Can a PIAT really knock a Panther out at it's max distance?

[phil stanbridge]

I was quite surprised to see my lowly green PIAT team knock out a veteran SS Panther at what appeared to be a reasonable distance. When I've been firing away all my 75mm AP at the same tank to no avail. I realise that any sort of charge can disable or destroy armour if you get close enough but this was pretty distant. It got me thinking, are there any accounts of PIATs destroying armour (Panther's in particular) in the open?

[Erwin]

PIATS don't work via kinetic energy like an AT round. It's HEAT I think, so the distance and velocity are not important (so long as it hits).

Am sure many others klnow more about PIATS than I do and will be happy to educate us.

[dieseltaylor]

Funnily enough a hit at longer range might be more effective as the trajectory may mean it lands on the deck. "Accurate range" for direct fire was about 100 yards but its maximum range was actually 350yds so houses were a potential target : ) It would be nice to have seen film how effective it would be at house busting duties.

According to Wiki the PIAT was actually highly rated!

The PIAT entered service with British and Commonwealth units in mid-1943, and was first used in action by Canadian troops during the Allied invasion of Sicily.[14] The 1944 war establishment for a British platoon, which contained 36 men, had a single PIAT attached to the platoon headquarters, alongside a 2-inch (51 mm) mortar detachment.[21] Three PIATs were issued to every company at the headquarters level for issuing at the CO discretion - allowing one weapon for each platoon.[19] British Army and Royal Marines commandos were also issued with PIATs and used them in action.[22] The Australian Army allocated a PIAT (which was also known as Projector Infantry Tank Attack in Australian service) to each infantry platoon in its 'jungle divisions', which differed from the standard British organisation, from late 1943.[23]

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 PIAT was ranked the number one most “outstandlingly effective” weapon, followed by the Bren gun in second place.[24]

An analysis by British staff officers of the initial period of the Normandy campaign found that 7% of all German tanks destroyed by British forces were knocked out by PIATs, compared to 6% by rockets fired by aircraft. However, they also found that once German tanks had been fitted with armoured skirts that detonated hollow-charge ammunition before it could penetrate the tank's armour, the weapon became much less effective.[7]

[YankeeDog]

Correct; the PIAT is a HEAT penetrator. Range does not not affect penetration or behind armor effect of the warhead at all, really. The only way range would affect penetration would be via change in angle of impact.

Of course, range does affect the chance of getting a hit in the first place, and the PIAT was not a very accurate weapon at longer range. But once it makes impact with the target, it's as effective at 200m as it is at 20m.

[Fizou]

Did it have the punch to beat the panther frontal armor?

[Redwolf]

You don't think the question of whether this is a side, rear or front shot has something to do with it?

And why do you assume that anything can knock out anything if just close enough? It's not at all true.

[YankeeDog]

Did it have the punch to beat the panther frontal armor?

Under the vast majority of circumstances, no. But this is where the a long range shot might actually help rather than hurt the penetration chances.

Panther front full armor is 80mm at 55 degrees. Most figures I've seen put the PIAT's armor penetration performance in the range of 75-100mm RHA at normal (i.e., 0 degrees). So theoretically, the warhead has enough punch to have a decent chance of penetrating the Panther's glacis if it hits flat-on, but given the 55 degree angle of the glacis, most hits are not going to come anywhere near penetrating, excepting rare incidents like impacts on a weak point like the MG port.

However, since the PIAT warhead follows a ballistic arc, at long range it will impact at a steeper downward angle, thereby reducing the armor's effective slope. Under most circumstances, though, this probably isn't going to be steep enough and negate enough of the armor's slope advantage to make a penetration likely. So overall, even at long range I'd say the changes of a PIAT penetrating the Panther's front glacis are very slim, limited to lucky weak point hits.

