Rifle Grenades
 

Firstly does anyone know if the Soviets ever manufactured any rifle grenades like the US M31 HEAT rifle grenade?

Secondly how easy do people think that it would be to manufacture a bullet trap grenade and would this become a replacement for grenade launchers as 40mmS and 40mmN grenades because harder to obtain as the Twilight War progressed?

AFAIK, only the Polish manufactured rifle grenades after World War 2 (though the Hungarians and Romanians also used the Polish grenades), and these required a ballistite cartridge and a special attachment for the rifle to use them.

Reverse engineering is always possible, of course, if the Soviets or Warsaw Pact felt it necessary. NATO seems to have moved away from rifle grenades to underbarrel grenade launchers, and the Russians and former Warsaw Pact countries also seem to have moved toward underbarrel grenade launchers. These are much easier to use and the ammunition is much more compact and just as effective in most cases. The French appear to be an exception.

BTU rifle grenades are generally designed to be used with a specific caliber of ammunition, and a flash suppressor of a certain diameter (generally a 22mm flash suppressor, as used with the 5.56mm cartridge).

There's a website somewhere on line for 37 and 40mm GL enthusiasts which includes info on reloading fired cartridges.

Both the French and the Belgians use(d) rifle grenades up until the 1970s, let me do some digging and see if I can get you further info.

The British forces used a rifle grenade until the introduction of the UGL, though I never saw one in service.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rifle_G...eneral_Service

I have some of those on my site, but I thought he was referring to Warsaw Pact rifle grenades.

The Cold War Hungarian armed forces actually produced a dedicated rifle grenade launcher called the AMP-69. It was a modified AKM with a fixed launcher mount and 10-round magazine for the launching cartridges. They fired AT and AP grenades and I'm sure there were other types available as well. The rifle could apparently also fire standard M43 ammo as well.

I have a book called Battlefield (Orbis Publishing 1986) that has a photo of a Lebanese militiamen carrying what the caption says is "an AKMS fitted with a rocket launcher attachment" (it looks like a rifle grenade).

I think the Soviets and the Warsaw Pact developed rifle grenades for the AK/AKM but, since the more capable RPG was already issued at the squad/platoon level, they didn't bother to field them. Perhaps, in the Twilght War, they started to manufacture rifle grenades and adaptor gear to boost the firepower of Cat II and III units not issued with the more versatile 40mm GP series of underbarrel GLs.

can't find any info on Warsaw Pact rifle grenades, lots of info on Belgian and French. And the Belgians may not get any blood sausage but they have plenty of rifle grenades!

Blood Sausage? Sounds like a Klingon dish...

Currently reading a copy of "Street Without Joy" that I had picked up at a yard sale. Excellent read on the First Indochina War, the author included a section on the traditional Foreign Legion marching song "Le Boudin".

Which just happens to include a chorus promising blood sausage for everybody except the Belgians, because they are shirkers.

The French Foreign Legion, they truly are the strangest soldiers!

Thanks for all the info people.

I am most interested in WP rifle grenades and it sounds like they didn't really develop them due to their development of the RPG and then under barrel grenade launchers.

My next question is then what would be easier to manufacture in the year 2000 after several years of the Twilight War. Replacement 40mmS grenades for a BG-15 etc or a bullet trap rifle grenade for an AKM or AK-74, based on the concept of an out of date NATO rifle grenade?

What are people's thoughts?

(HorseSoldier - I had a look for those websites you mentioned about GL enthusiasts discussing reloading cartridges but I wasn't able to find anything useful)

it seems that it would be easier to make a old style rifle grenade. One of the old WWII rifle grenades was simply a standard US pineapple on top of an adaptor tube. You wouldn't have much range, maybe a 100 meters or so.

