welcome to the latest in our series of anti-tank chats this time we'll be looking at one of the most easily recognizable you might even say iconic weapons of the 20th and 21st century it's the Soviet designed rpg7 please remember to like subscribe or click the little notification Bell if you don't want to miss out on these videos and I'd just like to say thank you to all our patrons for making this possible please join them if you can this weapon has been used in just about every conflict worldwide over the last 60 plus years it has evolved it's not just and the anti-tank weapon it was designed to us anymore it's become a form of Highly Effective cheap readily available portable artillery and is used by state and non-state actors the whole world over um up to 2004 over 9 million of these launchers had been produced and if you couple this with its ubiquitous stable mate the AK-47 I mean those are two weapons that have had a massive influence on world conflict ever since the 1960s it's become quite common for the crews of modern main battle tanks to deride the effect of RPG fire it's just black splatter on the armor but in fact when you look at it even tanks like the Abrams aren't immune to RPG fire in the hands of skilled and determined opponents interviewed after the battle to seize the al-qabir mosque in Fallujah Iraq on the 10th of November 2004. major Griffin U.S army had this to say about the effect of RPG fire on his Abrams Tanks supporting the first U.S Marine Corps you could hear it and see RPG streak from a high level on one building shooting down at a sharp angle into the urban Canyon the kilos in some tanks were disabled and not a lot of extensive damage but multiple I mean 12 to 15 RPG hits on a tank the turret locked in position the sighting capabilities were lost and they had to start shuttling tanks back to get fixed for more likely armored vehicles such as the usm-113 armored personnel carrier or for cruising hot climates like Vietnam operating with the hatches open an RPG attack could be extremely deadly the weapon we now know as the rpg7 went through a whole series of Developmental stages starting in as early as 1931 in fact with the rs-65 which was an experimental shoulder launched anti-tank weapon this did not have a shape charge Warhead so I'm afraid it wasn't a success a wheeled launcher the SPG 82 saw some limited use with the Red Army from 1944 but in fact probably a bigger influence were the American M1 bazooka and the German panzerfast both of these were handheld anti-tank weapons firing a shape charge projectile but the Soviet designers didn't copy or reverse engineer either they Incorporated the better elements of the design along with those of the unbuilt uh panzerf house 250 uh that included things like a pistol grip and an electrical firing system the rpg-1 which was trialled from 1944 incorporates quite a lot of features that you see in the rpg7 things like a meter long launcher tube an angled pistol grip and a wooden sheath for heat protection but there are quite a few problems with range and stability and Effectiveness and that design is binned in favor of the rpg2 the rpg2 which was accepted into service from 1954 with Soviet and Chinese units uh incorporates quite a lot of changes there is a bigger propellant charge which is screwed into the base of the projectile projectile itself is an 80 millimeter diameter high explosive anti-tank round and you also got a better thin assembly which gives it a flatter more stable trajectory put these together and you have got a weapon that will penetrate 225 millimeters of armor at up to 200 meters used by the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong in Vietnam the rpg2 proved itself an effective anti-tank and anti-personnel weapon the age of the rocket-propelled grenade had arrived although the rpg2 was a reasonably effective design there was still room for improvement and teams working at the state specialized design Bureau at krasno armiesque outside Moscow continued to develop the concept we don't know too much about some of the development stages but a team under VK ferulin was working on a project called the RPS 250. this Incorporated quite a few advances um a better propellant and more of it a separate booster rocket that's screwed into the base of the projectile and a larger expansion chamber it also for the first time Incorporated an optical site the pg07 that had originally been designed for the rpg4 in 1961 this design was accepted into Service as the RPG Sim the initials rpng in Russian by the way uh mean and that actually means anti-tank grenade launcher but rocket-propelled grenade seems to have stuck looking at the weapon itself and this is a Bulgarian example from the tank Museum collection the impression you really get is one of rugged simplicity the launcher tube itself is 40 millimeters uh in diameter uh 957 millimeters long and it's made of three millimeter Chrome line steel now that last bit the Chrome lining is quite important when you bear in mind the fact that this weapon could be in the hands of guys who won't clean it very often he will at least keep corrosion at Bay the weapons loaded by pushing the projectile into the front of the projector and it engages