PTAB (Russian ПТАБ, short for Противотанковая Авиабомба, "Antitank Aviation Bomb") was a

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

high-explosive anti-tank High-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) is the effect of a shaped charge explosive that uses the Munroe effect to penetrate heavy armor. The warhead functions by having an explosive charge collapse a metal liner inside the warhead into a high-velocity ...

(HEAT)

shaped charge A shaped charge, commonly also hollow charge if shaped with a cavity, is an explosive charge shaped 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, ...

bomb.

Design

The bomb was designed within a case of a 2.5 kg bomb, with a case weight of 1.5 kg and 0.62 kg of explosives. The

Ilyushin Il-2 The Ilyushin Il-2 ( Russian: Илью́шин Ил-2) is a ground-attack plane that was produced by the Soviet Union in large numbers during the Second World War. The word ''shturmovík'' (Cyrillic: штурмовик), the generic Russian term ...

ground

attack aircraft An attack aircraft, strike aircraft, or attack bomber is a tactical military aircraft that has a primary role of carrying out airstrikes with greater precision than bombers, and is prepared to encounter strong low-level air defenses while pr ...

could carry 280 PTAB bombs directly on the bomb-bay folds, or 4x48 in four cassettes. The PTAB 2.5 could penetrate 60 to 70 millimeter tank armor, at the time sufficient for the top armor of even

heavy tank A heavy tank is a tank classification produced from World War I to the end of the Cold War. These tanks generally sacrificed mobility and maneuverability for better armour protection and equal or greater firepower than tanks of lighter classes. ...

Use

Introduced in 1943, PTABs were widely deployed from Il-2s, and due to the bomb's very low weight, from

Yakovlev Yak-9 The Yakovlev Yak-9 (; NATO reporting name: Frank) is a single-engine, single-seat multipurpose fighter aircraft used by the Soviet Union and its allies during World War II and the early Cold War. It was a development of the robust and successful ...

fighters, specifically from the internal weapon bay in the Yak-9B (

fighter-bomber A fighter-bomber is a fighter aircraft that has been modified, or used primarily, as a light bomber or attack aircraft. It differs from bomber and attack aircraft primarily in its origins, as a fighter that has been adapted into other roles, wh ...

) modification. The

Polikarpov Po-2 The Polikarpov Po-2 (also U-2 before 1944, for its initial Glossary of Russian and USSR aviation acronyms: Aircraft designations, ''uchebnyy'', 'training', role as a flight instruction aircraft) was an all-weather multirole Soviet Union, Soviet b ...

could also carry and deploy PTABs. The number of PTABs dropped in a given time period steadily increased thereafter. By the end of 1943, Soviet records show that 1,171,340 PTABs were dropped. In 1944, the number rose to 5,024,822. In the first four months of 1945, a further 3,242,701 PTABs were used.Олег Растренин (2007) ''Штурмовик Ил-2. Летающий танк'', , p. 101 During the

2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...

, rapid technology development occurred to iterate on design of racing drones into a type of

FPV loitering munition A loitering munition, also known as a suicide drone, kamikaze drone, or exploding drone, is a weapon with a warhead that is typically designed to loiter until a target is designated, then crash into it.

. Aimed a very low-cost and high production volume, the heavy-duty version of the

Escadrone Escadrone is a non-profit group organized in Ukraine in 2022 in order to manufacture FPV attack drones, a type of FPV loitering munition. The business goal was to design and build a large quantity of low-cost drones, aiming specifically to be ab ...

attack drone was modified to carry a PTAB 2.5 anti-tank bomb. While much less effective than the larger and more expensive

Javelin A javelin is a light spear designed primarily to be thrown, historically as a ranged weapon. Today, the javelin is predominantly used for sporting purposes such as the javelin throw. The javelin is nearly always thrown by hand, unlike the sling ...

weapon system, it is highly effective against a tank's weak spots. The Escadrone attack drone is maneuverable and has been shown to successfully attack less protected places in Russian tanks.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ptab Bombs Submunitions Weapons and ammunition introduced in 1943