Another (and woefully out of date now) is an M26 grenade clipped onto a sleeve with vanes that slides over an adapter. This is then fired with a Ballistite cartridge (after the pin is pulled of course). On striking the ground the grenade springs loose allowing the arm to fly free - a few seconds later and BOOM.
Potentially this can be reused (with a new grenade of course) if it can be recovered. I don't know anything about manufacture of the ballistite though so couldn't say if this would be a problem in 2000.

This type of weapon would I think become more and more common as time dragged on as existing hand grenades can be used. Naturally they're useless against any for of armour, but as a replacement for underbarrel type grenade launchers and light mortars, they're likely to be very handy.

(A quick wiki search later and it looks like ballistite is dead simple!)

The max range of the "pineapple on a stick" was more like 200 yards.

There was also an adapter (basically a tail assembly with c;amps) that could be fitted to just about any US hand grenade to turn it into a rifle grenade. It could also be used to propel 60mm mortar shells as rifle grenades, but range was only around 100 yards.

BLOC gear
 

The Jugoslavs made rifle grenades a plenty for AK,SKS etc .

They werent Warzaw pact though - but I guess we can say that were counted amongst the "reds".

Likely that such developments would be exported to or produced under license in the warring states.

The Jugoslav war saw prolific use of such weapons - as artillery was scarce, they used rifle grenades and AA guns as artillery.

Jugo rifle grenades were nasty in effect and somewhat unpredictable in use.

Speaking as an evil GM...I'm all in favor of homemade, unpredictable explosives :D

Yes! A molotov cocktail on a grenade-launching spigot!

LOL!

Didn't the Brits do that in WWII with the Northover Projector? I especially enjoy the picture of one being deployed in an anti-aircraft role.

Hmmmm....Molotov cocktails vs Stukas!!!!!

Or this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northover_Projector

or: http://soviethammer.devhub.com/blog/...stem-kartukov/

Jeez, I thought I had a good joke there, and it turns out some maniac actually tried it!

What do you expect from the peopl who brought you Monty Python's Flying Circus?

:D

The Northover Projector and Ampulenjot 1941 System Kartukov, being crude desperation weapons, would both fit well into T2K.

True!

I just wouldn't want to be part of the gun crew!

Only because we know just how dodgy they are as weapons. :D

Absolutely. They'd slot right into our threads discussing the use of black powder weapons in T2K. I wonder where in the Twilight world you'd be able to find schematics for either weapon? Not that they couldn't be reinvented from scratch but tried-and-true is generally a better option than make-it-up-as-you-go-along.

Well then this will probably interest you, the 6th picture down the page
http://anonymous-generaltopics.blogs...tov%20cocktail

Without the internet (which we've all grown to rely on VERY heavily) we'd be stuck with whatever's available in the local library (very little of military use) or reinventing the wheel....
Some may be lucky enough to have a book or two from larger libraries, private collections, or looted from stores, but they're likely to be few and far between.

Andy,

BT grenades would be relatively easy to manufacture, probably as easy as hand grenades. Perhaps less as they just need an impact fuse, not a timed fuse.

For these particular rifle grenades (Bullet Trap or Bullet Through) there is no propellant, rocket motor or special Ballistite cartridges needed, an ordinary bullet will do. Practice is a lot easier than other grenade launchers because all that is expended is a bullet as BT grenades are recoverable.

The Yugoslavs (including the Serbs) use them extensively, and it wouldn't be difficult to copy them. However, doing some reading, I can't see references to the Kalashnikov-series rifles having grenade adapters built in, so that might have to be a latter modification.

Tony

Paul have you done anything with this type of weapon? (This particular one fits on the L1A1 SLR)

http://www.milsurps.com/images/impor...1A2GLDs1-1.jpg
http://www.specialistauctions.com/ca...icjpg.img?7690

Did the rest of NATO actually deploy these things? I don't remember reading or seeing anything about them in the '80s, so I always figured they were drawing-board kinds of things, like the G11, T-90 and the M1A2.

I don't remember seeing them in any other WWIII game that I had, but they might have just faded into the background. We didn't talk about them in the little ROTC I was in, but tactics were mighty minor in that class.