Ammunition
| Round name | Warhead name | Type | Weight | Warhead weight | Length | Armour penetration |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PG-82 | GK-662 | HEAT | 4.4 kg | 0.69 kg | 694 mm | 230 mm to 175 mm [2] [3] |
| OG-82 | GO-662 | HE-FRAG | 4.7 kg | 0.41 kg | 626 mm | N/A [4] |
Users
| SPG-82 | |
|---|---|
| Type | Antitank rocket launcher |
| Place of origin | Soviet Union |
| Service history | |
| In service | 1950 to mid-1970s |
| Used by | Soviet Union, Syria, Afghanistan and various Warsaw Pact countries, Indonesia |
| Wars | Portuguese Colonial War Syrian Civil War [ citation needed ] |
| Production history | |
| Designer | NII-6 |
| Designed | 1944 |
| Produced | 1950 to 1964 |
| Specifications | |
| Mass | 37.8 kg |
| Length | 2.15 m |
| Crew | 2 or 3 |
| Caliber | 82 mm |
| Action | Single shot |
| Recoil | Recoilless |
| Carriage | Two wheels |
| Rate of fire | 5 to 6 rounds per minute |
| Effective firing range | 200 m direct |
| Maximum firing range | 700 m |
The SPG-82 (transliterated Russian: Stankovyi Protivotankovyi Granatomet - heavy antitank grenade launcher) was a Soviet wheeled antitank rocket launcher that entered service after the end of World War II. It was replaced in Soviet service by the B-10 recoilless rifle from 1954 but remained in service with some armies, notably in the Middle East until the 1970s. [1] The SPG-82 was also carried by BRIMOB (the Indonesia Police Mobile Brigade) in 1963.[ citation needed ] It has been replaced by B-10 recoilless rifle.
The weapon consists of a long barrel tube with a flared muzzle, supported by a simple carriage with two small solid wheels. A curved shoulder pad is attached to left side of the barrel, and a large shield is fitted to protect the crew from the back-blast produced by the rocket projectiles. The shield is not thick enough to provide protection from enemy fire. The weapon is normally fired from the carriage, but it can be dismounted and shoulder fired by two men working together to support the weapon.
The weapon fires two types of projectiles, a general purpose explosive/fragmentation round, the OG-82, and an armour piercing anti-tank round, the PG-82. It has two sets of iron sights corresponding to the two different rounds fired by the weapon. The HE sight is graduated out to 700 meters while the weapon's effective range for the HEAT round is around 200 meters.
| Round name | Warhead name | Type | Weight | Warhead weight | Length | Armour penetration |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PG-82 | GK-662 | HEAT | 4.4 kg | 0.69 kg | 694 mm | 230 mm to 175 mm [2] [3] |
| OG-82 | GO-662 | HE-FRAG | 4.7 kg | 0.41 kg | 626 mm | N/A [4] |
A rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) is a shoulder-fired missile weapon that launches rockets equipped with an explosive warhead. Most RPGs can be carried by an individual soldier, and are frequently used as anti-tank weapons. These warheads are affixed to a rocket motor which propels the RPG towards the target and they are stabilized in flight with fins. Some types of RPG are reloadable with new rocket-propelled grenades, while others are single-use. RPGs are generally loaded from the front.
A recoilless rifle (rifled), recoilless launcher (smoothbore), or simply recoilless gun, sometimes abbreviated to "RR" or "RCL" is a type of lightweight artillery system or man-portable launcher that is designed to eject some form of countermass such as propellant gas from the rear of the weapon at the moment of firing, creating forward thrust that counteracts most of the weapon's recoil. This allows for the elimination of much of the heavy and bulky recoil-counteracting equipment of a conventional cannon as well as a thinner-walled barrel, and thus the launch of a relatively large projectile from a platform that would not be capable of handling the weight or recoil of a conventional gun of the same size. Technically, only devices that use spin-stabilized projectiles fired from a rifled barrel are recoilless rifles, while smoothbore variants are recoilless guns. This distinction is often lost, and both are often called recoilless rifles.
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 shaped charge jet; this is capable of penetrating armor steel to a depth of seven or more times the diameter of the charge. The shaped charge jet armor penetration effect is purely kinetic in nature; the round has no explosive or incendiary effect on the armor.
A grenade launcher is a weapon that fires a specially designed, large-caliber projectile, often with an explosive, smoke, or gas warhead. Today, the term generally refers to a class of dedicated firearms firing unitary grenade cartridges. The most common type are man-portable, shoulder-fired weapons issued to individuals, although larger crew-served launchers are issued at higher levels of organization by military forces.
Shoulder-fired missile, shoulder-launched missile or man-portable missile, among other variants, are common slang-terms to describe high-caliber shoulder-mounted weapons systems – that is: weapons firing large heavy projectiles ("missiles"), typically using the backblast principle, which are small enough to be carried by a single person and fired while held on one's shoulder. The word "missile" in this context is used in its original broad sense of a heavy projectile, and encompasses all shells and rockets, guided or unguided. A more formal variant is simply shoulder-fired weapons system and the like.
The Carl Gustaf 8.4 cm recoilless rifle is a Swedish developed 84 mm (3.3 in) caliber man-portable shoulder-fired recoilless rifle, initially developed by the Royal Swedish Army Materiel Administration during the second half of the 1940s as a close-range anti-tank and support weapon for infantry, which has seen great export success around the globe and is today a popular multi-purpose support weapon in use by many nations. The Carl Gustaf 84 mm recoilless rifle is a lightweight, low-cost weapon that uses a wide range of ammunition, which makes it extremely flexible and suitable for a wide variety of roles.
