RPG/RPO Thread

Actually it wouldn't take much to fit the nose of the decoy rocket with dozens of little corner reflectors to make it appear enormous and perhaps even obscure the real threat.

Just looking at the article again the decoy rocket looks rather short and is probably has its ballistics matched to the primary rocket, but if I were designing it I would try to go for a very long narrow rocket with lots of narrow shaped charge warheads all angled slightly off centre with the front charge covered in angle reflectors to make it look huge. When fired at a target with an active defence system then you would expect it to be detonated away from the target so the angled HEAT warheads should pepper the target tank with plasma beams of metal material. Not enough to penetrate of course because of the small calibre, but should be enough to set off ERA boxes and damage things like optics etc... it would also serve to obscure the incoming main warhead even further and you might get a lucky hit of the APS system trying to acquire the next incoming round.

Against a target that does not have an APS system the angle of the warheads should be enough to effect the ERA block that is hit and those ERA blocks around it... to make the following round more effective.

Nice find... let the downloading begin...

Just got a new 2TB hard drive... the drives in my computer were all close to full.

I am downloading the videos now and will likely watch them all later.

I watched 3/4ths of the first one and it seemed to have a good coverage of the various grenade launchers used in WWII and the immediate post war period.

Thanks for bringing them to our attention...

BTW the PDF you posted a link to, is that missiles2go site something to do with www.missiles.ru?

OK, I have seen the first two videos, and I am enjoying them despite not understanding a word being said.

The footage of the various rocket launchers being used is cool.

I was particularly interested in the second video with the RPG-16, and didn't realise that the rockets were the calibre of the tube rather than over calibre rockets like the other reusable RPGs.

It looks a little strange with the launcher being held to fire with a small pointed nose sticking out the muzzle end of the launch tube.

They seem to have concentrated on the anti tank rockets so far, though there has been footage of RPO rockets too.

The evolution from the SPG recoiless launchers to the shoulder fired RPGs is interesting too. SPG-9s were used in Afghanistan in remote bases as the rockets had quite a long reach and were in stores, so an enemy unit 2-3km away could be fired upon well outside the range of small arms fire. They were also used for a while in setting off avalanches, but have been replaced by gas powered systems in most ski fields now.

The footage in the 4th video showing the grenade launcher attachment for the Mosin Nagant is very useful to me.

I have another video about silenced Russian firearms and it shows a suppressor that can be fitted to Mosin rifles and after watching it I started searching on the internet for photos of that silencer.

After watching this video I can see that some of the photos I thought were silencers were actually grenade launchers.

Very interesting and entertaining... I could watch launching rockets all day... and for that matter watch rocket impacts.

The test of a shaped charge against steel plates on the ground was particularly interesting as the charge penetrated half a dozen rather thick steel plates a cm or two across in the metal, but when it reached the soil it was a good 30cm wide and what appeared to be about 1m deep or more... very impressive.

Have watched them all a couple of times now and am impressed.

Very interesting coverage showing the old cup launched grenade for the Mosin rifle is related to the 40.5mm grenade of their first grenade launcher whose development started in WWII.

My lack of understanding of spoken Russian meant I didn't understand what was being said, but from the videos it seemed to me that the death of the designer of the automatic grenade launcher along with the development of the widespread use of SMGs, and the fact that the small mortars the grenade launcher was technically replacing had largely become obsolete in preference to much heavier mortars meant the demise of the automatic grenade launcher idea.

US interest in the Vietnam war period revitalised the Soviet interest and led to the GP series of under barrel grenade launchers and the film includes lots of interesting footage of testing the grenades.

The video also shows the AGS-17, AGS-30 and Balkan automatic grenade launchers... again not speaking Russian it was hard to follow... was there any mention about whether the Balkan will be adopted?

It also mentioned new portable grenade launchers like the pump action launcher and the 6 shot rotary launcher...

There was also a glimpse of the RPG-32 designed and made for Jordan that uses a mix of 72mm and 105mm grenades with HEAT and anti personel warhead choices.

I rather expect a domestic model might be considered as well, though perhaps able to use a wider range of rockets, perhaps including calibres from 72 to 125mm and also perhaps combining the rockets of the RPG-7/29 and RPO amd MPO and LPO series.

Certainly for a rocket launcher a combined digital TV and thermal imager scope with built in laser range finder and ballistic computer as shown in current rifle scopes should allow all weather day night effective use with trajectories for the different rocket types making first round hits much more likely.

The sights would be reusable with attachable rocket tubes.

