Carl Gustaf: Recoilless Rifle | Anti-Tank Chats

Hello and welcome to another of our anti-

tank

chats

in this episode we will see Carl Gustav, the 84 millimeter blowback anti-

tank

rifle

made in Sweden. This video has been made possible thanks to our support on patreon, our YouTube members and our Super Thank you, donors, please join them if you can't and support the Tank Museum and thanks for watching May 2022 Ukraine near Starry sultiv, a tank Russian T90 M main battle tank is on Strata Country Road and is seen being tracked by a Ukrainian drone suddenly. A colossal explosion shakes the turret and flames and smoke emerge from the hatches.

The tank has been pursued and killed by a Carl Gustav team from the Ukrainian 127th Brigade. The Territorial Defense Forces, that's not bad for a weapon that first saw the day in the late 1940s, Carl Gustaf's origins actually date back to the early 1940s with the Swedish m42 anti-tank

rifle

and which is based on a 20 millimeter cannon. Two designers, Hugo Jensen, an artillery officer, and Harold Abramson, a civilian, are experimenting with such a retreat. rifle based on the Davis principle in this, the projectile advances while the propellant gases exit backwards, eliminating recoil. Its initial design for the Royal Swedish Arms Administration was an 11 kilogram anti-tank rifle capable of penetrating 40 ml of armor at 100 meters using a 20 millimeter steel cable penetrator, the first key feature of this was a propellant cartridge, the explosive base, which allowed the explosive gases to propel the steel penetrator forward and counteract the recoil by escaping rearward through the second feature, a Venturi, a narrow section behind the swing range.

This chokes the propellant gas and accelerates it rearward before releasing it through a cone-shaped funnel. Approximately one thousand m42s were manufactured at Carl Gustav's gefaz factory located in Eccles Tuna, 70 miles west of Stockholm, this is where the Carl Gustav gets its name. While initially effective, it was becoming clear that shoulder-fired 20-millimeter steel penetrators could not deliver the punch required to defeat the new generation of T-34 tanks, Tigers and similar Panthers arriving on the battlefield in World War II, so Abramson and Jensen continued. develop his design by increasing the caliber to 37 millimeters and then 47 millimeters before settling on the much larger 19th century Swedish artillery caliber of 84 millimeters in 1946.

What this larger caliber meant was that it was possible to adopt a shaped charge projectile that fell in line with the Piat and the Panzer Shrek and the Bazooka and that's a real game changer in terms of light anti-armor weapons. The weapon would enter service as an 8.4-centimeter M48 ganachevar. It will also introduce three significant new features. The first was a preference for using. a rifle barrel to rotate and stabilize its arms, the second was that the finless tubular bullets could contain more propellant achieving a muzzle velocity of 300 meters per second and that makes the M48 much more accurate at medium and long ranges.

The third, the M48 not only offered infantry a viable anti-tank capability but also a multi-role support facility because the weapon could be used to find different types of ammunition. This example from our collection is the Mark II phosphor cloth version which was given the designation l14a1 when attempted. for service in the British Army in December 1962. There are six main components: the 84-millimeter forged silk barrel, the Venturi retaining strap, the pistol grip with trigger, the firing mechanism and sights, the weapon measures 1.13 meters long and weighs 14.2 kilograms to finish. bridge the charger who is number two on the rig pulls the quick winding Venturi flap forward and then rotates the Venturi upwards when you close it again it locks into place against a series of lugs and is secured by the tether strap as well there would be a rubber band around the bridge that will minimize the amount of metallic noise you get when you are operating the system on the right side of the gun is the firing pin tube which contains the firing mechanism which is the firing rod, the spiral firing rod spring and firing pin the firing pin is positioned at right angles to the barrel beneath the barrel is the trigger mechanism and thumb-operated safety, as well as the wooden grip, cocking lever It is positioned right at the rear of the trigger, sadly missing from this example is the detachable left grip which would have been secured around the barrel with a metal strap under the gun there is also a shoulder pad placed against your shoulder just like that and there is a pad to the cheek on the left side to use when you're using the sights looking at the sights we have the basic iron sights graduated to a thousand meters.

