have tightly drawn strings, most of them were actually imported into England and when used correctly in large numbers can really mess up bunches of Frenchmen.
Piano. Totally like a longbow! :D
Closer to a crossbow by the way you stand on it and drag to cock it and set the spring back to a fixed position.
@@mudcrab3420 And like they show on Top Gear many times, like a piano, you could drop this absolute chunky piece of equipment onto a vehicle from a decent height and utterly crush it.
Lying in wait to disable an oncoming tank is doubtless one of the more terrifying tasks assigned to an infantryman.
And yet it is why armor doctrine usually has the infantry enter cities and other tight quarters areas ahead of tanks.
@@edcrichton9457 An anti-tank crew actually had a decent chance of knocking out a tank, provided the infantry advancing with the tank could be pinned down. Tanks and infantry were to be mutually supporting.
Running in to place a short fused magnetic mine is another.
With a little bit of plexi-glass to ward off the IR cameras.
a real PITA
Corporal Ernest Alvia "Smokey" Smith, of The Seaforth Highlanders of Canada , was a Canadian recipient of the Victoria Cross. "On the night of 21/22 October 1944 at the River Savio, in Northern Italy, Private Smith was in the spearhead of the attack which established a bridgehead over the river. With a PIAT anti-tank launcher he disabled a 44-ton Panther Mark V tank at a range of just 30 feet (10 metres), and while protecting a wounded comrade, he killed four panzergrenadiers and routed six others. When another tank was sent to take out his position, he used another PIAT to damage it enough to retreat. He then carried his wounded comrade and joined a counter-attack to disperse the Germans still attacking his previous position.[2] The squad destroyed three Panther Tanks, two self-propelled artillery pieces, a half-track, a scout car, and a few German soldiers. During his career, Smith was promoted to corporal nine times but subsequently demoted back to private nine times prior to his actions at the River Savio. He later achieved the rank of sergeant."
True Canadian hero. The seaforth highlanders and other Canadian regiments get some recognition in the game Day of Infamy
why was he promoted and demoted so many times?
@@dawnheart4436 At a guess, behaviour and insubordination, just a guess mind you.
I read that he liked to drink and hated army discipline. He later owned a successful business. Not everyone is made from the same mold.
Sounds like a brave, fascinating, slightly wayward and amazing man. A deserved recipient of a Victoria Cross, not that there are any who aren’t deserving of theirs. I’d loved to have shared a pint with him and listen to his life experiences!
PIAT: the answer to the question " What shall we do with all these pieces of drainpipe and bedsprings? "
People at Nerf, take notes, you could use this same system to fire those old nerf footballs.
I would pay serious cash to see them attempt something like that.
A PIAT styled Nerf gun. I mean, we already have a bloody double barreled one and an RPG looking one. So why not?
This is the basic premise of the stomp rocket.
There was a Nerf rocket launcher that basically did this minus the blank
Ya but what use would a blaster like that be in Humans vs Zombies.
It was a PIAT that stopped German armour advancing on Pegasus Bridge in the early hours of D-Day. This effectively sealed off that area from armour, & is often overlooked by many historians, particularly American. Pegasus was the earliest assault of the day carried out by lightly armed Glider borne troops, who carried the day against all odds.
"particularly American"
[CITATION NEEDED]
Biased
"Particularly American"
Fired by Sgt. 'Wagger' Thornton, 2nd OBLI (Air Landing Brigade). Later transferred to 1st Airborne and fought for four days at the bridge in Arnhem. See 'Pegasus Bridge' by Stephen E Ambrose (yes, the 'Band of Brothers' guy).
@@earlfruitbat9032Americans being biased against Englishman? Imagine my shock.
Bs
there were no piats and i had to use Flak 88 to stop the panzers around the bridge alongside captain price on that day
My grandfather always claimed that he got his MBE for inventing the PIAT gun. Decades after his death, we started researching his involvement, but could find nothing. And we found that his MBE was for exemplary administrative work at a training establishment.
Yeah, national security would not have named the PIAT or the establishment it was done at. Have a look at where the training place was and what it did, and who else was there.
@@thekaxmax Good call. I'd hate to think the old man was making it up.
@@buggs9950 And there might be documents left....
All those documents should be available at the archive or something.....