Theoretically, though, a combination of terrain (if the firer is higher elevation than the target, this will increase the downward angle of the shot), target orientation (if the Panther is on downward slope, this will decrease the effective armor slope), and the ballistic arc of the projectile could combine to largely negate the armor slope, making penetration possible, even likely.

Note all of the above is examining simply the issue of what happens if the projectile actually hits. Getting a hit in the first place is of course a prerequisite for having any chance of penetration, and this is certainly less likely at longer range.

[Other Means]

So the Aussies called it a PITA? Makes sense.

[Georgie]

Which was the most effective, the PIAT or the bazooka? Assuming an identical hit, of course. Good to hear that the PIAT was that effective. It always seemed to me to be a bit of a contraption and dangerous to the user.

[Sergei]

And why do you assume that anything can knock out anything if just close enough? It's not at all true.

Well if you take the launcher and keep knocking it at the tank's hull, eventually the crew is going to get fed up and come out... i.e. knocked out!

[dieseltaylor]

I suspect for the operator the PIAT not having a significant signature when fired made their life expectancy slightly better. : )

[wokelly]

Just followed the link on Wiki to the actual article. Very interesting read:

http://qspace.library.queensu.ca/bitstream/1974/1081/1/Engen_Robert_C_200803_MA.pdf

Quite interesting stuff about the observations of weapons (Page 99). A bunch of it contradicts post war views on certain weapons:

"The PIAT was listed as being “outstandingly effective” far more than any other weapon (it was listed as such in 74 surveys). This was due not only to its tank-killing power, but also owing to the fact that its high-explosive bomb could also be put to good use against “soft” infantry targets, either in direct or indirect roles, making it a good source of suppressing fire. Furthermore, only three officers listed the PIAT as being an “ineffective” weapon."

Usually the PIAT is indicated at being a total POS. I do wonder if it is a case of the weapon being effective because it is actually good, or being effective because it was all that was available? Would the bazooka have ranked higher had the men had experience with both?

The Sten sub-machine gun, for example, received over one-third of all complaints (45 officers listed the Sten as “ineffective,” 67 officers complained about all other weapons), and for a combination of all three reasons. Mechanically the Sten was consistently regarded as very unreliable. Lieutenant-Colonel P.W. Bennett noted the Sten as ineffective, “due to liability to jam due to dirt, troops have no confidence in it,” and Major Cyril Wrightman said that in his experience troops and officers threw their Stens away in favour of American-made automatic weapons. “Never very safe,” Wrightman said of the Sten, “will let you down when most needed.” “Failure to fire when needed (frequent),” was Captain F.W. Grafton's comment on the Sten. Dozens of other Canadian officers made similar notes about the mechanical unreliability of the Sten, and a number also reported that the weapon did not have sufficient killing power, particularly when compared to the sub-machine guns available to the other Allied armies. “Not enough stopping power,” reported Captain Orest Dutchak of the Algonquin Regiment, “Thompson Sub[-machine gun] preferred.” Captain Tennant likewise claimed that, in his experience, the Sten was, “NOT hard enough hitting,” and that, “man can still fight after being hit.” Major Ostiguy pointed out the same thing about the lack of killing power, noting that the Sten was so mistrusted that, “men preferred rifles."

The Sten was the most hated weapon with some 25% of officers claiming it was ineffective and only a handful indicated it was outstandingly effective. Interesting I have seen some forum debates that have attempted to rehabilitate the Sten or only claim it was earlier models that were ineffective and unreliable. Seems like it had a pretty lousy reputation even during 1944-45 when this data was compiled. Also interesting noting the killing power issue. Some interesting fodder for MP40 vs Thompson debates, as soldiers who used both 9mm SMGs and .45 cal SMGs seemed to prefer the bigger round despite the Thompson being less accurate/less controllable than 9mm guns (Have shot all three in automatic, Sten is a much easier gun to control than the Thompson). If it was just reliability it would seem picking up the MP40 would not be a bad idea given the 9mm would still be easier to acquire than .45 cal in NW Europe for the Canadians. Seems to be a mix of both poor reliability and poor killing power that damned the Sten.

