Today, at the mention of the phrase a hand-held anti-tank grenade launcher, an image of the RPG-7 materializes in the head of many. The grenade launcher, which was put into service back in 1961, is familiar to many from films, news stories from all over the world and computer games. However, the RPG-7 was far from the first such weapon in our country. Back in 1949, the Soviet Army adopted its predecessor - the first domestic serial hand-held anti-tank grenade launcher RPG-2.
From "Panzershrek" to RPG
The predecessors of the RPG could appear in service with the Red Army even before the start of the Great Patriotic War. Work in this direction was carried out throughout almost all of the 1930s. One of the first examples of such a weapon was a 65-mm rocket gun, developed by the Soviet designer Sergei Borisovich Petropavlovsky, who headed the Gas-Dynamic Laboratory. The weapon was promising and outwardly most of all resembled the German developments that had appeared already during the Second World War, primarily the Panzershrek grenade launcher. The Soviet development of 1931 already contained a number of important promising elements: light alloys; the ability to shoot from the shoulder; the presence of a shield to protect the shooter from the effects of powder gases (the Germans did not think of this right away); an electric igniter of a solid-propellant rocket engine. Unfortunately, the death of the designer in 1933 prevented the continuation of work on this, without exaggeration, a promising project; Sergei Petropavlovsky suddenly died of fleeting consumption, falling ill while testing new rockets in proving grounds.
Another project, which even for a short time was put into service, was the 37-mm dynamo-reactive gun designed by Leonid Vasilyevich Kurchevsky, model 1932. Dynamo-reactive anti-tank rifle Kurchevsky was put into mass production in 1934, production was launched at the plant number 7 in Leningrad. In the normal position, the weapon was fired from a tripod, the ability to fire from the shoulder was available, but it was extremely inconvenient. In the future, the weapon was modernized, in particular, the tripod was changed to a wheeled carriage. At the same time, the weapon remained unreliable and had a number of technical problems that could not be eliminated. In 1937, Leonid Kurchevsky fell under the millstones of Stalin's repressions and was shot. Work in the field of creating recoilless (dynamo-reactive) guns was phased out, and the guns themselves were removed from service in the late 1930s.
As a result, by the time the Great Patriotic War began, the most common anti-tank weapons of a simple Soviet infantryman were anti-tank grenades and ersatz weapons in the form of Molotov cocktails, and the 14.5-mm anti-tank guns that were adopted and put into mass production were far from the limit of dreams., including in terms of reliability and efficiency.
The German anti-tank 88-mm RPzB grenade launchers made a good impression on the Soviet soldiers and commanders. 43 "Ofenror" and RPzB. 54 "Panzershrek", the creation of which the Germans were inspired by the American Bazooka grenade launchers captured in North Africa. At the same time, the Germans guessed to attach a protective shield to the "shaitan-pipe" only in 1944, in fact, this innovation was the main difference between "Panzershrek" and "Ofenror". Anti-tank grenade launchers and grenades captured by the Red Army in commercial quantities, as well as simpler and more common faust cartridges, were already actively used in battles against German units, but the Red Army did not receive its own similar developments until the end of the war. At the same time, the use of a large number of captured grenade launchers and limited batches of American and British-made grenade launchers obtained through Lend-Lease made it possible to get acquainted with their design, develop tactics for use, and learn the strengths and weaknesses of the weapon. And the experience gained and design solutions to use in the future when creating their own models of anti-tank weapons.
The need to create their own models of anti-tank grenade launchers was understood by everyone, primarily by the specialists of the GAU, who issued the task to create a domestic dynamo-reactive grenade launcher (but not one-time, but multiple use) back in the war years. Tests of the first Soviet hand-held anti-tank grenade launcher, designated RPG-1, took place in 1944-1945. The refinement of this model was never completed, so the grenade launcher was not accepted for service.
In 1947, the Soviet industry presented a more successful version of the new weapon - the RPG-2 grenade launcher. Its creation was carried out by specialists from the GSKB-30 design bureau of the Ministry of Agricultural Engineering (before that the design bureau belonged to the People's Commissariat of the Ammunition Industry), the general management of the work was carried out by A. V. Smolyakov. During the work, Soviet designers created a 40-mm grenade launcher and an 80-mm over-caliber grenade for it, equipped with a starting powder charge. The field tests carried out confirmed the effectiveness of the new grenade launcher, and already in 1949 the weapon was adopted by the Soviet Army under the designation RPG-2 hand-held anti-tank grenade launcher, and the grenade for it received the designation PG-2.
