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Subject: Carl Gustav Rules In America
SYSOP    9/10/2014 5:33:04 AM
 
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shep854A1       9/10/2014 8:09:47 AM
The CG is not a rocket launcher. While they do a similar job, recoilless rifles and rocket launchers are completely different beasts.
 
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Blacktail       9/10/2014 8:51:13 AM
There's a lot that's missing from this story.
 
First, the most popular US Recoilless Rifle was the 106mm M40. It's ammunition threw the same projectiles as 105mm tank gun rounds, and it was absolutely devastating. Many armed forces around the world acquired this weapon, and it's first-line hardware for most of them. The US military instead retired them all without replacement just after the Vietnam War, talking themselves into believing that the TOW missile was an adequate substitute --- despite the TOW lacking any of the effects of Canister, HE, HEP, APERS, or WP rounds, to say nothing of it's slow rate of fire, lower velocity, and shorter range.
 
Second, the Carl Gustav was designated the M3 RAAWS (Ranger Anti-Armor Weapon System) when it was procured by the US Army, because they intended it to be used *only* by the Army Rangers;
 
Third, the US Army already hadan equivalent to the Carl Gustav in the 1960s --- the 90mm M67 --- but a failure of imagination and vision on their part entailed that it's combat ammunition was limited to nothing more than a HEAT round for use against tanks, and a Canister round for emergency defense against human wave attacks. No one inside the Pentagon could wrap their tiny brains around the idea of using a Recoilless Rifle for any other purpose, and for the same reason it was retired without replacement in 1975 --- it would be nearly 20 years before the US military would have another weapon like it;
 
You know what else dates back to the 1960s? The M16, which is still the primary service rifle of the US military today, in 2014. The M67 was retired halfway through the next decade. Think about that for a bit.
 
Fourth, there was a push since the 1990s for the US Army to general-issue the Carl Gustav to regular units as well, plus the re-issuing of the M67 and M40. These arguments were completely ignored by the Army leadership, despite 10 years of infantry operations in peacekeeping missions, some of which were characterized by situations where such weapons were desperately needed but not available (Battle of Mogadishu, anyone?). Not even 10 years in Iraq and Afghanistan had swayed them. This webpage is leftover from that effort;
 
Fifth, the US Army came crawling back on it's hands and knees to the M40 in 2010, and they were pulled out of the warehouses and re-issued to US troops fighting in Afghanistan. No mention was made by the system of CombatReform's nearly 15-year-long push for this very action;
 
Sixth, the US Army also came crawling back to the M67 in the same fashion. Again, no mention of the fact that this was a de-facto admission that CombatReform was right all along, and the Army --- holding the opposite position --- was wrong all along;
Seventh, the US Army finally caved in 2012 and began issuing the Carl Gustav to regular forces. As always, they made no mention of CombatReform's call for this weapon BY NAME to be general-issued for almost 15 years by then. In fact, they even hit a new low this time --- the US Army "leadership" also had the gall to re-name it the MAAWS (Medium Anti-Armor Weapon System), as an attempt to purge the memory of everything you've just read about;
 
In the mean time, one hell of a lot of US troops were killed for the lack of these weapons, only because they weren't in fashion with the perfumed princes of puzzle palace.
 
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keffler25       9/10/2014 9:28:21 AM
The M-67 is sort of HEAVY and it does not have a good antitank round. 
 
The Charlie G while the launcher is smaller is a lot handier. It does have a BIGGER warhead punch and the same exact effective range (<500 meters.) 
 
 
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HR    Black tail   9/10/2014 9:40:10 AM
Nice write. Do remember that in that sort of back room political environment that the Pentagon operates in when you want to force a decision one thing you do is eliminate other options. So they wanted the TOW and did not want any distractions from than. The TOW is a very good weapon on its own right and very useful when there is a need to guide the projectile or longer range. The Carl Gustav is different and useful in other circumstances. Still agree with you that there was no need to decommission something so useful as a recoilless rifle.
 