@@shermanfirefly5410 Read "Winston Churchills Toyshop" By Stuart McRea. He was #2 to Millis Jefferis at an outfit called MD1 (Ministry of Defence # 1) that reported directly to Churchill. They invented multiple special weapons during WW2. Jefferis was knighted by Churchill in his final honours list. There were very few others on this list except for the Chiefs of Staff. Jefferis is pronounced Jefferees. He was my wife's uncle.
About 115 feet maximum range, insufficient?
...calculating distance between my window and the neighbour’s noisy hen house...
Yeah, good enough for me! I will order one, and I hope I’ll get it delivered before Sunday morning.
*yards
Oops my bad. You are right. Still within range tough.
MrAvanile
windlass crossbow is what you need, good sir!
Sunday roast coming right up, reminds me of Steptoe & Son, the old man shooting next doors chook's with a .303 LOL.
kyubey, the cute little devil sorry you're just getting McDonald's chicken nuggets at best
The USN was still using spigot mortars until quite recently the hedgehog anti-submarine weapon is basically a multiple P.I.A.T.
@@35dsa1 I am aware of this I have a copy of Chuchill's ministry of ungentlemanly warfare
also designed by the British...
"A Bridge Too Far" had some good scenes with the PIAT.
“BRING UP THE PIAT, make sure it’s within range”
Proceeds to miss the tank twice (probably because they were elevated)
A lovely piece of work from the group called “Churchill’s Toyshop”, also omitted it was rated as one of the best AT weapons in use by the Canadian Army during WW2
Ernest "Smokey" Smith won the Victoria Cross by, among other things, taking out a Mark V Panzer tank with a PIAT at 30 FEET.
It was hip-fired as well, one officer remarked it was worth the VC just to hip fire it at all.
I talked to an old fella at a small world war two armament museum in southern Canada awhile back. Apparently the training on the PIAT was fairly abysmal and you were basically just told how to aim and load it. Anyways the guy and his little squad had set up an ambush point on an important road in France to snag some tank frags. Sure enough, on runs a small panzer (He didn't know exactly what type, but judging on his description is was a III or IV) and a truck. So he ripped out his PIAT, aimed on target, shot, direct hit, annndd.... *bonk*. No explosion. So they tried again, same thing. The turnip just bounced off. So they used their better judgement and ran away before they were noticed. Turns out they were never told to remove the rubber safety caps from the projectiles lol.
Great as always, except for the common misnomer that shaped charges "burn" their way through armour. They cut using the immense pressure of the plasticised copper jet instead. See Walters, "Introduction to Shaped Charges", P.31, 2007. Army Research Lab
Agree!
Scrolled through comments to see if someone pointed this out already. Was not disappointed.
USA: We created this bazooka!
USSR: Nice! Send us a bunch of those!
Japan: Very nice! We're going to make our own version!
Germany: So are we, but we're going to improve it!
Britain: We have a springy bomb-lobber!
"Springy bomb-lobber" LMAO
okay but wasnt the oldest now wide spread rocket launcher the RPG 7? literally made by the soviets themselves?
@@josephstalin9591 rpg-7 invented in ww2 we kill 200 german tanks
@@mengxiangxuan6552 ummmm... No you didn't... The rpg 7 is around since 1961. WWII ended in 1945.
@@Toolnerd0410 yes rpg is made by stalin
So it's basically a T-Shirt cannon that shoots awesome?
Those are typically compressed air, but same principle.
Russel Thompson... Lol Thank you that. Epic description. I needed a good laugh today.
The British have always been good at 'funnies': often cobbled together in a shed by some maverick inventor. Sometimes they are surprisingly effective.
Gavin H
You misspelt "Usually"!
Gavin H The shed is the most important part of British engineering.
Yes you are right, some were good the Flame Throwers . This PIAT looks like a bit of tube thrown together. They were used against other targets including getting Germans out of houses and hiding places as the blast was nasty. Anything better than a Boys.
I won’t be surprised if the British invented the computer in a shed.
@@xXx_Oshino_xXx well....
Whoever was on the company shit-list had to carry/fire the PIAT. That’s why those guys are the ones who win the VC.....🇬🇧👌🏻
I have a feeling this is one of those weapons that troops would have loved to hate, but hated to be without...
The fact that so many people tell you how much they hated them is the biggest recommendation. They survived.
If you hear the words "terrifying to use" and/or Ian giggling, you know it's gonna be a good watch.
