Quote:
Originally Posted by Suhiir
I never once saw, or even heard of any rifle-grenades in the USMC the whole time I was in.
Tho knowing the Corps they probably have a stockpile of Lewis guns and Springfield M1863 rifled muskets someplace "just in case".
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I handled an old ENERGA drill round back in my TA unit in the 70s. It weighed a ton.
The old lag who had brought it out when someone had asked about what the loop on your left (?) ammo pouch was for explained that it was for the adaptor for the SLR to fire the beastie. You had to fiddle with that onto the end of the weapon and then load special blanks, also while remembering to set your gas regulator to a special setting (or bad things happened).
The grenade would then break your arm with its recoil if you did not hold the rifle right, and if the enemy allowed you another shot after the inevitable miss (fumble grenade out of pouch and onto adaptor, fish out individual ballistite cartridge and insert in a weapon not designed for single feeding while Mr T-62 is 25 yards away and is
very ticked off) then it would disassemble your rifle into its constituent parts.
Rifle grenades were not good for the health of rifles, apparently. In WW1 and 2, any dedicated rifle grenadier was given an old beater of a .303, reinforced with wire windings to fire the things from
in addition to his real rifle that he shot regular ammo from. Rifle grenades were not popular then, and the ENERGA was apparently loathed even more given the vitriolic way the old timer went on about the thing...
As for accuracy, apparently on a par with the 2 inch mortar - so not much of that, then.
The BA used the RGGS briefly, and that was quite soon replaced with the 40mm UGL. Probably a case of deja view all over again.