Early RPG

As aircraft guns. They weren't tested in other roles until well after he was sentenced and even then only a few.

Irrelevant: the point is that if you don't shoot him, his work can continue and potentially come up with something comparable to the Bazooka or Faust. He already had ideas and even examples of handheld, towed, and self-propelled recoilless weapons and would have four years before the war began and another four during it. Plenty of time for his development to progress to the point of a working weapon.
 
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As aircraft guns. They weren't tested in other roles until well after he was sentenced and even then only a few.

Kurchevsky was imprisoned twice, and after his first sentence was completed and he received a high-ranking research position he developed prototypes for recoilless weapons from 37mm infantry AT weapons to 420mm naval guns :rolleyes:

1303585377_motocikletnaya-pushka-kurchevskogo-na-ispytaniyah.-1935-god.jpeg


biography_kurchevskiy_photo_04_big.jpg
 
And as ObsessedNuker pointed out, the test programs were scrapped during the Purges after the arrest of Kurchevsky, and no one in the Soviet weapons industry really dared to propose further research on recoilless rifles until the end of WW2.
 
Goddards original 1917 weapon was for other targets. It came out a desire for a lighter and cheaper weapon to use instead of the French 37mm infantry support gun. The war head of Goddards prototypes was the standard US rifle grenade with a small rocket motor substituted for the bullet trap.

Looks to me rather like he would have ended up wit a Stalin Organ rather then a bazooka then.
 
Looks to me rather like he would have ended up wit a Stalin Organ rather then a bazooka then.
A rifle grenade with a rocket motor is practically the specification for the bazooka. Scale of issue for the 37mm in the US Army was three guns per regiment - not huge by today's standards, but comparable to that for 3-inch mortars. It's definitely a line of thinking that could lead to a bazooka-type weapon.
 
Short-ranged high-caliber solid shot or HE is a total non-starter?:eek:

How about for bunker-busting? (I'm doubting the trench stalemate makes that really useful, either.:eek:)

This is what was used for short range HE lobbing
640px-Canadian_trench_mortar_battery_after_Battle_of_Hill_70_1917_LAC_3522764.jpg



Not too portable, the 2" 'Toffe Apple' mortar

weighed about 100 pounds, the bomb 50 pounds(12 pounds HE filling) out to 500 yards.

An RPG 7 in lobbing mode is also out to 500 yards or so.

It's 15 pounds, with a 5 to 10 pound warhead, with about half the weight in explosive.
 
In WWI, a Panzerfaust or bazooka, even if readily available would not be useful to any of the combatants until the other side had enough tanks to shoot them at.
It might have been useful to destroy machine gun positions and similar obstacles, using HE or HEFrag warheads. Similar to the 37mm infantry gun.

Anyone else see the title and think this was about role playing games? Cuz I've often wondered why they weren't developed earlier.
Yep. :D
 
This is what was used for short range HE lobbing
640px-Canadian_trench_mortar_battery_after_Battle_of_Hill_70_1917_LAC_3522764.jpg



Not too portable, the 2" 'Toffe Apple' mortar

weighed about 100 pounds, the bomb 50 pounds(12 pounds HE filling) out to 500 yards.

An RPG 7 in lobbing mode is also out to 500 yards or so.

It's 15 pounds, with a 5 to 10 pound warhead, with about half the weight in explosive.

Sounds like the Knee mortar already had this covered ;)
 
Sounds like the Knee mortar already had this covered ;)
No, the 2" heavy mortar, not the 2" light mortar.

The 2" heavy was a funny animal - those things looking like giant baby's rattles in the photo are the shells. Short range, but a bloody big bang.
 
marathag said:
This is what was used for short range HE lobbing
640px-Canadian_trench_mortar_battery_after_Battle_of_Hill_70_1917_LAC_3522764.jpg



Not too portable, the 2" 'Toffe Apple' mortar

weighed about 100 pounds, the bomb 50 pounds(12 pounds HE filling) out to 500 yards.

An RPG 7 in lobbing mode is also out to 500 yards or so.

It's 15 pounds, with a 5 to 10 pound warhead, with about half the weight in explosive.
Somehow, I'm picturing those same shells with rocket motors in their tails.:cool: And being deployed at squad or platoon level.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Carl Schwamberger
Goddards original 1917 weapon was for other targets. It came out a desire for a lighter and cheaper weapon to use instead of the French 37mm infantry support gun. The war head of Goddards prototypes was the standard US rifle grenade with a small rocket motor substituted for the bullet trap.


Looks to me rather like he would have ended up wit a Stalin Organ rather then a bazooka then.

There were some other rocket weapon projects on Goddards desk in 1918-19, but I've not seen any useful descriptions. He was working directly with the Army Ordnance Dept & I suspect most of the documents remained with the Army when the program was defunded early 1919.

A rifle grenade with a rocket motor is practically the specification for the bazooka. Scale of issue for the 37mm in the US Army was three guns per regiment - not huge by today's standards, but comparable to that for 3-inch mortars. It's definitely a line of thinking that could lead to a bazooka-type weapon.

Its not clear, but the descriptions of the US Army Bazooka development looks like they were using Goddards prototype as their starting point. The AP warhead of the Bazooka is suposed to have been adapted directly from the AP version of the US rifle grenade.
 
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