Anything not Murrican fits in there.
A study was done in Normandy amongst Canadian officers returning from the front on the most effective weapon they had and among the majority of officers they said the PIAT followed by the bren gun. The white stripe along the back of the PIAT was put on it for indirect fire and was aimed in that capacity like the 2" mortar line up the white line and fire later in the war the Canadians realized that when held at a high angle the range improved the range somewhat so in a pinch could be used like a mortar. If used properly the PIAT's recoil was harsh but manageable.
That's a weird study, though, they also put the Sten in last place.
@@CruelestChrisThe Sten was amazingly cheap, so invaluable for arming all sorts of people, but far from ideal for infantry, since it lacked, range, accuracy, and reliability. Indeed, it could even fire itself if dropped or knocked.
@@colinelliott5629
It's a subgun, of course it lacks range and accuracy.
@@CruelestChrisOf course those are characteristics of SMGs, but other SMGs were probably better in those respects, but that is beside the point, because I was making a suggestion as to why the Sten wasn't rated as highly as, say, a Bren.
@@colinelliott5629
How would this explain how it ended up at the bottom? For that matter, what was the rest of the list?
This is a great overview of how a PIAT works. Amazed how many tanks this thing knocked out. A tool for brave soldier.
Robert Henry Cain won the VC at Arnhem using a PIAT. Wikipedia - 'On 20th September (1944) a Tiger tank approached the area held by his company and Major Cain went out alone to deal with it armed with a Piat. Taking up a position he held his fire until the tank was only 20 yards away when he opened up. The tank immediately halted and turned its guns on him, shooting away a corner of the house near where this officer was lying. Although wounded by machine gun bullets and falling masonry, Major Cain continued firing until he had scored several direct hits, immobilised the tank and supervised the bringing up of a 75 mm. howitzer which completely destroyed it. Only then would he consent to have his wounds dressed.'
Hiya buddy robert henry cain is Jeremy Clarkson farther in law, there was a fantastic documentary about him, presented by Jeremy Clarkson called Jeremy Clarkson: War Stories, you can find it on youtube
Thank you.
No probs buddy
"Open-bolt spigot mortar" was my nickname in college.
my dad actually tested the piat as a volunteer. he was in the 48th highlanders. attached to the British 8th army. he said they were captured after using it but were freed quickly when the jerries were overrun . he was on the Bren thru most of his tour in Italy. had a shell around the house growing up.
Is this the kind of gun I can get ammo for at Walmart or am I gonna have to go all the way to Cabelas?
@Roderick storey dont forget about crumpets!!!!
@Roderick storey You forget the whisky (Scotch to most of us)
@kevin lawrence Gander Mountain or Field and Stream stores.
Nope it's a toys r us exclusive so I guess you got to go to Canada or you might be able to buy it off eBay
Mental British shed engineering!
Awesome.
somewhere in Britain...someone is building a warp engine....but the paper clips are the wrong size...
My father used one of these in Normandy, until he nearly lost his right arm and was shipped home. It was interesting to hear the Pros and Cons to this weapon and to see how it was operated. Apparently, sometime you had to have both men pulling on it to reset it. Standing up to cock it under the circumstance described is not good for your health. My dad died when I was 14 and was very reticent about talking about his time in France.
6:05
BLOOOOUUUP
More like "blooop"
Thank you
this cured my depresion...
clicked so many times
When anyone hears "Bloop"
"What was that?"
When Germans hears "Bloop"
" *RUUUN FRITZ AAAHHHHHHH* "
I like to imagine that it's this comic like boioioioioing.
Vietnamese feel the same way towards the M79 bloop tube
@@kleiton__ *thump*
My grandfather used the PIAT during the Indonesian war. He got quite proficient and was nicknamed Petey. He said that the best spot to aim for was the gap between the hull and the turret. His confirmed count was 31 tanks.
So you're suggesting that your grandfather single-handedly destroyed one in six tanks deployed during the invasion?
This is, by far, the most interesting weapons related channel. Good work, sir.
6:05, i need a ten hour version of that
10 hours of Bloop!
One of my favorite things is watching and enthusiast go from "try to look scholarly" to "oh boy is this cool!" on a video like this. It really brings things to life when that energy comes out.