with a notch that is cut into the top of the weapon the important thing here to remember though is because the Warhead projects forward it's not just limited to the 40 millimeters of the ball being able to fire a grenade with a diameter greater than 40 millimeters is very important in fact that's the whole secret and the success of the RPG on the underside of the weapon there are two hand grips distal grips and the usual way of holding the thing for firing is to have the right hand on the forward pistol grip and that also incorporates the cocking lever and the safety catch on the left hand pull it up on your shoulder at the left hand either goes on the rear pistol grip or actually on the top of the weapon to keep it stable so on top of the weapon we have the flip up iron sights these are at least theoretically secondly to the thing that goes on this rail here which is the pg07 optical side but we do have examples from the al-nasarea Arsenal in Iraq they were produced without this rail so there's no way you can fit an optical site to it apparently the iron sights were good enough also got a pair of Sling swivels for carriage and towards the back here there is a wooden sheath this is wood which has been molded it's impregnated with some stuff called phenolic acid um it gives it a slightly sort of plasticky feel finally right at the back of the weapon there is the blast deflector cone this is important recall this weapons like this put out a hefty amount of backwash and you have to allow at least two meters at the back of the weapon otherwise it's going to bounce forward and flatten you you particularly need to remember that when you're in a confined environment something like fighting in built up areas if you fire one of these in the room of a house out of the window make sure there's at least two meters behind you um now look at the weapon you can see the ball of the tube increases from 40 millimeters at the front to 65 millimeters towards the rear this is the expansion chamber and what this does is it gives the propellant gases from the projectile itself room to develop and it gives us the projectile its velocity looking at the optical sighting system this is the uh pg07 and as I said before it slides onto a rail on the left hand side of the weapon comes a canvas pouch with a series of filters for use in different light conditions and he's also got an illumination kit with a battery for use in low light it's a reflex sight and it's got an illuminated gratitude inside that allows the operator to estimate range up to 1000 meters the way this works is the operator lines up the base of the target wheels or tracks or whatever with the horizontal line and reads off the range where the top of the target crosses the gradations the 2.7 figure is apparently a compromise between the average height of Warsaw packed tanks 2.3 meters and NATO tanks three meters in the center are horizontal range lines at 100 meter intervals and crosswind and Lead estimations are two mil intervals creating a grid moving on to the other major component of this weapon system that's the projectile of course and as I said earlier the fact that the ball is 40 mil that doesn't preclude the use of a larger Warhead and one of the reasons for the major success of the rpg7 is the range of ammunition available high explosive anti-tank tandem charge rounds for dealing with explosive reactive armor thermobaric rounds anti-personnel rounds I mean there's quite a range available this is the pg7m high explosive anti-tank round and this is the round most commonly in use and it's basically there are two major components as issued so to begin with you have got this which is the Warhead and the sustainer motor the rocket motor and then screwed into the end of that there is a booster cartridge this sends it out of the container and also contains a set of expanding fins starting at the front are right at the tip of the weapon there is a Piezo electric trigger this is covered with a plastic cap and a safety pin with a tag and that needs obviously to be removed before firing when the trigger contacts the target it says electric charge down through the body of the projectile and that detonates the RDX explosive charge on the base uh there's also a delay action element to this the Warhead itself will detonate automatically at 920 meters looking at the actual Warhead itself um there is a trumpet-shaped liner in this section inside an aerodynamic Fairing and behind that is a copper cone and underneath that is the RDX explosive charge when that detonates it fires what's effectively a an enormously powerful bolt of kinetic energy forward that's what's called the Monroe effect and it will penetrate up to 260 millimeters of rolled homogeneous armor behind the Warhead is the rocket motor this is what we call the sustainer motor now when you prep this firing you have to take a plastic protective cap off and then screw this waterproof cardboard tube onto the end of the projectile this tube contains a gunpowder charge and what that is a is a booster that sends the projectile out of the container sends it about 11 meters at 117 meters a second and the tube itself also contains the collapsible fins and they deploy for stability the main