A firing port, sometimes called a pistol port, is a small opening in

armored vehicles Armour (British English) or armor (American English; see spelling differences) is a covering used to protect an object, individual, or vehicle from physical injury or damage, especially direct contact weapons or projectiles during combat, or f ...

, fortified structures like

bunker A bunker is a defensive military fortification designed to protect people and valued materials from falling bombs, artillery, or other attacks. Bunkers are almost always underground, in contrast to blockhouses which are mostly above ground. ...

s, or other armored equipment that allows

small arms A firearm is any type of gun designed to be readily carried and used by an individual. The term is legally defined further in different countries (see Legal definitions). The first firearms originated in 10th-century China, when bamboo tubes c ...

to be safely fired out of the vehicle at enemy

infantry Infantry is a military specialization which engages in ground combat on foot. Infantry generally consists of light infantry, mountain infantry, motorized infantry & mechanized infantry, airborne infantry, air assault infantry, and marine i ...

, often to cover vehicle or building blindspots. Examples of this can be seen in the

Crusader tank Crusader, in full "Tank, Cruiser Mk VI, Crusader", also known by its General Staff number A.15, was one of the primary British cruiser tanks during the early part of the Second World War. Over 5,000 tanks were manufactured and they made imp ...

Sherman tank } The M4 Sherman, officially Medium Tank, M4, was the most widely used medium tank by the United States and Western Allies in World War II. The M4 Sherman proved to be reliable, relatively cheap to produce, and available in great numbers. It w ...

Tiger I The Tiger I () was a German heavy tank of World War II that operated beginning in 1942 in Africa and in the Soviet Union, usually in independent heavy tank battalions. It gave the German Army its first armoured fighting vehicle that mounted ...

, T-34-85, and even modern armored vehicles today such as the Mechanized Infantry Combat Vehicle (MICV) program, its successor the Bradley Fighting Vehicle (BFV) featuring the

M231 Firing Port Weapon The M231 Firing Port Weapon (FPW) is an adapted version of the M16 assault rifle for shooting from firing ports on the M2 Bradley. The M16, standard infantry weapon of the time, was too long for use in a "buttoned up" APC, so the FPW was deve ...

, and Russian armored personnel carriers. Some firing ports are improvised for such use. For example a late production Tiger I manual shows the

Nahverteidigungswaffe The ''Nahverteidigungswaffe'' was a roof mounted, breech-loaded, single shot, multi-purpose, 360 ° rotating grenade launcher that could fire a variety of ammunition. It was typically found on German tanks such as the Panzer IV, Panther I, Ti ...

being used as a firing port. Some pistol ports, such as on the Sherman, included vision slits such as "protectoscopes" increasing visibility around the tank.

Ballistic weakspot

Being a ballistic weak spot, firing ports are often reinforced with additional armor, and in subsequent designs reduced in number (BFV), or deleted altogether (Sherman and Tiger I anuary 1944. Other armor is improvised such as

slat armor Slat armor (or slat armour in British English), also known as bar armor, cage armor, and standoff armor, is a type of vehicle armor designed to protect against high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) attacks, as used by anti-tank guided missiles (AT ...

to stop

shaped charge A shaped charge is an explosive charge shaped to form an explosively formed penetrator (EFP) to focus the effect of the explosive's energy. Different types of shaped charges are used for various purposes such as cutting and forming metal, init ...

s or chicken wire to stop grenades. However, due to strong crew demand, they are sometimes brought back, as happened with the Sherman. This was in part due to its use during ammunition resupply in the Sherman, eliminating the need for an additional crew member to pass ammunition through the loader's hatch, instead of being able to simply pass the ammunition from the ground through the firing port. One of the Tiger I's firing ports (right) was converted into a loader's escape hatch and the other covered with an armored plug and eventually deleted from the design to improve production time and reduce costs.

References

{{reflist Armoured vehicles Military terminology

Ballistic weakspot

See also

References