Frag Out! Magazine
Issue link: https://fragout.uberflip.com/i/1115818
the bipolar rivalry, the issue of maximization of anti-tank potential moved to the background. What started to matter in the domain of anti-guer- rilla operations was having a universal and secret support weapon of a greater firing range in the ranks of an infantry platoon at one's disposal. The ability to combat crew-operated arms at large distances, field forti- fications, and living force was particularly valuable. It was a particularly painful lesson learned by Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq, when they realized they had to fight targets at a distance of over 700 m using... Javelins worth USD 80,000 apiece. The situation was serious enough that in 2011 the US Army gave old 90-mm recoilless M67s a new life and sent them to Afghanistan to the 4th Brigade Combat Team of the 101st Airborne Division. The effects were so promising that over 50 Carl Gus- taf M3s with ammo were purchased in December of the same year for the purpose of battlefield testing. Despite the range values given in the manual, i.e. 500 – 700 – 1,000 m, it turned out that the CGM3 used in the Afghan landscape made it possible to fire accurately at targets from a distance of up to 1,2000 m using HE 441D rounds and up to 1,3000 m us- ing HEDP 502 rounds. What makes the issue even more spicy is the fact that in the US, the Carl Gustaf M3 had been used since 1987 in the 75th Ranger Regiment as a successor to the M67, purchased as part of the RAAWS (Ranger Anti-Armour/Anti-Personnel Weapon System) program. In the 1990s, the CG M3 joined the ranks of the Special Forces as a Multi- Role Anti-Armor/Anti-Personnel Weapon System (MAAWS). The Swedish recoilless rifle was, in fact, a well-known solution. The problem was with the information flow in the US Army, which resulted in reinventing the wheel in 2011. The Afghan episode led to an approval to have all BCTs equipped with CG M3s (one per infantry platoon) in case of an urgent operational need. This in turn translated into ordering 1,111 CG M3E1s (M4 for the US Army) in 2017, and another 1,200 M3E1s for each infan- try platoon of the USMC close to the end of that year. It's important to mention here that the Carl Gustaf has been considered a perfect support weapon, one that absolutely does not substitute the standard-issue Jav- elin and TOW-2A/2B. It's just the Swedish rifle works very well not as a standard-issue anti-tank weapon but as a "pocket-size artillery solution", able to instantly support the rest of a sub-unit at the platoon level – at a distance of over 700 m. All this combined with user-friendliness and am- munition whose basic types are much cheaper than disposable grenade launchers gives us the answer to the question about the big comeback of the solution dating back to 1946 and which can be still regarded fit for the battlefield of today. The NLAW – an anti-tank remedy A highly significant supplement to recoilless rifles has become the next-gen disposable anti-tank grenade launcher – the NLAW. It came to being as a direct result of the Swedish testing anti-tank weap- ons from the countries of the former Eastern Bloc and... Russia. In 1991, when the German Democratic Republic fell and became unified with West Germany, Sweden received a proposal to purchase excess equip- ment used by the disbanded National People's Army. The Swedish were particularly interested in T-72M1 tanks and MT-LB carriers (with five of them actually purchased). Long-lasting trials – including ballistic tests – showed that the potential of the said Soviet vehicles was much under- estimated. First, it appeared that they boasted a fantastic survivability on an NBC battlefield. Second, even though their tactical mobility on the battlefield was poorer than that of more modern Western vehicles, their operational and strategic capabilities to cover difficult terrain were really impressive. The Swedish landscape considered unsuitable for the oper- ations of armored divisions turned out to be perfectly passable for the www.fragoutmag.com