RPG/RPO Thread

The RPG-28 is huge... 1.2m long in the tube and 12kgs.

It is already has two explosive charges in the warhead... i suspect the next evolution will be two full calibre shaped charges plus a small precursor charge in an extended nose probe for the 105mm warhead like the new HEAT 125mm tank round but able to be used in the RPG-29 and RPG-7.

Perhaps fit a dummy rocket with 10 forward looking corner reflectors to create a radar image that is enormous for another rocket to hide behind... perhaps with a burning flare so that optics, IR and and radar can be defeated...

I rather suspect the future of Russian RPGs will take the course of the RPG-32 developed with Jordanian money.

For those not familiar, the RPG-32 is a sight pack and grip that has rocket cannisters attached to its rear. It can take four different rocket types in two calibres... it can handle 72mm rockets and 105mm rockets, with a HEAT and thermobaric warhead type for each calibre.

There are about four switches and knobs on the sight, including the type of rocket loaded, the temperature (ie above freezing or below freezing), and a few others as well, so you attach a rocket suitable to the target... small HEAT for medium and light armoured target, small thermobaric for MG position of sniper position of unarmoured vehicle etc, or large HEAT for tank from the side or rear, or heavy bunker, or heavy thermobaric for strong structure etc, set the appropriate switches and fire.

I rather suspect that the next Russian version will have an even wider selection of calibres and rocket options including RPO and MPO rockets, and engineering rocket types including RShG, and RMG as well as a wider variety of calibres including 125mm, 105mm, 93mm, etc. I also think that a simple ballistics computer and laser range finder could be included in the sighting system to allow the user to quickly lase a target, which generates a small dot in his telescopic sight as an aim point for that type of rocket loaded to that range.

Not actually guided, but much easier to use and cheap because the sight including the ballistic computer and laser range finder is fully reusable, and the rockets remain cheap. A simple gyro stabiliser could be added to the rockets to keep them pointing at the target rather than be effected by wind, that should improve accuracy in cross winds without making them a lot more expensive.

Still smaller than the RPG-29, albeit the -28 has shorter range.

True, but the 105mm RPG-29 rockets are lighter, so carrying the RPG-29 and 6 rockets will be lighter and easier than carrying 6 RPG-28s.

Whats your views on the RPG-7?

A very clever combination of simple but effective.

It has has growth potential even today, and while it is an anti tank weapon... in reality it is probably used for everything but anti tank use, and so the best missile to develop for it would be a HE FRAG round. The current HE FRAG round has a 40mm calibre payload, I would think a new more effective rocket could be developed as a dedicated anti personnel weapon.

BTW the standard RPG-7 has relatively cheap rockets of a wide variety of types but mostly black plastic practise rounds are used for training.

I took my nephew out to fire my FN FAL before he joined the Army just so he knew what firing a rifle was like. He returned the favour by giving me a 105mm artillery shell case and a linked belt of three (fired) 25mm cannon shells from a NZ Army LAV III. He said he really enjoyed firing an RPG during officer training. He did a tour in Afghanistan but wasn't allowed to bring back trophies..

If I was in charge of the NZ or British Army I would introduce the RPG just as a general purpose weapon for those targets that need something that goes boom to deal with them. I would probably ask for 60mm calibre HE FRAG warheads to be developed for them just to add to the performance against enemy infantry in the open and behind cover.

But should it be confined to storage/reserve forces? should armies purchase new more updated equipment?

The Soviets used them in bases in Afghanistan as firepower that was cheap and simple but could reach the enemy up to 2.5km away that was outside small arms fire range with a good HE punch.

Recoilless Rifles are cheap and simple ways to deliver HE in a way that is more accurate than most light mortars and with shorter projectile flight time... direct fire increases accuracy.

AT-3 SAGGERI would also like to ask the same question about the AT-3 Sagger even with its many upgrades should this also be replaced by newer systems?

The AT-7 and AT-13 would be rather good replacements for Sagger... Sagger had a range of 3km, while AT-7 is 1.5km and AT-13 is 2km, but the AT-13 is very low cost, very light weight and portable and can penetrate 950mm of RHA. It is low cost and comes with a thermal sight so it is all weather day and night capable... in many ways the AT-13 is a cheap simple Milan.

