eon RE:Recoilless Rifles and Rocket Launchers 6/7/2004 2:57:43 PM Some weapons straddle the definition. The large crew-served recoilless rifle started to disappear from first-rate armed forces, except in areas such as the Arctic, where thermal batteries used to provide after-launch power to wire-guided missiles like M47 Dragon and BGM-71 TOW would fail due to extremely low temperatures. Modern shoulder fired rifles use muzzle brakes to direct gas back towards the shooter, canceling some of the total recoil. The last major use was the M50 Ontos, which mounted six M40 rifles on a light (9 ton) tracked chassis. Such a system places enormous stress on its midpoint, is extremely cumbersome to reload, and has the highly undesirable effect of launching a projectile potentially just as deadly as the one launched at the enemy at a point behind the shooter where their allies may well be. An M40 recoilless rifle on its M79 "wheelbarrow" tripod. They were then replaced with M40 106mm recoilless rifles, but following a catastrophic in-bore ammunition explosion that killed one of the five-man gun crew at Alpine Meadows Ski Resort, California in 1995 and two further in-bore explosions at Mammoth Mountain, California within thirteen days of each other in December 2002, all such guns were removed from use and replaced with surplus 105mm howitzers. The most basic method, and the first to be employed, is simply making a double-ended gun with a conventional sealed breech, which fires identical projectiles forwards and backwards. Such large systems have mostly been replaced by guided anti-tank missiles in first-world armies. This distinction … His design, named the Davis gun, connected two guns back-to-back, with the backwards-facing gun loaded with lead balls and grease of the same weight as the shell in the other gun. The recoilless rifle was first seen in a practical example just prior to World War 1 (1914-1918) where it emerged as the Davis Gun of the United States Navy. Two Russian assault rifles, AEK-971 and AK-107 have counter/balanced recoil systems where a mass is directed in the opposite direction of the bolt/piston. This pushes the projectile forwards towards the target and the countermass backwards providing the recoilless effect. His "Burney Gun" was developed to fire the Wallbuster shell against the Atlantic Wall defences, but was not required in the D-Day landings of 1944. The airburst fuzing system on a modern Carl Gustav recoilless rifle High Explosive round. Smoothbore variants are recoilless guns. Two were captured by the Finns and tested; one example was given to the Germans in 1940. Though similar in appearance to a tube-based rocket launcher (since these also operate on a recoilless launch principle), the key difference is that recoilless weapons fire shells utilizing a conventional smokeless propellant. Technically, only devices that use spin-stabilized projectiles fired from a rifled barrel are recoilless rifles, while smoothbore variants (which can be fin-stabilized or unstabilized) are recoilless guns. These included the unusual Düsenkanone 88, an 88mm recoilless rifle fed by a 10-round rotary cylinder and with the exhaust vent angled upwards at 51 degrees to the barrel so it could pass through the host aircraft's fuselage rather than risking a rear-vented backblast damaging the tail, and the Sondergerät SG104 "Münchhausen", a gargantuan 14-inch (355.6mm) weapon designed to be mounted under the fuselage of a Dornier Do 217. This distinction is often lost, and both are often called recoilless rifles.[2]. Technically, only devices that use a rifled barrel are recoilless rifles. The first recoilless gun to enter service in Germany was the 7.5 cm Leichtgeschütz 40 ("light gun" '40), a simple 75 mm smoothbore recoilless gun developed to give German airborne troops artillery and anti-tank support that could be parachuted into battle. While there are rocket-assisted rounds for recoilless weapons, they are still ejected from the barrel by the deflagration of a conventional propelling charge. Diagram of the operation of a recoilless rifle using a vented case. It's been around long enough that many armies who've used the firearm have now discarded it. There are a number of principles under which a recoilless gun can operate, all involving the ejection of some kind of counter-mass from the rear of the gun tube to offset the force of the projectile being fired forward. Other countermass materials that