Design features of the RPG-2
The RPG-2 hand-held anti-tank grenade launcher was a reusable dynamo-reactive system. Structurally, the weapon consisted of a powerful barrel, which allowed the shooter to reuse a grenade launcher, a hammer-type firing mechanism, which was located in the pistol grip of fire control, and the cumulative grenade itself.
The barrel of the grenade launcher was made of rolled steel and was threaded. To protect it from clogging with earth, a fuse was screwed onto the breech of the barrel. This allowed the shooter to accidentally bury the grenade launcher in the ground without any consequences for further use. In order to avoid burns to the hands at the time of the shot, wooden pads were specially installed on the barrel of the hand grenade launcher. Lugs intended for attaching the trigger were welded to the bottom of the steel barrel, and the bases of the front sight and sighting frame were welded on top. On the RPG-2, the designers installed a hammer-type firing mechanism with a striking mechanism. This solution provided the weapon with a high level of reliability and ease of shooting.
Standard sighting devices allowed the grenade launcher to confidently hit targets at a distance of up to 150 meters. The open-type sighting device consisted of a folding sighting frame and a folding front sight. The aiming frame had three windows designed for aiming at 50, 100 and 150 meters, respectively. In 1957, the sighting capabilities of the weapon were significantly expanded due to the introduction of a new NSP-2 night sight. The grenade launcher equipped with a night sight was named RPG-2N.
For firing from the RPG-2 grenade launcher, an 82-mm anti-tank cumulative PG-2 grenade was used, which made it possible to hit targets with armor up to 180-200 mm, while the grenade had a very low flight speed - only 84 m / s. The anti-tank cumulative grenade consisted directly of a cumulative warhead, a bottom fuse, a stabilizer and a powder charge. The grenade was dynamo-reactive, the shot was fired according to a non-recoil scheme. On the stabilizer of the anti-tank grenade there were 6 flexible feathers, in the stowed position the feathers were rolled around the tube, they turned around only after the grenade left the barrel at the time of the shot. The starting powder charge was attached to the grenade itself using a threaded connection. The powder charge was a paper sleeve, which was filled with smoky gunpowder (the smoky cloud formed after the shot unmasked the position of the grenade launcher). In the grenade, the designers implemented the function of remote cocking of the fuse, which ensured the safety of the shooter at the time of the shot.
The cumulative grenade used had the same damaging effect at all available firing distances. Although it was very difficult to effectively hit moving armored targets at a distance of more than 100 meters, including due to the low speed of the grenade. The low flight speed directly influenced the shooting accuracy, which was highly dependent on weather factors and wind speed, primarily side wind. This was partially offset by a fairly high rate of fire of the weapon, the shooter could reload the grenade launcher and re-fire the target.
The capabilities of the RPG-2 grenade launcher
At the time of adoption, the RPG-2 grenade launcher was a formidable and quite sophisticated weapon that significantly increased the capabilities of a simple infantryman to combat enemy armored vehicles. Sights made it possible to hit targets located at a distance of up to 150 meters from the shooter. At the same time, with the help of the RPG-2, it was possible to fight not only with tanks, self-propelled guns, armored personnel carriers of the enemy, but also stationary targets, which included armored caps and field fortifications, and it was also possible to fire from it at the embrasures of pillboxes.
According to the staff schedule, the new RPG-2 hand-held anti-tank grenade launcher was supposed to be in each motorized rifle compartment, the grenade launcher calculation consisted of two people: the grenade launcher himself and the ammunition carrier. The shooter himself carried a grenade launcher, spare parts and three grenades to him in a special pack, his assistant three more grenades. Also, the assistant was armed with automatic weapons and could cover the grenade launcher with his fire.
The capabilities of the weapon made it possible to effectively deal with enemy tanks, with which a soldier could meet in battle in those years. The maximum armor penetration reached 200 mm, while the thickness of the armor of the most massive American tanks M26 Pershing and the M46 Patton and M47 Patton II tanks that replaced it did not exceed 102 mm. For many years, it was the RPG-2 that became the most widely used anti-tank grenade launcher in the Soviet Army. Due to its reliability, simplicity of design and low price, the weapon became very widespread and was widely exported to the allied countries of the USSR. The grenade launcher became a participant in local wars and conflicts of the 1950-1960s, in particular, it was widely used by North Vietnamese troops against the Americans during the Vietnam War.