So with the changing conflicts around the world many armies/rebels/terrorists still relies on this older equipment or finds themselves up against this older equipment.

Each new Russian/Soviet system was developed on the experience of the previous system... the SA-6 was effective but when the single radar vehicle was taken out the entire battery was vulnerable... the BUK (SA-11) added optical guidance and also a guidance radar on most of the missile carriers... this made the system very expensive and not that many were exported compared with KUB (SA-6).

In terms of SAMs the newest systems are expensive to buy but an effort has been made to keep the missiles cheap and simple so they can be bought and used in large numbers.

The Russian ATGMs can be split into groups... cheap wire guided... ie Sagger, Fagot, Konkurs, Metis, Metis-M1, cheap command guided... AT-2 Falanga, AT-6 Shturm, AT-9 Ataka, and laser beam riding... Kornet, Kornet EM, Kristantema.

The command guided weapons are helicopter launched missiles, while the wire guided were infantry models... the laser beam riding has started to take over for aircraft and vehicle mounted systems, but they are all relatively cheap and simple and able to be produced in enormous numbers.

On paper not as capable as Spike or Javelin, but more likely to be encountered on the battlefield in numbers.

Hi garry some really views/info, good point about the spg-9 being used in afghan i believe there were rounds which would explode once they got to a certain distance (1,200m) which was used to attack snipers hiding in cover.

It was cheap simple and ammo was available. In fact it was also widely used by civilian companies in the Former Soviet Union to deal with snow that was building up to set off avalanches and I know that for a period they used RRs in Canada for the same purpose. AFAIK in many places they have set up systems that use natural gas with electric detonators to set off avalanches in places prone to snow build up and helos with sticks of explosive for more remote places.

In places like Afghanistan where you can eventually locate a shooter that might be across the valley from you... the problem is how to engage him? RRs reach out and touch, are relatively mobile and the ammo is cheap and accurate out to 2km or more.

The RPG-7 would be a weapon i would have available if i was in charge of forces, your right in saying its anti tank role is limited to light armour and more suited to bunker busting/urban enviroment especially if using thermobaric rounds

The Thermobaric rounds do look very effective, but I would like to see a larger heavier fragmentation round too as the 40mm standard grenade looks a little small to me.

Regarding that vid... My god! you are a very brave man!!!

When you try to fire that RPG-2 and it fails and that guy just takes it and points it up while he has a look and makes an adjustment and then just hands it back for another go is quite frankly frightening.

For those that don't understand, standard policy with a miss fire is to keep the weapon pointed down range because it might be a hang fire. The RPG-2 has a simple design with a firing cap on the rocket that is hit by a firing pin in the mechanism. When you load a rocket you are supposed to line the primer with the firing pin. By the look of it it is probably not standard ammo so that guy is having problems lining the firing pin with the primer so the rocket motor is not being ignited. Of course if it is a faulty primer it could launch while he is holding it with the rocket pointing up and the rocket exhaust pointed and your feet....!!!!

Notice most of the men stay with the vehicle... and the guy that seems to handle the weapon never takes his helmet off...

Working with Explosives is like working with high voltage electricity... you only have to make one mistake and that is it so you should always be super careful.

doc's decided not to bother taking it out. lool.

Would be an awesome souvenir...

Nice video... thanks for sharing...

Against AFVs with their APS, RPG-7s wont probably stand a chance,

A volley of 4-5 RPGs from different directions at once would make life hard for even the best APS, and at the very least use up defensive munitions that might deplete the system and make it vulnerable to more powerful weapons.

but with frag against infantry, they will be very effective. Ofc. infantry would be wearing advanced forms of flak vest so larger frag warheads would be needed along with cheap guidance for mini UAVs.

Actually even with the heaviest flak vests arms and legs are still vulnerable... as are faces. With the right design with enormous numbers of small high velocity fragments such a rocket could be devastating.

If you look here on this site there were a couple of excellent videos posted about the RPGs and grenade launchers in the Russian military and I distinctly remember one with 40mm under barrel grenades detonating amongst a whole lot of balloons representing potential targets to show the lethal effect and coverage of the fragments... and it was impressively effective.

