Chances are you're aware of Disney's World War Two propaganda cartoons, those animated shorts complete with Donald Duck as a Nazi, cartoonish exaggerations of Hitler, and astonishingly racist caricatures of Japanese Emperor Hirohito. Over the course of the war, Disney produced a handful of these anti-Japanese and anti-German shorts at the behest of the US Government.

But before Donald Duck saluted Hitler in Der Fuehrer's Face or single-handedly destroyed a Japanese airbase in Commando Duck, Walt Disney Productions was working on something a little more toned down and less aggressively cartoonish: animated instructional videos for the United States Armed Forces.

Sit back for a moment, and learn all about the proper use and operation of the Boys Anti-Tank Rifle, a five-foot, 36-pound, .55 cal tank-busting badass (preceded, of course, by a few minutes of cartoon Hitler):

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Boys Anti-Tank Rifle or Stop that Tank—a title often used to refer to the initial, non-instructional portion of the film—was produced in 1942. And while it was actually produced for the National Film Board of Canada, it was released just shortly after the first American troops arrived in Great Britain, alongside Canadian troops already there. Instead of stirring up nationalist pride or jingoistic rage, the clip provides practical advice and instruction for troops using such a rifle on the ground.

Highlights include handy tips like aiming for surfaces that have a 20-degree angle of impact or less for maximum penetration, setting your sights to the 300-yard setting to ensure you're in effective firing range, and aiming for the parts of the tank where you'll be mostly likely to hit a person. All of it illustrated with stark and clear animation, showing x-ray views and cross sections that live-action footage could never hope to capture with such clarity.

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It's an especially good illustration of Disney's instructional work, but Stop that Tank was far from the only example of Disney's more explanatory work during the war. Between 1942 and 1945, Disney contributed footage to dozens upon dozens of films, often in the form of animated maps or diagrams that were plugged in-between lengthier live-action footage. Everything from methods for riveting to a crash-course in meteorology for pilots.

While revisiting the more pungent animated propaganda of the time can be a little cringe-inducing, these instructional videos still hold up pretty well. They're educational artifacts about the weapons of a bygone area, as well as remnants of a fascinating partnership.



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