Its almost as if the design of the PIAT painted it into a corner, so to speak. The way in which the projectile is fired/launched limits its effective range but since the is no muzzle flash and no backblast akin to the Carl Gustav or Mk 153 SMAW it allows the shooter to retain some concealment. The lack of any backblast is the single biggest advantage of this weapon besides the more effective projectile when compared to the Boys antitank rifle. With no backblast to speak of, one could fire the PIAT from inside some very confined spaces (for example from a basement window or in thick vegetation) and not suffer the consequences of overpressure. Backblast has been the bane of antitank infantry, as they say, “recoiless rifles, aren’t recoiless.” Thanks Ian for the video and keep up the great work!
They also weren't even short ranged compared to other similar weapons of the time.
For example the most produced model of the panzerfaust only had a maximum range of 60m.
The Panzerfaust was also produced in larger versions with longer range (not to mention that this range was actually achievable). The advantages of the Panzerfaust are also easily visible: Since it wasn't a rocket, it had almost no backblast and thus could be fired from within trenches and buildings, it was significantly lighter and smaller, and much easier to use (which was a significant factor for the Germans at that point, because well trained troops became a rare commodity for them).
The most important factor of all was the cost though. The Faustpatrone especially and the Panzerfaust as its successor were widely available for all German troops despite the material shortages, because they were dirt cheap to produce and required very little of basically anything.
Mirdarion
Late war Panzerfausts had a maximum range of 120m, and a too-late-to-see-action Panzerfaust had a 150m range.
However, just like the PIAT, this was maximum effective range. To reliably hit a tank you really wanted to be within at least half of that.
And, unlike the Panzerfausts, the PIAT was capable of volley fire out to over 300m. But this was inaccurate and reserved pretty much for buildings.
I'm not sure if you misspoke or what, but the panzerfaust WAS a rocket propelled design and had a significant back blast. You couldn't fire it from an enclosed position, and it readily revealed the firer's location.
Unlike the PIAT, which was not a rocket, and had none of those issues.
My intention was not to say that Panzerfausts were bad.
My intention was simply to put some context to the range of the PIAT, and why 100m is not bad at all.
No, the Panzerfaust range was not the maximum range (which could technically be far higher, depending on the angle you shot the weapon at), but the maximum engagement range as per doctrine. Hit probabilities were given as beyond 90% for trained troops in combat at 60m for the Panzerfaust 60 and at more than 80% at 100m for the Panzerfaust 100 - oh, and there never was a 120m version, they went directly from 60 to 100 to 150m. On top of that, the Panzerfaust 150 saw confirmed service during the Battle of Berlin, the experimental version you spoke of was a reusable AT weapon more akin to the Panzerschreck than the original Panzerfaust.
And if you don't believe me, pick any number of books on the topic to confirm this: The Panzerfaust was not rocket propelled, it was basically a grenade launcher. There was no sustainer motor that fired after the warhead had left the firing tube, unlike say the Soviet RPG-7, which was indeed fitted with a rocket engine. There isn't even any space on the Panzerfaust or Faustpatrone warhead to place a rocket engine, that thing is way too small.
P.S.: The backblast of the Panzerfaust had a range of less than 1m, and it was relatively cool. You could fire it from within buildings, but you shouldn't put your hand into the backblast.
Joseph Miller Also you don't reveal your position. Some of the highest casualty rates are among bazooka and panzershrek crews
To give some perspective to it's range, it's 115 yard range is almost 3 times the effective range of the most common model of panzerfaust
if anyone wants to hear about the PIAT in action, check out Jeremy Clarkson's fascinating documentary on Major Cain who won what was described as the "finest Victoria Cross of the whole war" during the Battle of Arnhem. 1 man, a PIAT and multiple Tigers.
Nice video, interresting firearm but I have one litte complain;
its a common mistake, but hollowcharges dont create molten metal to penetrate the armor, due to the speed the metal gets by the charge in the hollwocharge, its formed so fast that it doesnt get heated in time, its cold formed (dont know if thats the right word in english, in german it would be "kaltverformt"). That way its gets realy realy hard, just like hammering a sword to make it harder, and can penetrate the, in comparisson, soft armor quite easily.
Just a thing to add from a tank fan, I enjoyed your video like always, keep up the great work :-)
Agree!
Major Robert Cain VC, won his Victoria Cross using one of these during the battle for Arnhem in 1944. He was reportedly directly or indirectly responsible for the destruction or disabling of six tanks, four of which were Tigers, as well as a number of self-propelled guns (one of which was a StuG III), not just using a PIAT, but a 2in Mortar fired horizontally and a damaged 75mm AT gun.