So it seems that the RPG-32 is considered to be successful, and they will likely come up with a new grip and sighting system, to which the various types of rocket tubes can be attached and used.

To give you an indication of the range of rockets we are talking about there was the RPO series, which included three different types of rockets... namely a smoke rocket that could fill a small room almost instantly with thick acrid smoke, an incendiary rocket that spread burning material over quite a wide area and of course the primary thermobaric rocket, called Fuel Air Explosive in the west that explodes like HE, but not as fast, but rather more powerfully and hotter than standard HE. There was also the MRO which at just under 5kgs per rocket launcher and rocket was under half the weight of the RPO rockets which were 12kgs including launcher, which means we are already up to 6 different rockets. These rockets have been largely replaced by the RPO PDM-A/Z/D which are, like the MRO, smaller and lighter but have the warhead power of the RPO and much longer effective range than the RPO.
RPO-A, RPO-D, RPO-Z, MRO-A, MRO-D, MRO-Z, RPO PDM-A, RPO PDM-D, and RPO PDM-Z are all used by engineer troops as standard, but other forces use them too.

For anti armour use you also have the RPG-18, RPG-22, RPG-26, RPG-27, RPG-28, and the RPG-31.
Each of these rockets has either a single or tandem HEAT warhead and is designed to penetrate armour.

The RPG-26 is a 72.5mm calibre rocket with a single warhead, with a weight of 3kgs and can penetrate about half a metre of steel armour, which means it is useful against bunkers and light vehicles or tanks from the rear.

The RPG-27 is a 105mm calibre tandem warhead rocket with a weight of just over 8kgs and could probably penetrate most tanks from the side with "over 600mm" penetration figures.

The RPG-28 is a 125mm calibre rocket with a tandem warhead and it weighs 12kgs and would be dangerous to tanks from any angle.

The RPG-7 and RPG-29 are reusable launchers that use both HEAT warheads and thermobaric warheads. The disposable launchers above have the HEAT rockets of the RPG-7 and RPG-29, while the rockets with the thermobaric warheads are the RShG-1 (with the 105mm calibre HE warhead of the TBG-7V round fired by the RPG-7 and the TBG-29V fired by the RPG-29 which are both also 105mm calibre thermobaric warheads).
The RShG-2 is a lighter 4kg weapon with a 72.5mm calibre rocket for use against light vehicles or small bunkers or reinforced positions like a machine gun nest or sniper position.

There is also the RMG which is a tandem warhead weapon where the first warhead blows a hole in something and the second blows fuel into the vehicle or building/shelter and detonates it.

So I count 18 disposable launchers, plus the RPG-2, RPG-7, RPG-16, RPG-29, and RPG-32 reusable launchers.

RPG-2 and RPG-16 are obsolete.

RPG-7 has an external warhead so larger calibre rockets are easy to develop so it has staying power in terms of up grades, but the limits of the 40mm calibre rocket motor means its trajectory is getting very curved for the rockets with the big warheads.

The RPG-29 is effective, but big and it has a fixed calibre of 105mm.

RPG-32 has the advantage of replacing a range of weapons by having HEAT and HE warheads in 72.5 and 105mm calibre.

I think a more sophisticated version of the RPG-32 is the way forward.

A grip and sighting system that has a laser range finder and ballistic computer as fitted to modern sniper scopes together with clip on launch cannisters that can be a range of calibres depending on the users needs, from 72.5mm with light rockets for a range of light targets, through 105mm and 125mm and perhaps even larger for more and more difficult targets.

The ammo can come in sealed tubes, and when attached to the grip/sight the attachment should connect to the sight so the ballistic computer knows what type of ammo is fitted. The user can then punch in the temperature, lase the target and fire and have a reasonably good chance of a hit.

The advantage of such a design is that the rocket motor can become wider and heavier as the warhead calibre increases, which means much better range performance than with RPG-7 rounds limited to 40mm diameter rocket motors.

To give an indication of the performance increases the old RPO was a 93mm calibre 12kg rocket with an effective range of 600m and a max range of 1,000m. The RPO PDM-A is a 90mm calibre rocket that weighs 8.8kgs and can be used against point targets to 800m or area targets to 1,700m.

There is reportedly a new ATGM system called Baikal being developed, but the performance of Metis-M1 and Kornet-EM suggest the Russian military is not lacking in terms of tank killers.

Of course Krisantema and Hermes in the air will also be very potent, and of course new models of Kh-25 would be available, while Kh-29 would be overkill.