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Since I was a lad I have been intrigued by this weapon amongst other things my Father gave me was an Army training booklet on the PIAT . Who would ever think of designing an anti tank weapon that was propelled by a spring and a propellent charge to gain enough power to take on a tank . Reading the Wiki info a lot of its capabilities had to do with the design of hollow charge ammunition to cause more damage to heavier armour plate which had not been possible with the existing weapons available for infantry use .

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

Not the correct way to fire it .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj76mfiIa34

A crude looking bit of kit
http://www.inert-ord.net/atrkts/piat/index.html

http://www.canadiansoldiers.com/weapons ... k/piat.htm

A fascinating weapon , it worked and it did the business , its amazing what can be achieved the face of adversity but it helped win the war for us .

Dave

I did not realsie they were spring powered as such. An old Boss of mine recounted firing one of these shortly after the war. They were in the desert somewhere and his officer had acquired a few but had never fired one so with that they headed out until the found a wrecked tank and decided it was a suitable target. This was not a joint decision and my Boss was a bit sceptical about how accurate it would be and how close they were to the target. Apparently it did work and he vowed never to use one again unless things were desperate.

He recounted a few of his adventures a young solider, I wish I could better remember them.

When I was very young, I knew a man who had thought it would be a good laugh to fire one of these from the hip.
He walked with a limp afterwards.
He reckoned it was the dumbest thing he had ever done in his life.