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This WWII era War Department training film (TF 181116) shows the secondary weapons that a tankhunting team uses to destroy tanks as well as ambush methods that assist in destroying enemy tanks. The film features what appears to be a captured Polish 7TP light tank used by the Panzerwaffe. The tank moves over a small gully and through trees (00:47). The film shows inside the tank and the view through the window slits (01:12). The tank’s turret revolves around. An illustration is used to show the “dead space” where a tank cannot fire (02:58), giving tank hunters safe zones. The film then shows the vulnerable spots on a tank, including the exposed windows in the front of the tank, periscope, turret, turret rings, tracks, idlers, and wheels (03:50).Three U.S. soldiers get out of a jeep (04:58); viewers see the weapons they use to hunt tanks: antitank mines, smoke grenades, and rocket grenades with a rocket launcher. The men sight in their carbines. One of them carries the rocket launcher; he shoots a piece of steel with the weapon. A soldier demonstrates throwing a smoke grenade (06:24). The threeman tank hunting team moves on foot and locates a tank. A soldier sites in the tank with the rocket launcher. When the tank is close, he shoots the tank. A tank stops on a dirt road because of tin cans out on a road (08:27)—an ambush method used for attacking tanks. A soldier drapes shelter halves across the road to stop and ambush a tank. A tank is out of gas but is hidden in the cover of some trees (10:30). The tank hunting team demonstrates how to approach and attack the tank by diverting the tank’s fire with one member while the grenade crew moves in for a highpercentage shot. The soldiers tie antitank mines together with heavy wire (11:31), then they camouflage the mines, and wait to pull the mines into the path of the tank once the tank moves into a position creating necessary dead space. A tank moves through a gully and the tank hunters toss smoke grenades to provide cover (12:58); a soldier takes a log and puts it between the bogey wheel and the idler wheel. The film concludes with footage of a solider shooting a rocket launcher at a tank and hitting it.


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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com