Wasp 58 | |
---|---|
Type | Recoilless rocket launcher |
Place of origin | France |
Service history | |
In service | 1987-present |
Used by | See users |
Wars | Rwandan Civil War [1] |
Production history | |
Manufacturer | Luchaire SA |
No. built | over 450,000 |
Specifications | |
Mass | 3 kg (6.6 lb) |
Length | 800 mm (31 in) |
Crew | 1 |
Cartridge | HEAT antiarmour warhead |
Cartridge weight | 615 g (21.7 oz) |
Caliber | 58 mm (2.3 in) |
Rate of fire | single-shot |
Muzzle velocity | 250 m/s (820 ft/s) |
Effective firing range | 20–400 m (22–437 yd) |
External images | |
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Wasp 58 | |
Soldier shown with first Wasp 58 design | |
First Wasp 58 launcher design |
The Wasp 58 is a 58-mm rocket launcher antitank weapon developed in France in the late 1980s. The weapon was, originally, privately developed by the French firm Luchaire SA, subsidiary of GIAT. [2]
In the early 1980s, Luchaire's sales department had noted the rising costs of light individual anti-armour/assault weapons were to the point that fewer and fewer could be purchased and that there was a need for a one-man anti-armor/assault weapon which could be purchased for a cost slightly higher than that of a rifle grenade, but with the greater accuracy and ease of use of a one-man rocket launcher[ citation needed ]
The world export markets was the major considerations behind the development of the Wasp 58 by Luchaire. [3]
The Wasp 58 is a direct-fire weapon used to attack lightly armored vehicles at ranges up to 300 metres. [4] It can also be used against bunkers or as a fire support weapon. [2] The Wasp 58 is a one-man disposable weapon system based on the recoilless principle. On ignition the propellant fires the 58-mm projectile forward while at the same time ejecting a counter mass of plastic chips to the rear to achieve a recoilless effect. [2] The plastic chips due to their size and weight lose any velocity after 1 metre of travel from the back of the launcher. The projectile is stabilized by six fins that unfold and lock into place after leaving the tube. [3]
The designers of the Wasp 58 made it compact and simple to operate with a small launch signature. This enables it to be fired from enclosed spaces, including from small rooms in buildings, and protects the user from having his position revealed. [2] The Wasp 58 is composed of a sealed launch tube manufactured from fibreglass reinforced plastic. The Wasp 58's HEAT antiarmour warhead is 58-mm in diameter and is based on the Grenade à fusil antichar de 58 mm Mle F1 PAB rifle grenade's warhead, also designed and manufactured by Luchaire and in service with the French military and other armies worldwide. [3]
The anti-armour warhead of the Wasp 58 can penetrate 300 mm of rolled homogeneous armour (RHA). [4] While insufficient in penetration for frontal engagements of today's modern main battle tanks, it can engage other armoured targets (wheeled armour vehicles or light tanks) from both frontal and side. [2]
The Wasp 58 requires no annual maintenance or special storage other than that which would be required for other small arms munitions. The Wasp 58 has a hit probability of over 95% when fired against stationary targets (88% against moving targets). [4]
The Wasp 58 was first sold in 1987. [3] It has been a commercial success with over 450,000 produced, [4] including licensed production in Greece. It is in service in France (with the French Commandos de l'Air), [2] Belgium, Denmark, France, Greece and the Netherlands. The Greek Revolutionary Organization 17 November stole a few rockets and used them for terrorist attacks. [3]
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: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)A rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) is a shoulder-fired rocket 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.
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.
An anti-tank rifle is an anti-materiel rifle designed to penetrate the armor of armored fighting vehicles, most commonly tanks, armored personnel carriers, and infantry fighting vehicles. The term is usually used for weapons that can be carried and used by one person, but is sometimes used for larger weapons. The usefulness of rifles for this purpose ran from the introduction of tanks in World War I until the Korean War. While medium and heavy tank armor became too thick to be penetrated by rigid projectiles from rifles that could be carried by a single soldier, anti-tank rifles continued to be used against other "soft" targets, though recoilless rifles and rocket-propelled grenades such as the bazooka were also introduced for infantry close-layer defense against tanks.
The Carl Gustaf 8.4 cm recoilless rifle is a Swedish-developed 84 mm (3.3 in) caliber shoulder-fired recoilless rifle, initially developed by the Royal Swedish Army Materiel Administration during the second half of the 1940s as a crew-served man-portable infantry support gun for close-range multi-role anti-armour, anti-personnel, battlefield illumination, smoke screening and marking fire, which has seen great export success around the globe and continues to be 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 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.
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The RPG-2 is a man-portable, shoulder-fired anti-tank weapon that was designed in the Soviet Union. It was the first successful anti-tank weapon of its type, being a successor to the earlier and unsuccessful rocket-propelled grenade RPG-1.
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 LRAC F1, officially called Lance-Roquettes AntiChar de 89 mm modèle F1, is a French reusable rocket launcher developed by Luchaire Défense SA, and manufactured in cooperation with Manufacture Nationale d'Armes de Saint-Étienne and was, in the 1970s, marketed by Hotchkiss-Brandt.
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The RPG-75 is a portable, disposable, single-shot anti-tank weapon, developed in the 1970s in Czechoslovakia. It fires a 68 mm grenade with an effective range of 300 meters and maximum range of 1000 meters. It resembles the American M72 LAW rocket launcher. This recoilless rifle is recommended to be used against light tanks and armoured tracked vehicles.
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