A recent episode of the British TV show Combat Dealers had the hosts assistant live firing a PIAT at a skip. Those guys are currently renovating and rebuilding their 1944 Normandy Panther tank into an operating vehicle, very interesting and worth a watch!
"So how do you want to accelerate that huge projectile mr engineer?"
"*A REALLY BIG SPRING*"
...it's a recoil spring
@@thekaxmax it's a spring
@@bobthebuilder1360 it's not a propelling spring.
@@thekaxmax then tf propels it
@@bobthebuilder1360 the recoil. It's not a propelling spring, it's an impelling spring. A pull rather than a push. And yes, then it pushes the projectile.
In theory at least, all this kinetic fuckery can improve accuracy, reduce kick, ease of use idk whatever
The "Daisy" antitank gun. Who says BB guns didn't contribute to the war effort?
You'll shoot your eye out with that!
Pump it 800 times and the BB will go straight through a panzer!
A 200lb spring in a red rider... i think the effort would be worth it.
Yes. Most people who've never handled them, don't realize that some BB guns - particularly the lever-action ones, such as the Daisy "Red Rider" - are not air-pressure rifles, but instead use a spring and piston to propel the BB. Thus, these guns always fire a BB at the same velocity, more or less. (Which isn't enough to penetrate flesh and damage internal organs, really. I was shot by these guns a few times, as a kid and a teenager, and it never caused more than a big whelp. But it could destroy an eye, if you were hit there.) Furthermore, you cannot pump these particular BB guns to increase their firing power.
@@shugo541 Shugo--When I was a kid growing up in Lubbock, there were plenty of battles with our Daisy BB guns---I can't believe that we would go out on edge of town and find a country road with deep drain ditches on each side and choose sides for WAR!! If my Mom had found out she likely would have whooped me with a wooden spoon!!! We wore our War Surplus OD Green army jackets, WW2 surplus helmet liners, and sunglasses for eye protection--can you believe when a BB hit skin on hands how that stung. Then now that I am grown, my 2 sons convinced me to go out to a paintball range and DUEL it out with about 100 guys on each side--it was like I was back in 1956 in Lubbock all over again. And believe those paintballs STING like crazy on bare skin!!! LOL!
My dad dislocated his shoulder laying on the sand and trying to hit a stuker dive bomber with a boyes rifle, apparently they were useless on tanks,,
And yet the schurtzen on German tanks was apparently designed to counter Russian AT rifles, not bazookas.
@@katrinapaton5283 The Russian tank you see and adapt to. The AT rifleman you see when he shoots at you, but only if he misses.
@@katrinapaton5283 Yes, but you had to hit below the main armour without hitting the tracks or the roadwheels. Happened often enough for the germans to engineer against it, but then the russians probably had thousands of the guns at a battle. Fling enough dung at the wall, and some of it will stick.
The springs role is not in giving it extra distance in firing but to act as a recoil reduction device. The black sight is for indirect fire when using the PIAT as an actual mortar. I guess I'll have to get my next video out so that the 3 people seeing this video who have enough drive to look up more info on the piat can eventually see how they were aimed and how to use the sight.
Thank you for saying that, I am constantly confused as to how anyone thinks the spring propelled the projectile. Springs can only do so much, and it still had to be able to be cocked.
Unfortunately a lot of info out there is missing, or just wrong about the Piat, I have been looking for info on the cartridges since I bought mine, and started making a practice round for her. Problem is most people repeat the same info, talk about people who fired them, and never get into technical detail about how it works, or even how it was used.
There's a good bit of info out there, let me find where I set it... by the by, did you buy Joe Salter's example?
No, i'm on the canadian side, just saw the one you are talking about. I missed out on training rounds a few years back, and am still kicking myself for not getting them.
Yeah when he said it was spring fired I knew that it couldn't be true, as I am well acquainted with how crossbow's fire and it's essentially the same thing, and they'd have better range :p.
When you consider bazooka and panzershrek crews had the highest casualty rates then the fact there is no blast probably saved hundreds of lives and would allow you to fire more explosives before revealing your position. Still today rockets tend to get their crewmen killed.
Guess that's why the panzerfaust was much loved, fire it drop the tube and run for dear life.