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Bill Befort       9/10/2014 11:55:00 AM
Having carried the U.S. M67 90mm recoilless on my shoulders up and down the hills of Korea, I can testify that it's kinda heavy, but it's also kinda dumb for you to leave it out of this story.  Fundamentally there's nothing an 84mm RR can do that a 90mm can't, and by this time the Army should have been able to turn its own M67 into at least the equal of the Carl Gustav -- and I can't think they'd cost $20K apiece.  
 
Something else the Army should have figured out by now -- as our enemies have been bombarding the bejeezus out of us with them from Vietnam on -- is that RPGs are really handy, cheap, lightweight, multipurpose, quickly reloadable, shoot-on-the-move weapons, to which we have never fielded a counterpart.  A U.S. firm (Airtronic) has gone to  the trouble of engineering a superlight (8.5-lb) composite version of the RPG-7 -- they call it Mk777, good for 200 shots -- but as far as I've been able to determine, nobody has shown much interest in it, despite its obvious usefulness to an Army that is purchasing Carl Gustavs. 
 
But what can you expect from a service that sends its men to fight a 500-meter war with 250-meter rifles?  
 
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keffler25       9/10/2014 2:00:21 PM
Bull.
Nice write. Do remember that in that sort of back room political environment that the Pentagon operates in when you want to force a decision one thing you do is eliminate other options. So they wanted the TOW and did not want any distractions from than.

The TOW is a very good weapon on its own right and very useful when there is a need to guide the projectile or longer range. The Carl Gustav is different and useful in other circumstances. Still agree with you that there was no need to decommission something so useful as a recoilless rifle.

 
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avatar3    Give Away's   9/10/2014 2:38:16 PM
The U.S.Army gave away hundreds of M40's complete with 50 cal spotting rifle and modified jeep-carrier. They then purchased the ENTAC, a French made wire guided missile. The ENTAC was a good weather, daylight only weapon having only a HEAT warhead. Then came the TOW. Trivia: the 106MM M40 was actually 105MM's - the 106MM designation was keep it from being confused with other types of 105MM ammunition. More Trivia: The VC used captured US weapons. The M2 MG was the favorite but they also had some WWII 57MM(?) Recoilless Rifles picked up by the Red Chinese in the late 1940's. Markings indicated that the Chinese were making ammunition for both. Even More Trivia: In the late 90"s When the last M151 went to the junk yard and parts were no longer available, locals in North Africa mounted their M40's on Toyota Hilux Pickup Trucks. They called these vehicles "tech's" and they worked fairly well against T34's and the occasional T54-55.
 
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keffler25       9/10/2014 2:38:25 PM
that the TOW missile was an adequate substitute --- despite the TOW lacking any of the effects of Canister, HE, HEP, APERS, or WP rounds, to say nothing of it's slow rate of fire, lower velocity, and shorter range. (of the M40 106mm)
 
What a pile of baloney.,
 
The M40 has an effective range of 1000 meters. It weighs > 200 kg.
 
Its MV is about 500 m/s. Reloads for safety reasons have ti be at least 8 seconds apart. And woe betide the fool caught in the blast zones ahead and behind that cannon
 
As a weapon system it has to be carefully sited aimed and used as the projectile fired is NOT a guided missile. It is an artillery shell.
 
TOW masses about half as much, delivers a bigger bang and reaches three times as far. 
 
It is true that it takes about 30-40 seconds between shots. But the backblast is no where as dangerous, you can shoot that through own infantry forward with a little common sense, and if you want the other warhead effects, those are not impossible to make the missiles to carry.
 
Consider that the people who chose TOW did think about a choice between an antitank missile screen set back from enemy machine gunners, or infantry setting up recoiless rifles (which have poor accuracy beyond 700 meters within  range of Russian PKMs...  and those DShks on all those Russian tanks. 
 