Ultimately it seems the Officers were generally content with their weapons, which is interesting because you always hear about Allied weapons being inferior or not able to generate enough firepower. Apparently the officers though their small arms were generally good enough for the job they had to do, though they did have a healthy respect for German MGs and Mortars.

[Sergei]

Keep in mind that Germans didn't have that many tanks in 1944-45. And if all of the PIAT operators who encountered Panzers died because the weapon failed them, then you're not going to hear any criticism about its ineffectiveness.

[dieseltaylor]

Now winter was rapidly approaching and the possibility of an early victory in Italy was as rapidly diminishing. The LER moved out of line and back to Cattolica for a few weeks' well-earned rest. Their success against Tiger tanks at San Fortunato led the LER to form a permanent tank-hunting platoon with four PIATs, anti-tank mines, and Bren gunners. This innovation was quickly copied by the other battalions in 2nd Brigade and promptly proved its worth when the Seaforths' tank hunters accounted for three Panthers, a half-track, a scout car, and two self-propelled guns in a single action that resulted in a Victoria Cross for Private Alva Smith.

maybe .....

http://www.lermuseum.org/en/regimental-history/return-to-battle/italy-to-the-netherlands/

[dieseltaylor]

Another example of Tiger hunting

On 20th September 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.

In the next morning this officer drove off three more tanks by the fearless use of his Piat, on each occasion leaving cover and taking up position in open ground with complete disregard for his personal safety.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Henry_Cain

[Vark]

Don't also forget we have been bombarded with tales of German uber equipment since the war ended, and British equipment has often been particularly belittled and mocked as ineffective, in comparison. I remember being quite surprised talking to veterans, my young head full of stories of crap Stens, Heath-Robinson Piats and uber Panzers, that most thought the Sten OK, loved the Piat but found cocking it a pain and that German tanks burned as easily as Allied ones. They respected most German equipment, but to a man said it was not weapons that made a difference but the men behind them.

After talking to veterans from many theatres, (Britain in the 70's was a great place for such 'research'), I realised that my wargamers perspective was not that of the real soldier, it did not have to be the best, but good enough for the job. It did not help that most of my books extolled German kit just because it was German!

[dieseltaylor]

From another forum this by Wo Kelly a man who knows things. Note the theoretical high rate of fire!!

http://www.ww2f.com/other-weapons/36647-piat.html

It was issued one per platoon, with several more being available at company or battalion level, think battalion level.

Muzzle velocity of 80 m/s, was on the low range in terms of loadable infantry AT weapons (Panzershrek for example was 110 m/s), but higher than the Panzerfaust weapons (45 m/s).

Theoretically it recocked after firing, and from what I have read this could be expected MOST of the time, it depended on how hard the loader pressed into the weapon, a loose grip and it would not recock. If it did recock, it was very quick to load a round in, and a very quick rate of fire could be achieved, from training videos (and thus best case examples) you are looking at one round even two seconds which does blow the Bazooka and Panzerfaust out of the water with it taking well over ten seconds for each weapon to load.

The lack of a rocket projective had a number of advantages, no smoke generated from firing, an ability to fire from confined spaces and inside buildings, and a very small report, allegely no louder than a rifle so it was difficult if not impossible to locate the PIAT during a battle. Disadvantages meant lower muzzle velocity, had to be cocked if it did not recock, recoil from spring etc.

The HEAT charge for the weapon was an ineffecient design, despite being 89mm wide, similar to the Panzerfshreks round in size and 29mm bigger than the zooka round, it penetrated 75mm at 0 degrees originally, and a later round only improved to 100mm at 0 degrees. Part of this could be attributed to the lower quality of British explosives as the war progressed.

Given the method of delivery, the weapon could double as a mortar and was issued with both a High Explosive round and White Phosphorous round for anti infantry work if armor was not expected.

