OT- Recoiless Rifle

[Bishop746]

It seems there are some well read people here so I thought I would ask about a weapon that has fasinated me for awhile; the recoiless rifle.

I can find stats online but I was more interested in how it was used.

Was the Recoiless Rifle intended only as a AT weapon? Was it ever effective. Did it fire a rocket like the bazooka or a shell. Could it be used to deliver HE rounds into structures like buildings or bunkers.

Does it have any place in a modern milatary or have shoulder fired weapons made it obsolete. Are they still being used by any major nation or 3rd world armies.

[thatguy96]

Well there are many classes of recoilless rifle mind you. From shoulder fired to large enough to necessitate a tripod or a vehicular platform. The weapon has always been held as a multi-task weapon, because of its nature as a catridge weapon, that is not preloaded like many infantry rocket weapons today. It can fire HEAT or APERS rounds.

A lot of major world powers, including the United States, employ recoilless rifles still, in varying capacities. In the US case, the Bofors/Carl Gustav M3 has been adopted for use by the SOF community in the US Army.

[PlasmaKrab]

The Swedish Carl Gustav is still in use in several 'major' armies like Sweden, Norway, Canada, Australia, India, Japan, USA (as said above, mainly in SOF and Ranger units), and dozens of other nations.
It has become somewhat of an archetype of the shoulder-fired RLR, and can be considered as a tactical equivalent of reloadable rocket launchers like the RPG-7 family, though considerably more versatile.
The latest versions pack all the power of more modern AT weapons, with rounds available including rocket-assisted tandem-HEAT antitank rounds, FAE canisters and APHE bunker busters.

On the other end of the scale you find things like the US M-40 or the late British Wombat, i.e. long-tube, heavy-caliber weapons meant to be mounted on a wheeled carriage, or generally a light vehicle.
These weapons are now mainly used by second- and third-rate armies (from Spain and China to Bolivia and Zimbabwe), as they were the very thing that was replaced by long-range antitank missiles (TOW and HOT) in the NATO armies' battalion support units in the 70s and 80s.
These were used mainly for long-range antitank support of infantry units, and shifting to missiles has traded versatility against anti-armour potency, which made more sense in the heigth of the cold war.

China is still using lots of recoilless rifles due to the large size and overall low proficiency of its army, which means that modern ATGMs are too expensive and reserved for elite units. They even developped a new company/battalion-level support weapon called PF-98 Queen Bee, which can be described as a crossover between a recoilless gun and a reloadable rocket launcher like a SMAW, LRAC-89 or RPG-29, though significantly heavier.

[Bishop746]

Interesting. I looked up the M3 on the internet, which I had never heard of. The US should have an equivalent to the RPG since it was an effective weapon. Why only Ranger and SOF units, wouldn't infantry platoons be well served by a weapon like this.

[PlasmaKrab]

I guess the 'regular' infantry is still much into the cold war inheritance of being suited to fight off armour at close ranges. Hence the squad-level Dragon missile launcher which is deliriously high anti-armour power for the unit size, not even mentionning the pricetag.
That's basically that Dragon that is supposed to be replaced by the Carl Gustav in Ranger units, since they expect to encounter less armor and more various targets, and that's also where it stands or stood in most other armies.

There again, modern developments have shown a major shift in the actual infantry role, and hardware development has started to reflect it, whit e.g. concrete-piercing or FAE variants for the Bofors AT-4 and its US version the M-136. That could give some diversified punch when situation requires.

[Bishop746]

I take your point about fighting armor at close range with a very expensive weapon. I'm not saying an infantry squad will never encounter heavy armor on the battlefield but squads should have cheap, reloadable weapons capable of knocking out bunkers, fighting positions and infantry in buildings.

The US military has a terrible track record of spending incredible amounts of money of weapon systems when a cheaper one would be better and more cost effective.

Examples for comment:

Osprey
F23 Raptor
OICW(my personal choice for a weapon that I would like to see scrapped. Have you seen this thing? Looks like a reject from the movie "Aliens")
Growler

[SGTGunn]

Actually the M3 Ranger Anti-armor/Assault Weapon System (RAAWS)supplimented the M47 Dragon in Ranger Battalions rather than replacing it. The M47 Dragon was a terrible weapon system. It was heavy, difficult to fire, and only had an effective range of 1000 meters - which the missle took a agonizingly slow 11 seconds to travel. That combined with the Dragon's massive launch signiture (i.e. big flash and cloud of white smoke)and smallish warhead, made it very unpopular. It has been replaced with the far more sophistictaed Javelin, which is a fire and forget top-attack missile, with a 2000m range. It has proven to be devestatingly effective in Iraq, against both vehicles and small buildings/bunkers, with a 90%+ hit percentage. I believe both the M3 RAAWS and the Javelin are in use by Ranger units. For bunker busting regular US Army troops have been using the SMAW-D single shot rocket launcher, though I agree that the versatility of the RAAWS/Carl Gustav platform would make it a useful addition to the MTO&E of regular infantry units.