Because firing a Javlin at 9 miles away gets the crew kill by a group of people or a tank that had no idea they were there
@@blackace7782 you cannot use Jav any further than 3000 meters (about 1.8 miles).
The infamous panzershrek, what are you doing in my rhineland
What about the recoilless rifles?
I remember when these hit the US surplus market in the late '60's. The initial price was $9.95 plus shipping. After a few months the dealer decided to adjust the price in the hope to move them a little faster the new price was two Piats for $9.95. :)
Now fire it! I want to hear that "Blooop"
It's kinda like the Fat man from Fallout; just a lot smaller.
Awesome idea, we should have developed a nuclear version in the '50s!
Akm72 There was the Davy Crocket recoilless rifle but even if you mounted it on a Jeep, you literally couldn't get away fast enough to not be showered with radiation.
M 29 Davy crokett
www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/25-years-us-special-forces-carried-miniature-nukes-their-backs-180949700/
Akm72 im sure you know but we had a recoiles rifle that shot nukes called the Davy crokett during the cold war, and used to give special forces backpack nukes...
PIAT training provided excellent “ammo” for slingshots. The inert round was balanced with small lead discs, these were recovered from the training location and proved to be very useful.
I remember being annoyed with this weapon in WWII sims, especially compared to the bazooka and the panzershrek(and even the panzerfaust to a lesser extent), it just performed miserably. Except when you actually landed a hit. Then it was quite devastating, but that is much easier said than done.
They utilized the same technology Hasbro would eventually perfect.
"NERF, or nothing!"
Yea, Your right.
Hollow charge's jet of molten metal doesn't burn through armor, that would require way too much energy. The metal instead punches through armor with extreme speed and force, propelled by the explosion of the hollow charge's concentrated explosion.
all the same, still love this thing in Company of Heroes. the indirect fire capability gives it just that extra oomph particularly in urban environments.
"Bloop"
-Ian McCollum
The PIAT projectile did not use a shaped charge warhead. It used a squash head explosive charge, basically a large glob of plastic explosive that splatted out sideways
when it hit, and stuck to the armor before the fuse detonated it. It did not penetrate the armor at all, but sent a concussion wave into it which caused chips and shards of the
other side of the armor to fly off ("spalling"), wrecking things inside the tank. In British terminology of the time, this was called a "H.E.S.H." (High Explosive Squash Head) warhead.
That's really helpful- everyone seems to claim the PIAT was a shaped charge- but that isn't true.
If you look at a crosscut, you see "cone steel" forming a hollow cone.
So this is basically an anti tank spring loaded firearm?
Damienov not really, Ian forgot to mention it's actually recoil Operated meaning after firing the first shot it will discharge and be ready to fire another round.
with a compressed gas booster.
watch to the end...
It's basically a gun-crossbow hybrid.
griz312 He mentions it
As stated before, HEAT projectiles function on kinetic principles, not thermal ones. Just an FYI.
Yes, the thermal damage to crew compartments comes from the copper rod (which is not molten according to US Army studies) moving through the armor and a lot of friction. Colloquially they are even more confusingly called chemical energy penetrators because of said energy used to shape the cone into a rod.
I have some of those copper penetrators from 3.5 bazooka and they kind of look like a long rain drop with the fat end being the end that hits the target and weigh about 7oz
What do you mean with "I have", I thought they vaporize when they hit the target?
RapperFlo I found them at an abandoned artillery range. Looked like they were firing bazookas at 55 gallon drums and down range from the tail fin sections were the copper penetrators. I think after hitting the drums the penetrators flew through the air and hit the ground behind them. The front of them is smooshed abit like a bullet that has hit the ground
Amazing :D Could you, by any chance, upload the pictures somewhere plz?
You needed to keep the PIAT fully into the shoulder when fired to give it the best chance of recocking. A snap shot and duck (only natural in such close range for self preservation) was likely the most common cause of failure to recock.
The PIAT in this video has its 2” mortar practice tray in place.
It’s missing it’s sling…
Thanks for the video, Ian
“BRING UP THE PIAT!!”-first words in my brain when I saw this video in my recommended playlist...quickly followed by “puh-TOING!”
Make sure it’s within range.
I have seen one of these fired with a dummy round. It is....umm...interesting. I am just going to say, not exactly a weapon I would want to use in the field for a lot of reasons, ha. Also it always struck me as something I could put together in my basement with spare junk. I mean it is a big spring in a tube. Not exactly rocket science...literally.
