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    • Yeah, I noticed that as well.

      Technically, the booster and rocket motor are both propellant-class energetics; if they were “high explosives”, they’d be useless as propellants, in either the booster/expeller role or the rocket motor role.

      The generally accepted break-point between the two is the speed at which the chemical deflagration process moves through the material; below the speed of sound? Low explosive, suitable for use in propellant roles. Above the speed of sound? High explosive, and can be utilized in the roles we usually put such things to. If you’re working with a high explosive, the transformation between solid and gas is usually fast enough that it actually creates a shock wave, which is what we utilize to get the effects that we do from such a material. The shape-charge effect is one such, and it is the result of the wave-front moving through the shaped explosive material to act upon the charge liner.

      What’s interesting is that when we have a “ka-boom” with a firearm, what has often happened is that propellant has slid over that threshold between “low” and “high”, creating a detonation that doesn’t just “burn”, but “explode”. The whole set of terminology is esoteric and a subject of study in and of itself, but that’s the way it goes with such things.

      In any event, neither the booster nor the rocket motor have “high explosives” in them, unless you count the minute amounts of fulminates in the primer that initiates the firing chain for the system. It’s all propellants, and of considerably different actual characteristics–What works for the booster would not be ideal for the rocket motor, so there are distinct chemical differences.

      This whole system grew out of the Soviet effort to copy the German WWII infantry anti-tank systems, and there’s a lot of conceptual similarity between the Panzerfaust line of disposable AT weapons and the early RPG systems–Primarily in the recoilless expelling charge and the external warhead, which allowed for much larger shaped-charge warheads than something like a recoilless rifle. The Soviets, however, fitted a rocket motor, which allowed for much greater range. The Panzerfaust was basically only a step or two better than a satchel charge, requiring up close and personal deployment.

      It’s an interesting system, but I remain dubious that it’s really any better than, say, a Carl Gustav. Although, you might be able to say that the amount of damage done to hearing and general health from the overpressure of the Western recoilless systems is somewhat greater of a health risk than the RPG family…

      Reply

      • For explanations of kinds of explosives see Treatise on Ammunition
        https://rnzaoc.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/treatise-on-ammunition-1915.pdf
        Explosives may be divided into three classes :—
        (1) Propellants.
        (2) Disruptives or H igh Explosives.
        (3) Detonators.
        (…)
        Explosion is very rapid combustion.— Combustion is the oxidation
        of such elements as carbon, hydrogen, &c,, contained in the substance ;
        if the oxidising process is moderately slow it is called burning, if very
        Tapid, explosion.
        (…)
        (2) This class includes guncotton, dynamite, lyddite, &c. These
        explosives are intended to detonate, though of them can be made
        to simply explode, or even bum , but they cannot be used as propellants,
        whereas some of the latter m ay be made to a ct as disruptives. {See
        Cordite.)
        Detonation is a different action from explosion, for whereas in
        the latter combustion is confined to the surface and takes place layer
        by layer, in the case of detonation the action takes place instantane­
        ously throughout the whole mass of the substance.
        (…)

        Reply

        • “Detonation is a different action from explosion, for whereas in
          the latter combustion is confined to the surface and takes place layer
          by layer, in the case of detonation the action takes place instantane­ously throughout the whole mass of the substance.”

          I’d have to differ with that description; nothing takes place “instantaneously” through the mass of anything, when you’re talking chemistry. It’s more a thing of it happening so fast as to appear to be instantaneous, but the wave effect is still there, with a distinct boundary along the conversion zone as it moves through the material. For it to be “instantaneous”, you’d have to posit some form of quantum effect that somehow transmitted the instruction “explode” across the entire chunk of energetic material simultaneously, and we simply have not observed such a thing happening outside the realm of esoteric and highly arguable theoretical physics.

          So, yeah… For all intents and purposes, it appears to a human observer that the material decomposes instantaneously, but the reality is that there’s still an observable wave effect, when you have the means to slow down your observations. “Detonation” in this context typically means more “low explosive acting like it was a high explosive, due to unusual conditions…”. This can be due to temperature, chemical degradation of the propellant, or higher pressures/confinement than usually found. Detonation is also generally very unpredictable and highly erratic; you may get propellant to give you slightly more “oomph” than usual, or you might have it demonstrate characteristics more akin to C4 than smokeless powder. There are reasons they tell you to keep ammunition in “cool, dry locations”…

          Reply

      • “(…)remain dubious that it’s really any better than, say, a Carl Gustav.(…)”
        There is advantage, which is important if you plan to travel via foot-slogging. RPG-7 is greatly lighter, according to https://modernfirearms.net/en/grenade-launchers/russia-grenade-launchers/rpg-7-eng/ and https://modernfirearms.net/en/grenade-launchers/sweden-grenade-launchers/carl-gustaf-eng/
        RPG-7 is 6.3 kg unloaded, with PGO-7 telescope sight
        Carl Gustaf m/48 – M2 is empty w. telescope sight 14 kg

        Reply

        • Yeah, but…

          Philosophically, I really dislike the idea of having my warheads out in the open, being banged around as I move. I far prefer having them safely stored in their launch tubes or ammo containers, as you find with most Western systems. The lighter weight isn’t at all a benefit when the warhead doesn’t work when fired, or when someone manages to set the thing off still in the launcher.