Heavy and awkward, it seems to have done its job fairly well all things considered, its design gave it certain advantages and disadvantages.

Originally Posted by Martin Bull

They were certainly effective against older types of German tank ( eg not Panthers or Tigers ) but were often nullified by armoured skirting.

Thats debatable, armored skirts are something which everyone "knows" works but no one has any proof or examples of them successfully defeating HEAT rounds. I personally have never heard of an example of them saving a tank.

Factor in that the HEAT rounds were still early generation variants with their proper standoff ranges not taken into account, a premature explosion before the round strikes the armor potentially INCREASED the effectiveness of the rounds at certain distances, as HEAT rounds require some space to form the most effective explosive jet it can.

Its important to remember modern day "slat armor" is not in any way similar to the side skirts on German tanks. Slat armor on modern vehicles DEFORMS the warhead, interrupting the formation of the explosive jet. German side skirts did not work in that way, nor was it ever designed to stop HEAT rounds.

A post from another forum I visit

Originally Posted by kamel

Righto. Found some of my old study notes n stuff and a bit of corresponding data online.

There's a nice write-up of some the background science at this link and the nice chart on page 5 showing the effects of standoff on penetration.

All I'm going to do is match various WWII era HEAT warheads to that standoff/penetration chart. Not perfect, but gives a general idea of what to expect.

Basically what it comes down to is you get optimum penetration at two liner diameters. Half penetration at nine liner diameters. 25% at out around twenty liner diameters.

Bazooka - 100mm penetration at optimum standoff. Liner diameter [close enough to round external diameter, 60mm, as makes no difference.] Which gives 50mm penetration at 9-2 diameters = 420mm. 25mm pentration at 20 - 2 diameters = 1080mm

PIAT - 100mm penetration at optimum standoff. Liner diameter [close enough to round external diameter, 75mm, as makes no difference.] Which gives 50mm penetration at 9-2 diameters = 525mm. 25mm pentration at 20 - 2 diameters = 1350mm

The faust is just scary... approx 125mm liner diameter. 180mm penetration at optimum. 90mm at 875mm. 45mm penetration at 2250mm. [problem here is that optimim standoff is actually 250mm... but the weapon only has about 75% of that. So that throws out the other numbers. Penetration at distance should be higher in most cases.]

Now... shurzen were what? 18" [45cm] out from the armour at best?

So the skirts would certainly protect from angled hits.... but both bazooka, PIAT, and the late war Allied HEAT rifle grenades in a fairly square hit are still going to penetrate the sides of pz3's pz4's stugs etc. Any tank HEAT rounds of decent diameter [75mm or more] are likewise going to work just fine.

Not as powerfully obviously... the skirts help somewhat. But certainly don't make you immune... and sandbags vs panzerfaust are worse than useless.

Last edited by wokelly; November 19th, 2009 at 07:19 PM.

[Vark]

Shurzen was originally designed to stop that other highly 'ineffective' weapon the Russian anti-tank rifle, not HEAT charges, though that's another debate. Talking of PIATS I scored 90% on the simulator in the Middle Wallop museum, which used a deactivated PIAT, though in real combat I guess the figure would be 0.9%!

[Joji]

One advantage of a PIAT was the absence of backblast. It could therefore be fired from inside a building and it would create less launch signature than a rocket. These are significant advantages for the firer of the PIAT. My father, who did fire one on a range post-war, said the firing recoil was unpleasant. Add that to the custard pie like trajectory of the round and you are seeing some significant disadvantages of the system. It is telling that all modern infantry anti-tank systems (the Soviet RPG family comfortably leading the field) use rockets to push warheads out. Or are there any exceptions?

[flamingknives]

There are two common, modern, systems that do not use a rocket.

The Carl Gustav 84mm (in use in the US as the M3 MAAWS) and the related AT4 (variants in service across the world, most notably in service with the US as the M136.

Both are recoilless rifles.