You have to remember that the BEF left all its wepons in France after Dunkirk and Britain needed to equip and rebuild the army quickly as we were alone and faceing invasion . The piat was an adaption of another wepon (tripod mounted) and if it wasn't the best it was at least effective. This also can explain the STEN gun cheap and nasty but can be made by any factory that can stamp metal. The sticky bomb and the delay in putting the 6pounder (57mm) anti tankgun into production.
Cobbled together is very British. And from what I hear, they were rather more effective than bazookas.
But that;s what made it so great. It was incredibly simple, gave no puff of smoke etc that could reveal your position, and was also very quiet.
It looks cheap to make one reason I imagine it was chosen. Britain was desperate for cheap weapons like this and the STEN.
Sten's are great though, virtually silent.
Cheap doesnt always mean shitty. *Looks approvingly at Kalashnikov*
I had never heard of the PIAT until yesterday, when I saw it in a short quoting the diary of one of the British paratroopers for D-Day. And not 24 hrs later, Ian delivers like a Boss.
PIAT, Point It Again Tommy!
mpetersen6 classic
First, I appreciate your pronunciation of PIAT (Pee-aht), very linguistically correct. Second, the funny part: When I was in U.S. Army Warfighter's College we received basic information on virtually any weapon we might have used against us in the world. When they got to the PIAT a soldier asked our instructor "What's a PIAT?"...and the instructor replied "A pee-aht's a pee-ahs of she-aht" and the whole room just about lost it. Okay the serious part: At Warfighter's College we had 30 mins between classes and if you wanted you could sit in the classroom and just kill time. They would show U.S. Army archive videos of each weapon covered just doing things. When they showed the PIAT they of course showed it being carried, fired, re-cocked, loaded, etc etc. But then they showed an armorer's assistant walking with his unit down a dirt road in France. In his backpack he had dozens of the PIAT springs in their compressed transport cartridges, each squeezed down to about 4 inches long. The man was standing right in the center of that dirt path and he was hit with a sniper round in the chest. The round went through him into his backpack rupturing one of the spring cases. The spring explosively uncoiled rupturing other springs and so on. It literally blew his torso to dozens of pieces raining everywhere with springs flying in every direction. I've looked everywhere as a civilian for that video and simply cannot find it. But if you do....fair warning, once you see it you can NEVER un-see it again. Even in 15FPS black and white it makes me shudder thinking on it.
Utter drivel... you could not replace the PIAT spring in tension, so the idea that you could carry pre-tensions springs is nonsense. The PIAT was one of the main tank killing weapons after D Day, and accounted for a lot of urban kills.
Another advantage with the PIAT is you can fire it from inside an inclosed space.
if you did the same with a bazooka or panzersherk you would at best disorient and stun everyone inside or at worst the pressure from the backblast would kill everyone one said space, it depended on the sturdiness of the building.
Pffft. 50 yard is more than enough range, you just need balls. Finns used logs to stop soviet tanks
@D WJ Tanks were often supported by infantry close behind. This was one of the reasons.
Yuuuuuuuiiuui
Imagine if Finns got to fight with T34s, but then, KV 3 was enough
To be fair, Finns technically lost....twice
You say that it has a very short range, but neglect to mention that that range is still on the high end of weapons in similar roles.
For example, the most produced model of panzerfaust had a maximum range of only 60m, with later models of panzerfausts reaching 120m.
The PIAT was also able to provide [albeit inaccurate] indirect fire at up to 350m for use against buildings and stuff. Something which the panzerfaust was not.
Wasn't the range of the early panzerfaust about 30 m (the main production model 60 m as you say) and it was the later Pansershreck that had a range of up to 120 m?
Lavrentivs
Correct on the original panzerfaust only having a range of 30m.
Not quite true on the Panzershrek though. The Panzershrek was a different weapon to the panzerfaust, which was in production at the same time.
The Panzershrek was a reloadable rocket launcher, exactly like the bazooka.
Whereas the panzerfaust was a disposable recoilless gun designed to be made on the cheap, and he used by an idiot.
The difference is that the PzFaust was a cheapo one-use shoot-and-throw away item designed to give the regular infantryman (or rather by that stage the "irregular kid/oldman") some serious AT punch. It was MUCH lighter as a result of being so limited in it's requirements, and thus is a weapon that shouldn't really be compared with a PIAT, as they belong to a different kind of weapon alltogether.
