The Spring-Loaded Tank Killer Britain Handed Its D-Day Infantry

The Spring-Loaded Tank Killer Britain Handed Its D-Day Infantry On a torn lawn in the Dutch town of Oosterbeek, a British major knelt behind a low garden wall and waited for a German tank to come closer. He had one weapon across his knees. It weighed about thirty-two pounds. How it actually worked: A spring-driven spigot mortar, not a rocket, cocked by hand with a two hundred pound spring. A hollow-charge bomb that could punch through three inches of armor at close range. No backblast and almost no flash, so a crew could fire it from inside a building. The men who won the Victoria Cross with it at Arnhem, in Italy, and in Burma. Why an ugly, hated weapon still knocked out German tanks across Normandy. The secret file on PIAT is pinned in the top comment. Subscribe for more forgotten weapons, and name the next one below. #WW2 #PIAT #WeaponsOfWW2 #MilitaryHistory #ForgottenWeapons