sustainer motor then kicks in and it carries the projectile onto the target at 294 meters a second now there's something a little bit odd here something a little bit counter-intuitive this motor actually Burns forward and the vents are arranged in a circle here what that does is to create torque and that helps to counteract the spin induced by the fins and it also helps prevent centrifugal blast dispersal when the projectile hits the target the fins help stabilize the projectile in flight they spin roughly 10 times a second but they can create something that's called the Weathervane effect so the fins themselves will catch the breeze and actually push the tip of the projectile Into The Wind that can interfere with the operators windage calculations so it's something that needs to be taken into account as it was initially conceived the RPG would provide Surya motor rifled units with anti-tank defenses out to 500 meters distances over that being covered by the bmp's Own almond or the Grom 73 millimeter gun and Saga missile but it's been the RPGs Supply to use by other players that's created the aura around this weapon the rpg7 saw limited Battlefield use by Egyptian forces in the Six-Day War of 1967. but it was in Vietnam where U.S army m113s and U.S Marine Corps aaav-7s proved vulnerable even tanks like the m551 Sheridan or the Australian Army's centurions were susceptible to being penetrated even through frontal armor one Centurion Alpha 2 1 was hit four times severely injuring three crew members the RPG is most effective used by determined operators at close range in grozny Chechen Fighters were able to exploit an urban environment to engage Soviet armor ranges of around 50 meters repeated hits would defeat era and the Soviets are estimated to have lost upwards of a hundred tanks and afvs mostly to RPGs the sheer availability of the rpg7 has led to it being used by non-state operators and a host of conflicts all over the world British security forces in Northern Ireland were alarmed to discover the RPG round would pass right through a saracen APC the provisional Ira also used the weapon against British Army sanghas in Lurgan County Arma and in Catholic areas of West Belfast Beechmont Avenue being referred to as RPG alley by British troops in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion of 1980 to 88 the mujahideen were able to exploit the terrain to score close range hits on Soviet armored columns using the RPG this led amongst other things to the replacement of bmp1s 73 millimeter Grom turret weapon with a 30 millimeter cannon for more effective defense on bmp2s and threes the versatility of the RPG is also shamed by its use against helicopters in Afghanistan seven out of eight U.S helicopters were shot down were brought down by RPG fire as well as four Blackhawk helicopters uh in Mogadishu and that's the famous Black Hawk Down incident with the RPG available in such huge numbers it's become necessary to up armor or at least produce some sort of all Extra Protection for armored fighting vehicles um era explosive reactive armor is the obvious solution but as we've seen that is actually vulnerable to multiple RPG hits at close range U.S tank crews in Vietnam fell back on various of locally Source Solutions as they had in World War II in fact things like ammunition boxes full of sand uh extra track links chain link fencing and some are instances then we come across what is now the commonest protection against RPG far which is the stuff they call either slat or bar armor this was first used on U.S Navy riverine Patrol craft in Vietnam but since then it's been used on a huge variety of different afvs from the British Viking in Afghanistan in fact to this which is a type 69 main battle tank used by the Iraqi Army the way this works is that by making the gaps between the bars are smaller than the diameter of the Warhead are typically 75 millimeters the slats will trap the incoming RPG round and that will either pinch off the fuse trigger meaning it doesn't detonate or it'll detonate at a sub-optimal distance and cause less damage bar armor is effective but there are two downsides to it firstly adds weight and secondly it adds bulk to the vehicle and that reduces your maneuverability so in its 60 plus years of existence the rpg7 has had an effect on warfare the world over in a way that VK ferulin and his team could never have anticipated back in 1961 for incidentally the following year uh they were awarded the Lenin prize for technological innovation and then two years after that 1964. it went to Mikhail Kalashnikov the design of the AK-47 Canon RPG 7 round penetrate uh the composite front Lama or the modern main battle tank no it can't but it was never intended to is it a form of portable reliable cheap artillery that's had a huge influence on conflicts world over it definitely is and furthermore that's not the end of the story because development has continued the latest generation RPG 29 that weapon system was responsible for penetrating three modern mbts one British Challenger two American Abrams are in Iraq so the story of the rocket-propelled grenade has done a long way to go really hope you've enjoyed this Please Subscribe and if you can support us on patreon