The PIAT was an AT-specialized weapon to be given to dedicated AT teams (usually of two men). The direct counterparts would be the Panzerschreck (a weapon that was never popular with the germans because they unanimously liked the panzerfaust's lightness better, not to mention that the rockets tended to keep on burning after being out of the tube, meaning serious burning risks for the operator) and the american Bazooka. And against those, the PIAT had incredibly short range. A Bazooka had a nominal maximum range of almost 400 yards, the Panzerschreck was around the same number. Both weapons had effective ranges of circa 150m, which is (depending of the source) two to three times a longer effective range than if compared with the PIAT's limited reach.
The PIAT's advantages of no big telltales like smoke were huge, though. Pros and cons.
ramjb I've read the effective ranges of the bazooka and panzerschrek as 80 m and 120 m respectively and according to my father (swedish army mountain ranger for 40 years, now deceased) the bazooka was unpredictably inaccurate.
Unrelated to the above sources however, I'd say that the ability to fire the PIAT from enclosed spaces, such as rooms without killing the crew, would be a huge pro in urban combat.
I tend to use the panzerfaust because that's the weapon that most people think of as some kind of super weapon.
Bazookas had a claimed effective range of ~120m depending on source.
Not that bad compared to the claimed effective range of 100m for the PIAT.
Dear Ian, thank you for your very interesting videos! :)
I am not a big weapons fan, more interested in mechanics an so on, but your style, how you present and talk is very nice and plesant to watch and listen.
You are the Bob Ross of Weapons, and of course i mean this as a compliment! :)
With best regards,
Tim
The recoil was enough to clip peoples ears nearly off. I talked with a man who had that happen. And if the blank didn't go off the range was shorter in the area of a dozen feet infront of you. The springs would bind or break. You are launching a 3inch morter via spring power and blank charge maybe 30yard. The best detinator fuse worked 7 out of 10 It is so doggy it worked the polish underground used them as morters to get over walls and to go from street to street.
In all seriousness it seems like a good weapon for fighting in cities, no backblast to worry about which enables you to fire from inside buildings unrestricted etc.
In October '44 at the Savio River in Italy, Private Ernest "Smokey" Smith of the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada used a PIAT and a Tommy gun to take out 3 Panthers, 2 self-propelled guns, a half-track, a scout car, and a bunch of dismounted Krauts...
6:05 great explanation Ian
Bloooop
A high pitch bloop is the correct technical term to describe the trajectory.
My father in law was an instructor for this weapon in the build up to D-Day. He was lucky enough NOT to use it in action as he was classed as B2 in health terms and remained in the UK.
A better way to describe a spigot mortar is that it's an inside-out gun. The "bullet" is the spigot (or rod), the barrel fits around it and is part of the projectile and ends up going downrange. As heavy as the spring was, I don't think it contributed very much to the propulsive power used to send the bomb downrange.
Well, another advantage was that it was used as a heavy grenade launcher. Like a mortar to drop HEAT rounds. For example during the last offensive in Italy from one side of the Senio river to the other.
Sergeant “Wagger” Thornton exploits on D-Day at Pegasus bridge with the Ox and Bucks are worth reading about.
This channel is like the Red Letter Media of random, old weapons. Phenomenal.
Reports indicate that Piat was used more against fixed targets than it was against armor. It packed a pretty good H.E. wallop.
George MacDonald Fraser (of Flashman novels fame) used one against unarmoured targets in Burma there is a chapter devoted to his experience with it in 'Quartered safe out Here' his war time memoir .
Thats probably true for most anti tank weapons - used vastly more often against buildings and infantry positions. The M1, M9 and M9A1 Bazookas could only be used at very short ranges vs a tank and then only against the underside, top or rear and possibly sides. Patton wrote in May 1944 that vs a Panzer Infantry should regard it as a last ditch weapon and use it at 30 meters or less. Most allied infantry battalions would have an anti-tank platoon with (for British units) 6 x 6 pounder / 57 mm AT guns and of course would be working with other units in the parent formation (tanks, artillery and bigger AT weapons). So the PIAT was not the principle AT weapon - just the weapon a given platoon / Company had if the battalion and Brigade level weapons could not support them!