have been used include inert powders and liquids. Start This article has been rated as Start-Class on the project's quality scale. Obsolete 75mm M20 and 105mm M27 recoilless rifles were used by the U.S. National Park Service and the U.S. Forest Service as a system for triggering controlled avalanches at a safe distance, from the early 1950s until the US Military's inventory of surplus ammunition for these weapons was exhausted in the 1990s. In addition, the Davy Crockett, a muzzle-loaded recoilless launch system for tactical nuclear warheads intended to counteract Soviet tank units, was developed in the 1960s and deployed to American units in Germany. This design was of a gun which fired projectiles in opposite directions, but there is no evidence any physical firearm based on the design was constructed at the time. The near complete lack of recoil allows some versions to be shoulder-fired, but the majority are mounted on light tripods and are intended to be easily carried by a soldier. The largest versions retain enough bulk and recoil to be restricted to a towed mount or relatively heavy vehicle, but are still much lighter and more portable than cannon of the same scale. The two ends of the piston assembly are captured at the ends of the barrel, by which point the propellant gas has expanded and cooled enough that there is no threat of explosion. Burney demonstrated the technique with a recoilless 4-gauge shotgun. This is because, empirically, it does less damage, has lower armor penetration (especially at angles), has a worse sight picture and costs 20 credits more per shot. The larger Ordnance RCL. When fired, the projectile comes out the front and the base of the shell case fractures in a controlled manner to emit high velocity gasses. The vehicle wanted was a light ‘intervals machine’ (a vehicle meant to cover the spaces left betwee… Since recoil has been mostly negated, a heavy and complex recoil damping mechanism is not necessary. During the late 1960s and 1970s, SACLOS wire-guided missiles began to supplant recoilless rifles in the anti-tank role. Recoilless-rifle-40mm-batey-haosef-1.jpg 1,282 × 667; 81 KB San Andres de Giles - panoramio.jpg 2,560 × 1,920; 1.34 MB Secretary of the Navy John Chafee Examines an Enemy Weapon, 1969 (11950575763).jpg 1,355 × 2,289; 232 KB The recoilless gun received its name from its inherent design where some of the produced propellant gasses were exited from the rear of the weapon, reducing some of the recoil effect. M18 Recoilless Rifle: 57×303mmR: SS RCL United States: 1942 M20: 75mm: SS RCL United States: 1944 M28/M29 Nuclear Recoilless Rifle: SS RCL United States: 1956 M40: Watervliet Arsenal: 105×607mmR: SS RCL United States: 1950s M-60: HEAT: SS RCL Yugoslavia: 1960s M67: 3.54 in (90 mm) SS RCL United States: 1960s Miniman: FFV Ordnance: HEAT: SS AT Sweden: 1968 Pvpj 1110 The former 6th Light Infantry Division in Alaska used the M67 in its special weapons platoons, as did the Ranger Battalions and the US Army's Berlin Brigade. On top of the mount is a traverse wheel. [6], "SKZ" redirects here. The recoilless rifle solves this by simply venting out the gases out the back, reducing the recoil greatly. The man-portable, multi-role weapon system allows dismounted soldiers to deal with multiple challenges on the modern battlefield. This system would form the basis of the much more successful Carl Gustav recoilless rifle postwar. The M40 was the final and largest iteration of the recoilless rifle in American military service. Barrett M82A1; a modern .50" calibre rifle, with M16 for scale (Courtesy: MoD Pattern Room) Like single shot rocket launchers, the need to only survive a single firing means that single-shot recoilless weapons can be made from relatively flimsy and therefore very light materials, such as fiberglass. "The first recoilless rifle [gun] to enter service in Germany was the 7.5 cm Leichtgeschütz 40 ("light gun" '40), a simple 75 mm smoothbore recoilless gun developed to give German airborne troops some useful artillery and anti-tank support that could be parachuted into battle. One chief development emerging from the later stages of World War 2 (1939-1945) was the recoilless rifle, a relatively lightweight weapon attempting to counter violent recoil forces by jettisoning some of the escaping propellant gasses to the rear while the projectile exited the gun tube at front. This article is within the scope of WikiProject