news

한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina

piat is the abbreviation of projector infantry anti tank, which is a portable super-caliber anti-tank weapon equipped by the british during world war ii. however, its appearance, structure and working principle are very different from common anti-tank weapons such as rocket launchers and rifle grenades. in particular, due to its special structure and operation method, it is often believed that a large spring is used to "bounce" the projectile out, and it is even nicknamed the "scottish crossbow". in fact, piat uses gunpowder gas as power to achieve ejection and semi-automatic firing. although it disappeared after world war ii, it does not prevent it from occupying a place in the history of the struggle between infantry and tanks.

piat and its armor-piercing shells and conveniently carried triple packaging

piat was improved by major millis jeffries based on the invention of former artillery lieutenant colonel black, and was officially finalized and produced in august 1942. its structure is more complicated than that of rocket launchers and mortars, and is divided into two parts: the front tube and the rear tube. the front tube is formed by bending steel plates, the upper part is completely open, and there is a vent hole at the lower back. when the projectile is fired, it is directly placed in the front tube, which is very simple. the rear tube is a whole seamless steel tube, with a grip and a receiver at the bottom, the trigger is close to the left side of the receiver, and the front sight and the scale seat are welded above the tube. the rear tube is equipped with a large main bolt body, which is hollow and contains parts such as the loading rod, the firing pin rod, and the front bolt body. there is a thick main spring behind the bolt body. the tail of the loading rod is connected to the shoulder rest. when the shoulder rest is pulled, the loading rod will drive the firing pin rod, and then drive the bolt body to compress the firing pin rod spring and the main spring backward until it is hung.

the piat is composed of two parts: the front barrel and the rear barrel. the rear barrel is equipped with a "t"-shaped shoulder rest. the shoulder rest and the rear barrel are covered with canvas. the shoulder rest can be rotated to a vertical or horizontal position. there is an annular groove where the rear barrel meets the front barrel. the shooting bracket is fixed in the groove with a large butterfly nut. the early bracket is composed of two thin steel pipes in an "h" shape, and the bottom is a steel plate bent into a certain shape. the later bracket is simplified into a thick steel pipe with a square base welded at the bottom.

the firing pin of piat extends deep into the front tube. piat fires a 90mm hollow charge armor-piercing projectile, which is similar in appearance to a mortar shell. the front is a projectile body stamped from a thin metal plate, and there is a steel single cone equal-walled charge cap in front of the explosive. to ensure the explosion height, the projectile has a slender projectile tip, on which a splash-back impact fuze is installed. at the back is a tail tube assembly with four tail fins, with a tail ring outside to keep the projectile stable during flight. the tail is equipped with a propellant tube inside as a power source for firing. the vertical armor-piercing power of this projectile is 75mm, which is quite threatening to tanks at that time.

canadian soldiers practiced how to use piatpiat in the uk. the firing process is very unique and can be easily misunderstood. after the shooter pulls the trigger, the sear is released. the main bolt body moves forward under the action of the spring, and pushes the firing pin and the front bolt body forward, and stops moving after it extends into the tail tube of the projectile. the firing pin rod strikes the primer due to inertia, and then ignites the propellant, generating high-pressure gas that acts on the front bolt body and transmits it to the main bolt body. at this time, the main bolt body has forward inertial kinetic energy, which is exactly opposite to the direction of the gas force acting backward. in the process of the main bolt body stopping and changing to backward movement, part of the recoil force is offset. at this time, the gunpowder gas also finishes working on the projectile, and the projectile gains initial velocity and flies forward. when the front bolt body retreats to the four evenly distributed vent holes above the tail wing of the projectile tail tube, the gunpowder gas breaks through the sealing belt and is discharged from the vent holes at the rear lower part of the front tube to reduce the disturbance to the projectile. after the main bolt moves backward into position, it is caught by the sear and puts it into the ready-to-fire state again. as long as a new bullet is loaded, shooting can continue.

