Everywhere one looks in the print/broadcast media, one sees that RPG’s have become the darlings of Third World armies, militias, radicals, and street thugs. Yesterday, I even saw a swaggering Northern Alliance soldier posing for Reuters with two RPG’s stuffed down into his pants. (ahem)
What are the capabilities of RPGs? Can they punch through a Bradley fighting vehicle? Through a heavily armored car? How does an RPG’s explosive power compare to that of a standard U.S. hand grenade? Compared to a US grenade launcher? How do they differ from bazookas?
What is their range? Are the projectiles guided in any way? Aimed through cross hairs? How accurate?
As mentioned earlier, they are the spiritual descendants of bazookas. Ringo’s reference says they can penetrate 12mm (a half inch, in American units) of solid armor plate. A Bradley has laminate armor up to 2 inches. The RPG can probably make a hell of a mess of a conventional armored car (specually if it hits the windows – and it’s not just the penetration, it’s also flipping it over from the blast, and causing inside parts to fly off at speed from the transfer of energy)
The RPG has a shaped-charge warhead – it explodes so that metal jacketing is propelled in one single direction as a concentrated jet of molten metal, to breach a solid barrier. The standard hand grenade and the shell from the U.S. M-203 are fragmentation grenades, designed so that the metal cladding is spread in all directions a goodly distance, as shrapnel to maim flesh. So they’re not really comparable.
BTW, a shaped-charge projectile doesn’t actually have to punch a hole through the vehicle to do damage inside. The charge can detonate on the outside, and the shock wave will travel to the inside and cause the metal to fracture sending shrapnel through the vehicle even though no hole is created.
The one always seen in the news is an RPG-7, with the large warhead protruding from the front. In general, an RPG is pretty much death to any APC/IFV (Assuming a good body-hit; A lucky vehicle might manage to survive one hit more or less intact, sometimes. Even a front hit isn’t very safe). They’re fairly effective against equivelent-era tanks on rear or side hits. Even the old RPG-7 would be deadly to an Abrams if it were to hit the rear, and it would only be safe from a side shot if it were one of the heavier-armored versions against an older warhead. Front, though, you might scratch the sights, but that’s about it.
The main benefit of the RPG versus the equivilent-era US AT weapon (RPG-7 vs LAW, RPG-26 vs M136 AT4) is that the RPGs are reloadable, while the US versions are disposable one-shot weapons. The one-shot versions are lighter, though, so you can have more of your troops carrying them
RPGs are probably about the explosive strength of a regular grenade, but lack the fragmentation effects, so it’s not that hot against personel (Except against bunkers). Definatly not strong enough to flip a vehicle, nor to cause serious damage from a non-penetrating hit except to the lightest-armored vehicles.
Actually, the RPG-18 is an almost exact copy of our LAW. Even though I could not read the Russian instructions, it worked just like ours, so there was no problem.
Many of the RPG’s in use today are more likely to be the RPG-9. No real difference in appearance or effectiveness, however than the RPG-7.
There are lots of different types, so you’d have to be more specific.
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Yes, most of them could. Bradleys are a pretty shitty fighting vehicle.
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Yes.
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This isn’t a valid comparison, because they’re different types of explosives. Hand grenades simply blow up and spread shrapnel. Shaped charges (rpgs) are designed to concentrate an explosion into a focused jet of plasma to penetrate armor.
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Same concept in design. They’re typically 1 shot and disposable, whereas bazookas were reloadable weapons. They’re cheaper, throwaway weapons. Modern RPGs can trace their lineage to the german panzerfaust - and, for that matter, the first 2 RPG models (RPG-1 and RPG-2) were a copy of the panzerfaust 100, and panzerfaust 150 respectively.
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Varies a lot per model. I wouldn’t personally give them, in general, anything more than 200m, though some may be effective beyond that.
I can’t think of an RPG that’s guided. If it were guided, it would probably be an ATGM. Generally the word “rocket” will tip you off that it’s unguided.
They don’t use a ‘crosshair’ system, typically - but there will be a piece of sheet metal with large rectangular chunks cut out with markings for range and speed. You’d match a specific hole area with your target.
Accuracy depends on the model and the shooter. I don’t really know offhand how to rate the accuracy.
