Piat

[Lord Raglan]

Will someone please do a MOD for the Piat crews before they do themselves a serious injury, As I recall, it was always fired from the prone position from the shoulder and rested on a monopod. It was a beast of a weapon, the projectile had no propellant charge and was hurled on it way by a bloody great spring which required two strong men to cock it. Maybe 'Arnie' could have managed it and fired it from the hip!!! A missfire (weapon was not recocked) with an enemy tank bearing down on you, didnt bear thinking about. It did have a couple of advantages over the American bazooka however, in that it did not reveal your position when fired (CMBO please note) also it could be fired from inside buildings without incinerating everything behind it. Along with the Sten gun, which had a habit of emptying its magazine for no apparent reason, they were definately, not'Standard' or 'Deluxe' but 'Economy' weapons, but we got by.

[Guest Babra]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Lord Raglan:

...it did not reveal your position when fired (CMBO please note)...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

This is modeled in CMBO. Are you suggesting it is not? In one game I had a lone PIAT team concealed in a patch of woods within 50m of three German AFVs. The team knocked out one armoured car and damaged two Tigers, expending all its ammunition without being detected.

The presence of enemy infantry will, of course, negate this advantage.

[Monty's Double]

I might have this wrong, but wasn't the PIAT a spigot mortar? The propellant was triggered by a firing pin, which was indeed fired by a "bloody great spring". My grandfather (who blew himself up at Salerno) used to tell stories about them misfiring, and the spring alone propelling the projectile 20 or 30 feet, so maybe that's where the confusion comes in. Go and find a copy of "There's is the Glory", a recreation of Arnhem by the blokes who were actually there. There's plenty of hot PIAT action, as well as some hardcore 6-pounder stuff, and the best collection of plummy Brit accents you'll hear this side of Brideshead Revisited.

[John Kettler]

Lord Raglan,

The PIAT (Projector, Infantry, Antitank) does have a propellant charge, but it's sort of like a big shotgun charge in the hollow base of the bomb, rather than a rocket. A single man cocks the PIAT's powerful firing spring , an evolution best performed while standing, and the loader places the PIAT bomb in the tray and slides it back until the latch engages.

When the trigger, a very stiff, heavy trigger is pulled, the steel rod or mandrel slams forward into a steel cup at the base of the bomb, igniting a percussion primer, which triggers the main charge. The resulting explosion hurls the bomb off the mandrel and recocks the weapon.

All projector type weapons (PIAT, Mousetrap or Hedgehog on ASW craft, the Petard on AVREs) essentially work like guns turned inside out, for all the projectiles are fired from steel rods instead of being launched from barrels.

There is a generally wonderful site called Panzerfaust (URL someone?) run by one of the board members, which has a PIAT description which is grossly in error and needs to be fixed. A PIAT is not a spring gun. The spring is the firing mechanism, not the method of providing motive force to the PIAT bomb. Please see Ian Hogg's GRENADES & MORTARS and INFANTRY WEAPONS OF WORLD WAR II for details.

Hogg enlisted in the Royal Artillery during the War, serving in both Europe and the Far East. He rose to Master Gunner by retirement, taught artillery at the Artillery School and

ammunition at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, and is a globally recognized expert on ordnance.

Hope this helps.

[Stuka]

Montys double? Thats a sad name isn't it? I always thought Monty was as ugly as sin. I guess theres no accounting for taste, eh?

Nice to hear your grandaddy survived 'blowing himself up', now theres a story I'm sure we'd all like to hear. ]

[Ex Bellator]

IMHO PIATs are modelled very accurately in CMBO. Last weekend in a scene reminiscent of 'Fistfull Of Dollars' I controlled one end of a small town and my TCP-IP opponent held the other. I had a pair of Hetzers which dominiated the town firing down the main roads and clearing out the Brits methodically over a period of 20 turns or so.

I decided to make the final push to capture the other end of town and my infantry and Hetzers moved along the road. Suddenly my two hetzers were KO'd. A few turns later the game ended in a draw and I was astonished to see two PIAT teams who had KO'd the Hetzers from the top floor of some large buildings surrounded by my troops.

They remained undetected throughout the entire battle, when they fired I had squads approx 10m away from them, at the game end I had a squad in the same building (on the lower level) as them, and we never found them.

BTS have done a great job of simulating their abilities to attack from buildings and remain hidden. Next time we fight over a town I'll pick as many as I can

[ 05-11-2001: Message edited by: Rex_Bellator ]

[Marnix]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by John Kettler:

...There is a generally wonderful site called Panzerfaust (URL someone?)<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

This one?

[Monty's Double]

Thanks for the compliment Stuka, actually it's a reference to the 1958 film "I was Monty's Double", starring the real life double ME Clifton-James. Frankly, one of the funniest films ever made, though whether it's meant to be a comedy gawd only knows. Still, if you're going to cast Sid James and Leslie Philips, you're unlikely to be thinking hard-hiiting drama are you?