Firearms, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of firearms on Wikipedia. This is a list of recoilless rifles (RCLs) intended to catalogue these lightweight infantry support weapons that allow the firing of a heavier projectile than would be practical with a recoiling artillery gun. Postwar saw a great deal of interest in recoilless systems, as they potentially offered an effective replacement for the obsolete anti-tank rifle in infantry units. Despite the name, it is rare for the forces to completely balance, and real-world recoilless rifles do recoil noticeably (with varying degrees of severity). https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_recoilless_rifles&oldid=965286567, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 30 June 2020, at 13:24. Recoilless weapons with rifled tubes are called "Recoilless Rifles", while those with smooth bores are called "Recoilless Guns". Many nations also use a weapon derived from the Carl Gustav, the one-shot AT4, which was originally developed in 1984 to fulfil an urgent requirement for an effective replacement for the M72 LAW after the failure of the FGR-17 Viper program the previous year. The US did have a development program, and it is not clear to what extent the German designs were copied. Recoilless gun launch systems are often used to provide the initial thrust for man-portable weapons firing rocket-powered projectiles: examples include the RPG-7, Panzerfaust 3 and MATADOR. In 1970 the Ontos was removed from service and most were broken up. The M40 is shaped like a long tube with a M8 0.50 cal spotting rifle above. For the inscription, see, Shapur I's inscription at the Ka'ba-ye Zartosht, "United States Military Artillery for Avalanche Control Program:A Brief History in Time", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Recoilless_rifle&oldid=995890328, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 23 December 2020, at 12:45. 3.7in fired a 22.2 lb (10 kg) wallbuster to 2,000 yards. Conversely, if a projectile becomes lodged in the barrel for any reason, the entire weapon will be forced forward. In the case of single-shot recoilless weapons such as the Panzerfaust or AT4, the device is externally almost identical in design to a single-shot rocket launcher: the key difference is that the launch tube is a gun that launches the projectile using a pre-loaded powder charge, not a hollow tube. The balance thus created does not leave much momentum to be imparted to the weapon's mounting or the gunner in the form of felt recoil. In the 1930s, many different types of weapons were built and tested with configurations ranging from 37 mm to 305 mm. In March 1953, a military commission confirmed the request. He went on to produce further designs, with two in particular created as anti-tank weapons. Front-line recoilless weapons in the armies of modern industrialized nations are mostly man-portable devices such as the Carl Gustav, an 84 mm weapon. Weapons of this type can either encase their projectile inside the disposable gun tube, or mount it on the muzzle: the latter allows the launching of an above-caliber projectile. In the Soviet Union, the development of recoilless weapons ("Dinamo-Reaktivnaya Pushka" (DRP), roughly "dynamic reaction cannon") began in 1923. The M3 Carl Gustav recoilless rifle was introduced in 1946. By the time of the Korean War, recoilless rifles were found throughout the US forces. The greatly diminished recoil allows for devices that can be carried by individual infantrymen: heavier recoilless rifles are mounted on light tripods, wheeled light carriages, or small vehicles, and intended to be carried by crew of two to five. This was capable of perforating 40mm of perpendicular armor plate at 100m (a high explosive projectile was also made). It used a 20x180mm case, propelling the 108g (1650gr) bullet at 950 m/s (3150 fps). First introduced in 1948 and exported extensively since 1964, it is still in widespread use throughout the world today: a huge selection of special-purpose rounds are available for the system, and the current variant, known as the M4 or M3E1, is designed to be compatible with computerized optics and future "smart" ammunition. Since venting propellant gases to the rear can be dangerous in confined spaces, some recoilless guns use a combination of a countershot and captive piston propelling cartridge design to avoid both recoil and backblast. 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