          Friend of mine was a tanker in Iraq; his experience with the RPG was whipping one of the turret top-mount MGs around on an RPG team that was coming up on the tank from a sidestreet, and hosing said team down with copious amounts of 7.62 NATO. At some point during the hosing, something in the vicinity of the RPG gunner detonated, presumably either the round in the launcher or one of the many rounds he saw sticking out of the guy’s backpack. The explosion was rather impressive, and put a decided dent in the enthusiasm of the attacking insurgents.

          I think that the “light weight” vs. “protected carry” issue is one where I’m gonna plump down on the side of “protected carry”. Western systems are heavier, but I don’t have to worry about damaging the munition, nor is it out there hanging about in environment to be damaged by any misadventures. The other thing about the RPG that nobody mentions is the ease with which the warhead, motor, and booster can be damaged in the course of handling and loading. You drop that whole Rube Goldberg-esque assembly in the course of trying to load it under fire, and guess what? It’s useless, and may even kill you when you go to fire it. Carl Gustav round? Not so much…

          The RPG is a quintessential example of Soviet weapons design; good enough to work, but essentially disposable. Along with its crew. I can see the cost/effectiveness ratio being in its favor, but as one of the potential end-users, I’m not a fan of the balance being weighted that way.

          Reply

          • Well, there you go. The RPG-7 isn’t IDIOT-PROOF. Are there any anti-armor weapons that are idiot-proof these days?

          • There are a lot of AT weapons that are “idiot-proof”, but you pretty much have to be an idiot with a death-wish to try and use them…

            No matter what you do, there’s a degree of risk entailed with hauling high explosives with you as you move about the battlefield. Hell, there’s a degree of risk moving high explosives in peacetime on training ranges, especially with some of the people we have doing such things.

            If it’s all I’ve got? Yeah, I’ll take an RPG. If I can pick my weapons…? It’ll be something other than the RPG. I like the packaged-round design philosophy, about like I prefer the Vertical Launch System most Western Navies have settled on, vice the “Mount everything we’ve got, ready to go, out in the open…” that the Soviets went with. Exposure to the elements means a lot of bad things happening to the weapons, and “elements” happens to include a lot of things that can detonate said weapons.

            One of the hazards of the RPG that people don’t mention is that the fuse train for the warhead is piezoelectric in initiation; this has implications with quality control and things like static electricity getting involved, and when the warhead is out in the open the way it is with the RPG…? Do the math.

            Friend of mine was an EOD Master Sergeant, a guy who spent his career actually out doing stuff and training other guys to be EOD technicians. His personal take on the RPG, as a system? You really don’t want it; he cleared way too many misfired warheads, and he described doing several very unpleasant “incidents” where the warheads detonated “unexpectedly” in the course of normal use. As in, guys going to board helicopters in very dry conditions, and then there was the lightning strike that chain-detonated a whole bunch of RPG warheads being carried by an insurgent logistics movement up in the mountains. That one left a bunch of black blast marks and a whole lot of scattered donkey meat…

            There are reasons that a lot of Western soldiers eye Soviet munitions with deep suspicion; the German government basically condemned about 90% of the former East German arsenal and munitions stockpiles as “unsafe to use”, and even “unsafe to move to demilitarize”, opting instead to do the demil right there on site at the former depots. And, that was the East Germans, who reputedly had better Quality Control than most of the rest of the Eastern Bloc…

            You don’t see NATO stockpiles spontaneously blowing the fsck up the way you do former Soviet ones. There are good reasons for that, not the least of which go back to the basic design of many of the weapons in question.

          • “…One of the hazards of the RPG that people don’t mention is that the fuse train for the warhead is piezoelectric in initiation…”(С)

            The safes are disabled and the fuse is cocked only when the main engine is turned on. At a distance of 10-20 meters from the shooter.

            Well, at least Ian managed to hit the mountain. 🙂

          • “(…)RPG is a quintessential example of Soviet weapons design; good enough to work, but essentially disposable. Along with its crew. I can see the cost/effectiveness ratio being in its favor, but as one of the potential end-users, I’m not a fan of the balance being weighted that way.”
            Note that over-caliber design allowed introduction of bigger warhead, allowing greatly improved penetration as opposed to fixed caliber RPG-16 https://modernfirearms.net/en/grenade-launchers/russia-grenade-launchers/rpg-16-eng/

          • “(…)really dislike the idea of having my warheads out in the open, being banged around as I move. I far prefer having them safely stored in their launch tubes or ammo containers, as you find with most Western systems(…)”
            That being said Bundeswehr used Panzerfaust 3
            https://modernfirearms.net/en/grenade-launchers/germany-grenade-launchers/panzerfaust-3-eng/
            sporting over-caliber warhead for many years. Would Bundeswehr in 1992 be willing to adopt for service potentially unsafe weapon and then use it for years?

