According to http://search.cpan.org/dist/Compress-Zlib/pod/FAQ.pod#Accessing_.tar.Z_files, you have to use an external binary:
The Archive::Tar module can optionally use Compress::Zlib (via the IO::Zlib module) to access tar files that have been compressed with gzip. Unfortunately tar files compressed with the Unix compress utility cannot be read by Compress::Zlib and so cannot be directly accesses by Archive::Tar.

If the uncompress or gunzip programs are available, you can use one of these workarounds to read .tar.Z files from Archive::Tar

In reply to Re: Decoding .z and .gz files by Burak
in thread Decoding .z and .gz files by blackadder

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