There is also a mount to fit the number 78 Mark 1. The optical side has two magnifications, but then there is also the possibility of adapting it. the optical side of the single gun now giving twice the magnification of this and three times the magnification of the iron sides the iron sights themselves are more of a backup resource than anything else regarding ammunition initially there was only one type available to British troops Heat tests of 84 millimeters of Other types of ammunition, smoke lighting and firing were carried out in the 1960s in an effort to replace the increasingly obsolete 2-inch Mark 7 mortar, but This appears to have been short-lived: the L40 high-explosive anti-tank projectile was primarily intended for use. against armor, but could also be used against concrete and similar structures, as well as having a lethal fragmentation effect on troops in close proximity to the target.

Looking at this 84 millimeter section around the front, there is a tubular section that provides a standoff distance to allow the charge jet to form, there is an instantaneous fuse right in the nose and there is also a safety feature that means the warhead it only arms when it is 5 to 10 meters away from the barrel behind it, which is the two millimeter copper cone, and then we have the RDX or TNT charge, as we have said in other films, the way it works is that when The detonating charge collapses the cone and launches a semi-plastic jet of copper and explosive forward to penetrate the armor, it is chemically generated, but the effect is actually a jet of kinetic particles impacting the target and forcing its way through it.

This is the Monroe effect. It is also very effective. The bullet will penetrate up to 400 millimeters of rolled modernist armor at a distance of up to 600 meters for stationary targets and 450 for moving targets. The slip ring replaced the conventional drive belt. Its function was to counteract part of the projectile spin produced by the gun's rifling. This increased shaped loads. Optimum chance of functioning correctly, as it has been discovered, with too much twist reduced its effectiveness using the slip ring technique. The round would rotate approximately 20 times before hitting the target 300 meters away to assist. The Gunner Trace element was added to the base of the projectile that ignites 30 meters along its path, allowing it to be tracked.

Exit velocity is around 200 meters per second base. The round also incorporates a plastic disc that shuts off upon ignition and allows gases to move back and out through the Venturi. The base also features a special loading recess that allows the number two to align the firing plunger hole with the firing pin, limiting the rate of fire to five or six rounds per minute in total, the 535-millimeter-long projectile It weighs 2.6 kilograms and is finished in black with yellow bands and print. The process for loading the Carl Gustav l14a1 is as follows with the weapon on the shoulder, number one, the weapon and applies. the safety latch on the loading order, number two opens the Venturi and steps into the gap, making sure the loading gap is aligned, then closes the gap by pulling down on the Venturi and making sure to hit back the locking strap as with most blowback weapons.

Blast could be a major problem and the loader is tasked with checking that the distance of at least 30 meters behind the gun is clear before firing. If free, the operator is informed that the weapon is loaded and ready to fire. In 1967, Carl Gustav had properly codified and produced infantry training booklets on the operation of the weapon, its maintenance and also how to deploy it against armor. Booklet Number Nine, Part Three, introduced a series of lessons on the factors affecting tank destruction, including killing from well-prepared defensive positions. and in urban environments, tank hunting and ambushes, battle management and stalking, emphasis was placed on the weapon's primary role in killing tanks, other targets were secondary and outlines of Warsaw cargo tanks were provided to reinforce areas of the tank that were vulnerable to attacking Charlie G as they advanced.

It was learned that two were delivered for each light infantry platoon headquarters and a perception in the mechanized Italians, in addition to that, in the late 1960s a vehicle mount for the FB432 armored personnel carrier was also introduced, the last version, the M4, which the British Army has recently commissioned is much shorter, measuring less than a meter in length and the weight is reduced to less than seven kilograms through the use of titanium and Venturi sleeves. It is also much more ergonomic in use. The M4 has improved day and night optics, including a red sight. a distant control device with built-in ballistic data and a precision bullet counter system.

It is designed to keep track of how many rounds were fired to help with maintenance and logistics. The weapon can now also be carried loaded, meaning deployment and firing are greatly sped up. However, it is the range of multi-role ammunition that has kept the Carl Gustav viable for 75 years and counting now, as well as the standard anti-armor thermal rounds, karguskov kanafa rocket-assisted laser-guided rounds and also a tandem charge warhead . has been introduced to defeat explosive reactive armor, the Karl Gustav is in service with 11 NATO members and has seen action in conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Falklands and, of course, currently in Ukraine.

In reality, it is only matched in longevity by the Soviet-designed RPG-2 and RPG7. Its unit cost is approximately twenty thousand dollars. I hope you enjoyed this video, if so please subscribe and also if you can please support us on patreon abroad.