Firing port

A firing port, sometimes called a pistol port, is a small opening in armored vehicles, fortified structures like bunkers, or other armored equipment that allows small arms to be safely fired out of the vehicle at enemy infantry, often to cover vehicle or building blindspots. Examples of this can be seen in the Crusader tank, Sherman tank, Tiger I, 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, and Russian armored personnel carriers. Some firing ports are improvised for such use. For example a late production Tiger I manual shows the Nahverteidigungswaffe 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.^: 51