The main problem with rockets that explode at specific ranges is that if it is not variable then actually getting your target to actually be in that range when you fire can come down to blind luck... you can plan to have a launch position 1,000m from where the enemy helos will be, but when your rockets self detonate at between 950m and 1,050m and your rockets don't have a 100m lethal fragment radius then in actual practise what you are really doing is aiming for the target at near max range with a very low chance of a hit, but hoping you might get lucky and have the rocket self destruct in the right place anyway. Having a round that spreads good sized fragments over a wide area greatly improves your chances.

To answer the original question again... if you already have plenty of these systems... and they are all very widespread, then continuing to use them certainly makes sense.

If however you actually do have some money and don't like to risk the lives of your soldiers with old dodgy ammo then newer models become more appealing if they can be acquired.

Specifically the RPG-7v2 still make sense as a primary support weapon. The SPG-9 was largely replaced by a combination of the 73mm gun of the BMP-1 that fired very similar ammo and ATGMs. The BMP-1 was fitted with the 73mm gun to cover the first 300m where the AT-3 was not so good as it was being gathered by the guidance system.

The 100mm 2A70 rifled gun of the BMP-3 replaced both the 73mm gun and the Sagger missile with its powerful HE FRAG shell and its laser guided missile... the former cheap and more powerful than the SPG-9 and the latter offering guidance and longer effective range, though it was not cheap at the time it is cheaper and much more mature now.

And of course the Sagger, that was initially replaced with an AT-4 and then with the dual use AT-4/-5 launcher, which used rather more effective missiles and simpler guidance, though later model Sagger systems also use CLOS guidance too.

Currently the Metis-M1 would be the ideal replacement for the Sagger as it is cheap and simple and effective and actually more portable than the original Sagger.

There are upgraded models of Sagger that improve penetration to 800mm, but that only makes sense if you already have lots of Saggers.

I would think that the next step in Russian RPG design will have a unified launcher that can have a range of rocket calibres and types attached to a gripstock with a laser range finder and ballistics computer that will project an illuminated aim point in the sight based on the ammo loaded and range to the target and other variables to make the hit probability as high as possible without the complexity and cost of guided rockets. A simple ram air gyro could be used to simplify the flight path of the rocket making it more accurate without adding too much cost and reducing error in high crosswinds.

As I mentioned in my previous post on another thread they have evolved way beyond just a LAW clone... they went from RPG-18, to RPG-22, and then RPG-26, then RPG-27 and now RPG-28 in disposable anti armour rocket launchers.
They then added the RPO series rocket launchers and now have the MRO and RShG launchers as well with the reloadable launchers RPG-2, RPG-7, RPG-16 and now RPG-29. The RPG-2 is now obsolete and the RPG-16 was not in front line service for that long before the RPG-29 replaced it but the two widely used reusable launchers retain their usefulness because they have HE as well as anti armour warheads which makes them more flexible than previous models.

The RPG-28 is 12kgs and has a 125mm warhead.

For more info see this website:

http://world.guns.ru/grenade/grenade-e.html

Well you have made the thread so I might as well talk about the many Soviet/Russian shoulder fired rockets.

In the 1980s they had the RPO-A, RPO-D, and RPO-Z, plus also the disposable RPG-18 and RPG-22 as well as the reusable RPG-7, RPG-16, and RPG-29.

The RPG-7 has endured because it has been adapted to take larger and larger calibre rockets, while the other systems have been growth restricted by their fixed calibre.

The RPO series has been upgraded with the RPO-M system with a new gripstock and updated rockets that are more powerful and have better effective range while being lighter.

New systems include the RPG-26, RPG-27, RPG-28 disposable launchers firing anti armour rockets in 72.5mm, 105mm, and 125mm calibre, where the second two have tandem warheads with a small precursor charge in its nose to set off ERA.

The RShG-1 and RShG-2 and RMG are engineer rockets with thermobaric warheads that are the direct equivalents of the RPG-26 and RPG-27 with the matchup being both the RPG-26 and the RShG-2 are 72.5mm calibre rockets that weigh 3kgs and 4kgs each respectively but the former has a single HEAT warhead and the latter has a thermobaric HE warhead.
The RPG-27 and RShG-1 are both 8.3kg 105mm calibre rockets, but the RPG-27 has a tandem HEAT warhead while the RShG-1 has a single thermobaric HE warhead. The RMG has a tandem warhead arrangement with a nose mounted HEAT precursor charge and a thermobaric HE warhead to the rear.

