What the heck is a recoilless rifle and what is it doing in Afghanistan?
Being a male born into a military family in 1974 Georgia, I grew up with a sack of little green army men. These included the regular ‘talking on the radio man’, ‘officer with a 45 man’, ‘machinegun man’, “rifleman” and the “bazooka man”. Later, in the early 80’s I read Steven King’s The Stand and the entire first part of the act of the novel about a dystopian superflu epidemic spoke liberally about US Army soldiers setting up ‘recoilless rifles’ everywhere and thought to myself, ‘what is this?”
It was then, as an inquisitive youngster that I asked by grandfather, a retired regular Army Master Sergeant what a recoilless rifle was and he reached for my army men, now deeded to my younger brother and tossed the ‘bazooka man’ at me.
‘There you go. Look at the sight, it’s a recoilless, not a bazooka” He then explained the concept of the recoilless rifle further and in more detail. About how they used them in just about every conflict in the twentieth century. About how he remembered Air Bases and LZs in Vietnam where the recoilless was mounted looking down at free fire areas loaded with beehive rounds to shred nighttime surprise attacks with a swarm of mutilating flechette darts.
“But they have all but thrown them away now” he advised. “They went to TOW and its little sorry brother, the Dragon years ago”
Well that was in the 80’s and the M47 Dragon, which never really worked well, is long gone. The TOW is maintained but is being phased out by its own replacement the Javelin. However, the humble old recoilless rifle (not to be confused with the bazooka!) is making a quiet comeback.
The 4th Brigade Combat Team of the 101st Airborne Division’s “Screaming Eagles” fired some 150-rounds through old M67s at the Forward Operating Base Orgun-E range on January 27, 2011. They intend to use the weapon in defensive operations at isolated FOBs in Afghanistan.
If it works, use it