    • I doubt if they had to pay Ian anything; they just said “We’ve got this fully-functional RPG-7 clone. You want a chance to look it over and maybe get to launch a round out of it?”

      …and it’s “Airtronic” – no “s” on the end.

      Reply

  5. yep, paid commercial. no problem with that this time. a Russian Carl Gustav (yes yes I know, not exact, but they are both so close in the way they are used)

    Reply

  8. Airtronics and their RPG-7 clone is still around? I never really understood who is supposed to buy this, when the market is full with soviet surplus and chinese and other RPG-7 copies from other places? Well okay, the rep says it in the video: to squeeze money from Uncle Sam. And what is the point of that many rails all over the tube? a few pieces of rails to mount scopes or night vision. But on the bottom??

    Reply

    • I’ve wondered the same things…

      An SF weapons sergeant of my acquaintance has, however, assured me that the Airtronics version of the RPG is worth the money. For what that’s worth.

      I’m also told that the various rails are where they are in order to allow better mounting for the secondary grips and that they’re on there because that’s what the US military users wanted. Again, not sure about the benefit, but that’s what I was told.

      Of all the bloody weapons they had to copy, why the hell didn’t they copy the PKM? I ask you…

      Reply

      • Methinks Denny already said it. Poland copied the PKM and improved it as the UKM-2000, and so the Polish soldiers thumbed their noses at Moscow if the latter demanded royalties for use of design. “TOO LATE FOR THAT, MORONS!!” [Loud Raspberry]

        Why doesn’t the US Army Ordnance Corps just politely ask the Polish Army for a shipment of UKM-2000’s? It’s not like anyone’s going to object to obtaining a weapon better than a 50-year-old M60 that had been smashed to pieces in Vietnam and then thrown back together by some half-witted moron with a sledgehammer…

        Reply

      • “(…)Of all the bloody weapons they had to copy, why the hell didn’t they copy the PKM? I ask you… ”
        If I might intervene. I do not have data regarding PKM but there was RECOMMENDATIONS put in
        R-TN-75-010
        DESIGN ANALYSIS OF
        MACHINE GUN, 7.62MM, PKT, SOVIET
        By
        John G. Rocha
        1 April 1975
        Not for Distribution. For use at
        US Army Armament Command Only.
        ROCK ISLAND ARSENAL
        GENERAL THOMAS J. RODMAN LABORATORY
        ROCK ISLAND, ILLINOIS 61201
        available here https://vk.com/modernfirearms?w=wall-198690401_9882 (click at PKT-US-1975.pdf)

        (…)for the design and development of a US machine gun which would incorporate
        a number of the favorable features of the PKT, but would adhere to US
        standards for producibility, ammunition, maintenance, human factors,
        and safety. This weapon could potentially be utilized as General
        Purpose Machine Gun, an Armor Machine Gun, and as a light Aircraft
        Machine Gun. It would fire the 7.62mm NATO cartridge in the standard
        M13 Link.
        I am not expert at U.S. military document flow in 1970s, but I suspect above described actions might spawned other related documents.

        Reply

        • They did, and those documents stem from the rather stunning performance of the PKT that was a “control” in the competition which resulted in the M240 being adopted.

          Basically, the PKT did so well for what it was that the people running the tests were like “Yeah, if this gun can do this as an abused battlefield pick-up, with no factory support, and using captured ammo of questionable provenance…? Why the hell aren’t we adopting it?!?!?”.

          Unfortunately, the same “Not Invented Here” syndrome that did in the MG42 copy did this idea in.

          There is, as you speculate, a whole raft of other documents surrounding this idea. The post-test conclusions made for interesting reading–The guys writing those did not have good things to say about the various competitors, aside from the M240, the M60 variant coming in for considerable abuse.

          Reply

      • Well RPG-7 type ammunition is very plentiful as to be nearly ubiquitous in many places. It also opens up plausible deniability. “See it was an old 1980ies chicom warhead that blew up that car. Could not have been the US of A.”. But the claim that the tube alone makes the sometimes dubious RPG-7 ammuniton more accurate? Well, I’d like to see proof for that claim.

        Reply

  11. Another toy for american backed terrorists worldwide to spread peace and daemoncracy 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀

    Reply

  12. “Effective range 1000 meters” (C)

    “Effective range 1000 meters” (C)

    Complete nonsense.
    Even if you forget that the self-liquidator is triggered at about 700 meters, you will be lucky if you can hit the truck from 300 meters in calm weather.

    This was originally done for use by special forces and friendly forces in areas where there is a lot of captured RPG ammunition.
    The idea was not the best.
    In addition to security concerns, it quickly became clear that where there are noticeable quantities of these ammunition, there are also quantities of launchers themselves.
    And in order to overcome problems with accuracy, you need other ammunition.

    The product turned out to be as advanced as it was meaningless.

    Reply

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