OT- Recoiless Rifle

[Basileus]

Bishop746 said:
If the recoilless rifle is closer to a an artillery round than a rockett than how can this weapon be termed "recoilless". Or am I reading to much into the name.

The recoilless round resembles an artillery round in rough appearance only; it functions somewhat differently. The array of holes in the propellant cartridge case vents a good deal of the expanding gases sideways into a curved chamber called the venturi. The gases are compressed by the venturi, increasing its velocity substantially (Bernoulli's principle). As the hyperaccelerated gas proceeds out the back of the weapon, it creates a force equal to the energy of the warhead leaving the front of the weapon (hence the massive backblast, usually much larger than most rocket or missile launchers). This balancing of recoil forces, one facing forward and the other backwards, means the weapon itself doesn't require a heavy mount and recoil mechanism, and many are light enough for a soldier to fire from his shoulder while standing upright. This is where the term "recoilless" comes from, the lack of recoil effects on the weapon and firer.

Basileus

[pdoktar]

After firing the APILAS, loosing consciousness for two seconds from the concussion and my cheek bleeding, I can hardly say that shoulder-fired heavy AT rockets are recoilless..

[Bishop746]

Excellent explanation Basileus, well done.

[baggypants]

Post deleted by baggypants

[Mobhack]

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[Basileus]

pdoktar said:
After firing the APILAS, loosing consciousness for two seconds from the concussion and my cheek bleeding, I can hardly say that shoulder-fired heavy AT rockets are recoilless..

I concur, a rocket launcher is certainly not recoilless (especially a monster like APILAS, what is that, 112mm?). Most of us probably remember the initial Aerial Rocket Artillery tests during the Vietnam era, where a UH-1 helo had like 48 tube-launched rockets on each side (forget the model, it was a simple box array of 6x8 tubes)...when the helo salvo-fired all tubes at once, the forward-flying helo actually flew backwards from the recoil

Basileus

[thatguy96]

The XM3/M3 Armament Subsystem for the UH-1 helicopter (which mounted 2 boxes of 24 tubes on either side of the aircraft as mentioned before) also was set up to only fire in pairs, as to prevent the helicopter from being horribly lopsided. The best part of the M3 armed helicopters is that they were organized as artillery for Air Cav units (Airborne Rocket Artillery or ARA), and operated as such, providing very on point artillery fire in support of operations.

[Basileus]

That's the one, thanks thatguy96. Another note on rockets, note that stub-rail mounted rockets like HVARs impart very little force on the launcher mechanism, hence they could be mounted in pairs vertically dangling from each other with nothing but a couple thin strips of metal on zero-length launchers under aircraft wings. When tube-launched 5in rockets were used, they required a more substantial mounting point like a regular hardpoint or the full length Sidewinder rails on the sides of the F8 Crusader (one or two tubes per rail). I suspect the tube causes the inertia-defeating force to be constricted in the cylinder, and the friction of this force escaping backwards is imparted on the tube, hence tube-mounted rocket launchers have a recoil kick. In comparison, even substantial recoilless rifles could be mounted on a pintle; the M40 series had a TOW launcher sized mount mainly for firing accuracy in the direct fire role, but look at the relatively flimsy mounting on the M50 Ontos (packing six 106mm reckless rifles on a light airborne vehicle, the end result looks almost cartoonish but suffered no detrimental recoil effects).

Basileus