Recoilless Rifles

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BR1GAND RE:Recoilless Rifles and Rocket Launchers 6/9/2004 11:03:52 AM

I agree. The 106 would be an asset to todays army. The 90mm has a good replacement in the RAAWS/Carl Gustov, perhaps the 106mm could be brought back or a newer replacement developed?

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eon RE:106mm RR vs. Wombat 6/22/2004 9:58:41 AM

Wasn't the Royal Army's Wombat RR about 100mm or so? I seem to recall that it or its descendant Mobat were lighter than the U.S. 106mm but had about the same performance. Maybe something similar to one of them should go into the company CO's golf bag today..

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Curtagrinder RE:106mm RR in modern combat 6/22/2004 7:18:59 PM

I agree that RR's have some potential on the modern battlefield, especially with the sort of technology that is going into the OCIW/OCSW-no need for spotting rifles. The backblast is still a problem, but newest versions of the AT4 incorporate a novel solution- a thick liquid 'counterweight', which cools and retards backblast. 106 would make a good Humvee mounted company level support weapon, but that the precision OCSW style support weapons, trading explosive filler for precision will be much more evvective, not to mention portable. I'd sooner see a larger caliber round though, like the PAPOP, but applaud the decision to make it a standalone system.

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doggtag Recoilless and modern tech 6/23/2004 12:31:33 AM

The Italian Folgore is an 80mm piece that is still in limited service and has decent performance. A good many Soviet-types are still in use, and there are copies of the US 106 in service abroad. The UK BAT (Battalion Anti Tank) series were all 120mm pieces (BAT, CONBAT, MOBAT, WOMBAT). The Burney guns were another family, and a truly massive 8inch monster was proposed: god forbid the backblast on that! Recoilless guns have taken to modern tech very favorably: Rheinmetall has developed the RMK 30, an automatic, recoilless-principled 30mm lightweight cannon. It's designed for lightweight vehicles (Weisel), and is a contender for the German version of the Tiger helicopter. You make a combo launcher that effectively can fire a general purpose round or a guided missile, then people might take note. To get technical, the RPG sries is a recoilless weapon, too: it just has the fortune of light weight and minimal backblast. But again, the backblast is the kicker: the bigger your gun gets, the larger countershot device you will need. Ideally, an under-armour mobile system would be favored. Several magazine fed (revolver cylinder or other) systems were tested (the US tried a "rocket projector" back around late WW2 fed by a revolver type chamber, but it wasn't the most reliable), and modern tech could make them more reliable. But the argument is still that you use guided missile launchers for ATGMs, but general purpose shells come from tanks or artillery. Maybe the older models of the missiles could be refurbished into general purpose warhead units that don't need all the extra features of anti-tank rounds. For the record, there was a Swedish attempt at a massive 140mm recoilless weapon, truly a huge piece, (the picture in Jane's Armour and Artillery 97-98 shows it mounted on the aft platform of a Bv 206) that fired MBT-killing ammunition as long as a person (with its propellant case). Loading that would have been a dog of a task....

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