In addition, the obsolescent German Armbrust system is a counter-mass gun.

Interestingly, RPG7 has a boost/sustain arrangement where an initial motor pushes it out of the tube and a second motor burns throughout flight to keep the speed up. This has some advantages including reduced launch signature compared to other systems that burn their propellant entirely within the space of the launch tube, but also has flaws. Most particularly, the trajectory in any kind of cross-wind is reportedly somewhat difficult to judge.

[Glukx Ouglouk]

@ Joji: One exception is the Carl Gustav, which is a recoilless rifle rather than a rocket launcher - but the backblast issue is pretty much the same as for rockets anyway. I think the RPG-2 was also a recoilless rifle design (though the RPG-7 is a rocket launcher).

As for why the PIAT didn't have a legacy... I can't say for sure, but I think it's because it's not a recoilless weapon, so it wasn't possible to design a more powerful version (with a bigger warhead and/or higher initial velocity) without increasing the recoil... And the PIAT was already known for kicking like a mule, so it likely wasn't feasible.

[Vark]

I think the modern infantry systems use rockets because of the range, as for the custard pie trajectory of the PIAT's bomb that can be compensated for by the gunner, as at such close ranges, estimation of range is easily taught. In fact the only real disadvantage to low trajectory, for such a weapon, is the effect of wind shear and I believe the RPG, and other large vaned rockets, suffer badly from that.

[wokelly]

One advantage of a PIAT was the absence of backblast. It could therefore be fired from inside a building and it would create less launch signature than a rocket. These are significant advantages for the firer of the PIAT. My father, who did fire one on a range post-war, said the firing recoil was unpleasant. Add that to the custard pie like trajectory of the round and you are seeing some significant disadvantages of the system. It is telling that all modern infantry anti-tank systems (the Soviet RPG family comfortably leading the field) use rockets to push warheads out. Or are there any exceptions?

Well the Panzerfaust used a very similar ignition system to the PIAT (small charge in the round), was widely successful but its ignition system was not copied. Fact is a Rocket propelled weapon can fly farther and potentially flatter than the Panzerfaust and PIAT ignition.

It is not so much the PIAT as a whole or Panzerfaust ignition was bad, it just was technologically not capable of being improved much after the war unlike rocket propelled weapons. The PIAT was generally competetive with first gen Man Portable Anti-Tank weapon during the war, had some advantages, but the Bazooka was really the way to go.

From another forum this by Wo Kelly a man who knows things. Note the theoretical high rate of fire!!

Yeah I keep the same username on every forum, helps when remembering the login info.

However I'm always a bit hesitant with previous posts from some time ago. I learn things all the time and stuff I argued once upon a time may not be totally accurate. Most of that post is fine, but I have seen people argue that standoff for the round was in fact taken into account in WWII heat rounds, so that argument may be wrong.

Still I have never seen any definitive proof side skirts stopped HEAT penetrations. Certainly the principle of slat armour was not used by the Germans and standoff armour can need a lot of space to work depending on the HEAT round. Honestly I am not sure we will ever know for sure unless someone can find some weapons, some ammo and set up a 30cm plate with a 5mm plate spaced the proper distance. If it did work and the Germans knew it, I would imagine the Tiger and Panther would have had side skirts for the hull and turret.

[flamingknives]

If spaced armour worked against HEAT warheads, then the Leopard 1, Chieftain, M60 and T72 would have had it all over.

[Vark]

Schurzen plates and side skirts were designed to allow the PZ III and IV varients to defeat the 14.5mm Russian ATR round, which whilst not often destroying the target could degrade it to a point it was unfit to continue its designated mission.

Doing a bit of research recently on PIATs and it definitely is for veterans a Marmite weapon! Again, so hard to determine any accurate evaluation of effectiveness as the users of the thing have vastly different opinions, though one veteran did wryly note that four of the VC's awarded in the Italian campaign were given to PIAT operators.