The RPO-M family includes an A, a D, and a Z model that are thermobaric, smoke, and incendiary warheads respectively with a calibre of 90mm they are slightly lighter but longer ranged and more powerful than the old RPO-A, RPO-D, and RPO-Z that they are replacing.

The new reusable gripstock looks the same as the one for this new 62mm Bur light weight rocket so I expect they might have new models of the MRO family of rockets as well. The old RPO rockets were quite heavy at about 12kgs each, and the new RPO-M reduces this weight to just over 8kgs per rocket. The original weight of the old RPO rockets meant they developed the MRO family that had a smaller calibre to reduce their weight to just under 5kgs. Whether the new Bur 62mm rockets replace the 72.5mm MRO or not I don't know, but I suspect that the old Shmel (RPO-A/D/Z) will be replaced by the Shmel-M (RPO-M) and that the MRO will be replaced by the Bur as a lighter handier alternative.

Using one gripstock to load RPO-M or Bur rockets makes sense but will they extend it to create a unified unguided rocket launcher that can launch light and heavy anti armour and anti material (HEAT and HE) rockets.

If there is a reloadable launcher for current disposable rockets will it be like the RPG-32, or a gripstock like the one for the Bur and Shmel-M?

I like the gripstock idea because it does not limit the calibre of the weapon and calibre is very important for penetration for HEAT warheads.

The RPG-29 for example can't fire the rockets developed for the RPG-28 because the RPG-29 is 105mm calibre and the RPG-28 rocket is 125mm in calibre.

Of course developing HE rounds in 105mm calibre make sense as they can also be used on the RPG-7 and RPG-29 and are used in the disposable RShG-1 and RMG launchers, but there is no need for the weight and calibre of a 125mm HE round as the only current 125mm weapon is disposable.

There was talk of fitting the 125mm HEAT rocket launchers to light aircraft and helos as anti armour weapons but nothing seems to have come from it... but it is perfectly possible that light UCAVs might deploy them as very cheap anti armour weapons.

Interesting idea, but a few serious problems.

First of all you might have noticed that the later model RPG-7 warheads have gotten quite bit with 105mm warheads and even dual charge warheads for ERA protected armour. The rocket tube for the RPG-7 is a 40mm calibre tube so the rocket body is 40mm and the nose mounted precursor charge to set off the ERA on the target early is about 60mm with a 105mm charge behind it.

This obviously upsets the balance of the rocket and makes it very front heavy, which leads to a steep ballistic curve and effective range of about 200m, which is pretty short.

On the positive side that means it is quite accurate as there is less time for it to go off course.

Adding control surfaces and seekers will only make the nose heavier and decrease effective range, though of course with a decent guidance system you could loft the rockets at 20-30 degrees up at launch and then let them find their own targets as they come down... almost like guided mortar rounds.

The problem is that if you make the RPG more expensive and more complicated it becomes less useful as a cheap simple use on anything in your way system and starts to become a "cheap ATGM".

The thing is that they already have a cheap ATGM in the form of the Metis-M1 with 2km range, 950mm armour penetration, and "pack" loads that allow a three man team to carry the launcher plus 5 ready to fire missiles and a thermal sight.

I think the best way forward is a unified gripstock launcher that can take rocket tubes for RPG-27, RPG-28 disposable rocket launchers (105mm and 125mm calibre respectively) as well as standard new RPO-M engineer rockets for smoke, Thermobaric, and incendiary use, and also engineer rockets like the RShG-1 & 2.

Fitting a simple ballistics computer, a laser rangefinder and perhaps a thermal channel to allow night and all weather attacks you could create a very effective new system. The thermal viewer doesn't need to be uber expensive as it only needs an effective range of 1.5-2km, which is even less range than the thermal viewer used with Javelin, though this one is not destroyed when it is used so you get rather more use out of it.

Regarding the rockets themselves a simple ram air gyro stabiliser could be fitted to keep it flying straight and level and counter effects like crosswinds.

By using disposable tubes the rockets can have rather more powerful motors than are possible with RPG-7 rockets... the 125mm tube of the RPG-28 allows a 125mm calibre rocket, which obviously can be rather more powerful than the 40mm calibre rocket used on the RPG-7.