canadian soldiers in italy are preparing to fire the piat. from the above description, we can first see that the piat projectile is not "ejected" by a spring, but is propelled by gunpowder gas. there are shots of this weapon in films such as "the longest day" and "a bridge too far". it can be seen that there is an obvious flash and smoke at the moment of firing, which also proves that it is the power of gunpowder that makes the projectile fly out, not the energy of the spring. secondly, in terms of appearance and firing process, piat is somewhat similar to mortars, but the difference is also very large: the same is that both are loaded with ammunition from the front, and the projectile body is stabilized by the tail fin, and the propellant is also installed in the tail tube of the projectile body; the difference is that after the mortar shell is fired, the gas generated by the combustion of the propellant enters the gun barrel and is all used to drive the projectile movement, while the gunpowder gas of piat is completely enclosed in the tail tube of the projectile body during the firing stage, and the actual length of work is only a short section from the top of the tail tube to the vent hole. in fact, the semi-automatic operation process of piat is closer to the firearms that use the free bolt principle and forward firing, but this gun is particularly large and has no barrel.

one of the reasons why people mistakenly believe that piat relies on springs to "pop out" projectiles is its unique firing process. before the first launch of piat, the projectile must be ready to fire. there are two common methods: one is to place the projectile shoulder pad vertically on the ground with the shoulder pad facing downward, step on both sides of the "t"-shaped shoulder pad with both feet, and then hold the handle and lift it up with force until it hangs up; the other method is to do it in a prone position, place the projectile parallel to the body, step on both sides of the shoulder pad with both feet, then pull the muzzle ring with one hand and the handle with the other hand, and complete the firing with the combined force of both hands and feet. the reason why piat is called "scottish crossbow" is actually mainly because this firing process is similar to the crossbow in the cold weapon era. however, the main spring of piat is very thick, and it is not easy to complete the firing. moreover, the force required to pull the large trigger is not what ordinary people can imagine, and it is still difficult to pull it easily even with two fingers. but for novices who have just come into contact with piat, the most difficult thing to master is accuracy, because there will be a slight delay before the projectile is launched after pulling the trigger. if the ejector cannot be controlled well, the projectile will deviate from the target at the last moment.

demonstration of shooting piat in prone position. note that the trigger is pulled for two piats. the maximum initial velocity of the projectile is 135 m/s. when attacking a single target such as a tank, the effective range is 100 meters. when dealing with a fixed large target, the effective range can reach about 300 meters. during world war ii, piat was also installed in parallel on armored vehicles to implement multiple salvos. of course, from today's perspective, piat is full of shortcomings, such as low power and initial velocity, poor safety, bulky and inconvenient operation, etc. however, under the technical conditions at that time, piat was still considered an effective infantry anti-tank weapon, and to some extent even surpassed the rocket launcher. for example, there was no tail flame, it could be fired in a narrow space, and it would not expose the shooter's position due to the generation of smoke. the most important thing is that with piat, the situation where soldiers had to risk their lives to throw anti-tank grenades or explosive packs on tanks has been greatly reduced. therefore, piat became one of the main infantry anti-tank weapons of the british army in world war ii. by the time production ceased in 1945, a total of more than 115,000 units had been produced.

francis, a british soldier who used piat to destroy two tanks, was not the british army but the canadian troops in the battle of sicily who first put piat into actual combat. they used piat to achieve good results. for example, on october 21, 1944, private ernest smith used piat to destroy two german tanks and two self-propelled artillery in the battle of savio river in northern italy. he even used the cover of night to crawl to a place about 10 meters away from a "panther" tank, and then calmly fired and destroyed it, and thus became the first canadian to receive the victoria cross. piat also performed well in the "market garden" operation launched by the allies in 1944. in the battle to guard the staffords bridge, the british first airborne division, which had no heavy weapons support, relied entirely on piat to resist the attack of the german armored forces and avoided the end of the army's destruction. during the warsaw uprising, british planes also dropped this weapon to the insurgents.

the insurgents received the piat airdropped by the british army during the warsaw uprising. after the end of world war ii, various anti-tank weapons with simpler structures and greater power continued to emerge. the piat soon became obsolete. in addition, the safety problem of the fuze had not been completely solved, so that the british army banned the live-fire shooting training of the piat after the war. during the korean war in 1950, the british army began to use the american "bazooka" rocket launcher. in 1951, the united kingdom officially equipped the swedish "gustav" recoilless gun, and the piat was withdrawn from the british army's active equipment sequence.