Sheesh.
 
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Blacktail    Grasping for straws, much?   9/10/2014 7:20:04 PM
"The M40 has an effective range of 1000 meters."
With direct fire, the M40 has a range of 1340m. With indirect fire, it has a range of  6870m. The TOW missile has neither that range, nor the ability to fire on an arc, which allows the M40A1 to engage distant targets behind "cover" (for a TOW crew, at least).
 
"It weighs > 200 kg."
That's a distinction without a difference, because the lightest launcher for the TOW (the M220) weighs 93kg As such, it's portability is in fact no better than the 210kg M40A1. That places the M40A1 firmly in the same class of portability as the The M220 still needs to be either mounted on or towed by a vehicle, or stripped-down to it's smallest components to be man-packed --- just like the M40A1.
 
Also, 106mm rounds weigh between 5kg and 10kg. TOW missiles weigh between 21kg and 24kg.
 
"TOW masses about half as much, delivers a bigger bang and reaches three times as far."
20kg isn't half as much as 10kg. 3750m isn't three times as far as 6870m. A 3.12kg explosive filler does not pack a "bigger bang" than a 3.5kg explosive filler.
 
More importantly, the TOW has only a shaped charge warhead. This is what a 3.12kg shaped charge will do to a concrete and rebar wall --- note that this hole is 2 inches wide;
 
This is what the M40A1's HEP round, the M436A1, does to a concrete and rebar wall. There is no TOW equivalent to this warhead;
 
This is the effect of an HE round similar to the PFF round used in the M40A1. There is no TOW equivalent to this warhead;
This is what the projectile used in M40A1's M581 APERS round does to enemy infantry. There is no TOW equivalent to this warhead;
 
"It is true that it takes about 30-40 seconds between shots. But the backblast is no where as dangerous, you can shoot that through own infantry forward with a little common sense..."
With a fiber-optic cable unreeling at 700mph like the fastest wire saw in history? No thank you. That wire also has a nasty tendency to short-out the missile and the guidance unit if it touches water, so firing the TOW over rivers and lakes is prohibited in the US military. It also has a tendency to snag on things and snap, so firing it past anything that it might catch on is also prohibited.
 
This is not the case with the LAHAT missile, that's faster, longer-ranged, and more powerful than the TOW, because it's laser-guided. Why bring-up the LAHAT? Because it's launchable from the M40A1;
 
Compared to the M40A1, all the TOW launchers do is fire a hugely inferior missile.
 
"...and if you want the other warhead effects, those are not impossible to make the missiles to carry."
See above.
 
"Consider that the people who chose TOW did think about a choice between an antitank missile screen set back from enemy machine gunners, or infantry setting up recoiless rifles (which have poor accuracy beyond 700 meters within  range of Russian PKMs...  and those DShks on all those Russian tanks."
The tanks were the only thing they could think of, despite the fact that there were only about 50,000 of them in Eastern Europe. That's in addition to 12,000 BMPs, 100,000+ APCs, 500,000+ trucks, and millions of infantry --- to name a few. Tanks have never exceeded 5% of the total fighting strength of any land force, and their logistical complications guarantee that they never will. That makes it pretty obvious that the US military's priorities were wrong.
 
Also, I reiterate that the effective range of the M40A1 is 1340m, not 700m.
 
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HR    Black tail   9/10/2014 9:02:43 PM
The TOW is not perfect but it is a very accurate weapon.
 
I think the argument is that the TOW was not a reason to stop using the recoiless rifle. I do think that they did away with it in order to promote the TOW as well as because in the European type of war that they anticipated it was going to be more useful.
 
But this argument is mute. There will be a replacement for the TOW.
 
What I think is interesting is that for many infantry units the recoiless rifle is a big asset. It is lightweight, its munition is not heavy. It is certainly another arrow in the quiver that should not be discarded just like that.
 
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