The M67 recoilless rifle is a 90 mm anti-tank recoilless rifle made in the United States and later in South Korea. It could also be employed in an anti-personnel role with the use of the M590 antipersonnel round. It was designed to be fired primarily from the ground using the bipod and monopod, but could also be fired from the shoulder using the folded bipod as a shoulder rest and the monopod as a front grip. The weapon was air-cooled and breech-loaded, and fired fixed ammunition. It is a direct fire weapon employing stadia lines to allow simple range finding, based on a typical tank target bridging the lines once in range.
The Panzerfaust 3 is a modern semi-disposable recoilless anti-tank weapon, which was developed between 1978 and 1985 and first entered service with the Bundeswehr in 1987. It was first ordered in 1973 to provide West German infantry with an effective weapon against contemporary Soviet armor, thereby replacing West Germany's aging PzF 44 Light Lanze launchers and the heavy Carl Gustaf 84 mm anti-tank recoilless rifle manufactured in Sweden.
The SPG-9 Kopyo is a tripod-mounted man-portable, 73 millimetre calibre recoilless gun developed by the Soviet Union. It fires fin-stabilised, rocket-assisted high explosive (HE) and high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) shaped charge projectiles similar to those fired by the 73 mm 2A28 Grom low pressure gun of the BMP-1 armored vehicle. It was accepted into service in 1962, replacing the B-10 recoilless rifle.
The RPG-16 is a handheld anti-tank grenade launcher for anti-tank warfare. It was developed in 1968 and adopted by the Soviet Army in 1970 for special operation teams and the Soviet airborne troops (VDV). These were deployed during the Soviet–Afghan War (1979–1989) and saw service during several battles in that conflict.
The B-10 recoilless rifle is a Soviet 82 mm smoothbore recoilless gun. It could be carried on the rear of a BTR-50 armoured personnel carrier. It was a development of the earlier SPG-82, and entered Soviet service during 1954. It was phased out of service in the Soviet Army in the 1960s and replaced by the SPG-9, remaining in service with parachute units at least until the 1980s. Although now obsolete it was used by many countries during the Cold War.
The 8.8 cm Raketenwerfer 43 Puppchen was an 88 mm calibre reusable anti-tank rocket launcher developed by Nazi Germany during World War II.
The M18 recoilless rifle is a 57 mm shoulder-fired, anti-tank recoilless rifle that was used by the U.S. Army in World War II and the Korean War. Recoilless rifles are capable of firing artillery-type shells at reduced velocities comparable to those of standard cannon, but with greater accuracy than anti-tank weapons that used unguided rockets, and almost entirely without recoil. The M18 was a breech-loaded, single-shot, man-portable, crew-served weapon. It could be used in both anti-tank and anti-personnel roles. The weapon could be both shoulder fired or fired from a prone position. The T3 front grip doubled as an adjustable monopod and the two-piece padded T3 shoulder cradle could swing down and to the rear as a bipod for the gunner. The most stable firing position was from the tripod developed for the water-cooled Browning M1917 machine gun.
The 2A28 Grom is the main armament of the BMP-1 and BMD-1 infantry fighting vehicles. It is a 73 mm low pressure smoothbore semi-automatic gun with a wedge breech block. Development of the 2A28 Grom was directly linked to that of the SPG-9 recoilless gun; both fired projectiles similar to rocket-propelled grenades.
The Model 1968 recoilless gun is a 105-mm antitank weapon developed and employed by Argentina. The weapon has been in active service since 1968 and 150 were still operational with Argentine forces as of 2000. A similar weapon is the Argentine 105-mm Model 1974 FMK-1 recoilless gun.
The M60 recoilless gun is an 82-mm antitank recoilless gun developed in the former Yugoslavia. It entered service with the Yugoslav People's Army in the 1960s.
The high–low system is a design of cannon and anti-tank warfare launcher using a smaller high-pressure chamber to store propellant. It allows a much larger projectile to be launched without the heavy equipment usually needed for large caliber weapons. When the propellant is ignited, the higher pressure gases are bled out through vents at reduced pressure to a much larger low pressure chamber to push a projectile forward. The high-low system allows the weight of the weapon and its ammunition to be reduced significantly. Production cost and time are drastically lower than for standard cannon or other small-arm weapon systems firing a projectile of the same size and weight. It has a far more efficient use of the propellant, unlike earlier recoilless weapons, where most of the propellant is expended to the rear of the weapon to counter the recoil of the projectile being fired.
The AT4 is a Swedish 84 mm (3.31 in) unguided, man-portable, disposable, shoulder-fired recoilless anti-tank weapon manufactured by Saab Bofors Dynamics. The AT4 is not a rocket launcher strictly speaking, because the explosive warhead is not propelled by a rocket motor. Rather, it is a smooth-bore recoilless gun. Saab has had considerable sales success with the AT4, making it one of the most common light anti-tank weapons in the world. The M136 AT4 is a variant used by the United States Army.
Man-portable anti-tank systems are traditionally portable shoulder-launched projectile systems firing heavy shell-type projectiles, typically designed to combat protected targets, such as armoured vehicles, field fortifications and at times even low-flying aircraft.
The Carl Gustaf 20 mm recoilless rifle, service name 20 mm pansarvärnsgevär m/42, meaning "20 mm antitank rifle model 1942", was the first recoilless rifle produced by Carl Gustafs Stads Gevärsfaktori. The weapon had a penetration of just over 4 cm RHA with its standard solid shot armour piercing projectile and quickly became obsolete against modern armour, leading to the development of higher caliber recoilless guns, eventually resulting in the Carl Gustaf 84 mm recoilless rifle in 1948.
