90mm recoilless

[covan]

The Carl Gustav did not come into the Army inventory until after 1990. I agree with SS that firing an illumination round for any effect with this launcher would be a disaster for the gunner.

The AT4 wasn't adopted until about 2003.

[A.B]

Covan!

I certainly can understand why we never saw the illumination-ammunition, as just as "SS" and you yourself wrote, it is...."somewhat hazardous" for the one disscharging the weapon. Also, Thank You for informing me, regarding when US Armed Forces took in the Carl Gustav reciolless weapon. I thought that it was used to a very limited degree, by "unconventional units" of US Armed Forces, during the late 1960s and early 1970s, but was not certain. I do however know that the M/45 submachinegun was used during this time, though to a very small degree, by US Armed Forces "unconventional warfare units". Then generally referred to as the "Swedish K". Very reliable weapon, as far as functionality is concerned. At least that is my own personal experience of the M/45 submachinegun.

Regarding the AT4.... Thank You for informing me of when it was that the US Armed Forces adopted the weapon. This was something I did not know. SwArmy begun to introduce it more widely to our/"my" Defense Forces, beginning by the year of 1987, which was the year I first came in contact with it personally. Some years later, there came a yet new "prototype" of it, called "M/95", which was developed to be strong enough to penetrate tank-armor by "frontal shot". But the project was later abandoned however, and I have not heard anything about it being re-initiated again, since then. Instead, it transformed so to say, in to the "MBT-LAW", which instead is a "missile"-system so to say. But that happened well after I had left active service.

T G C!

Sincerely
A.B

[covan]

A.B.,

Ah, the Swedish K. My Senior Advisor in Vietnam carried one everytime he was flying. It was his favorite weapon. He was quite unconventional and also carried a Browning as his personal sidearm.

As you can probably imagine, he had trouble enforcing an "unauthorized weapons" policy on the team. The "unauthorized weapons" all magically disappeared when we had an IG inspection.

[covan]

A.B.,

Did some further research and found that the Army signed a contract with Honeywell, Inc. to produce AT4's onshore in fiscal year 1998. First delivery from onshore production was in 1989.

It was the confined space AT4CS that was not adopted until 2003.

Sorry for the inaccuracy.

[covan]

A.B.,
Correct that to say fiscal year 1988.

Losing it today .

[A.B]

Covan, Sir!

Strikes me as that your senior advisor was a quite "practical oriented" kind of officer, and pragmatic regarding "on the jobb" versus "when the brass lurks around to inspect shoeshine and other things...".

A little "trivia" however, regarding the M/45 submachinegun. The modell known as "Swedish K", is actually more precisely either "M/45B" or "M/45C". There was some modifications to the "A"-version which prooved to be neccessary. You can see a rather extensive information regarding the "Swedish K", by link:

http://www.gotavapen.se/gota/artikla...t/swede_45.htm

When I did my mandatory part of my service, we were picked out to "play russkies" at an exercise. Our Captain was also a rather "unconventional minded fellow" (and notorious amongst his fellow officers for his ability to perform practical jokes against them), and he ordered us to "sideways insert" 1 extra recoil-spring in to the one already belonging to the weapon. So by this, there were "2 layers" so to say, of recoil-spring in each of our M/45's. When standing at a distans, the sound from when fireing the M/45, was almost indistinguishable from if instead being a 7,62mm beltfed machinegun. The firerate was quite interresting, to say the least. Only problem however was that, at times, the springs did not allow the "pin-box" (I do not know the English word for this part of the weapon) to go far back enough after having fired 1 round, to hok up in locked position. As a result, when pulling the trigger once, the whole magazine was emptyed at once, even if letting go of the trigger. But as we had A Lot of "blank ammo" with us, it was not a "logistical problem" for us though... Those 10 day were actually quite fun! We almost scared the you know what out of the ones we "jumped". 1 such "station" was actually manned by female "contractee-reservists", and we were of course a little "nicer" when we attacked them. (Secretly hoping for that they would take us prisoners. Saw several of them, and quite a few were very good looking! You know, typically "Swedish blonds"...).

Rambling service-memories now I realise.... Best end here. T G C!

Sincerely
A.B

[covan]

A.B.,

Thanks for the story. That was good. How many rounds were in your magazine?

I'm thinking that the part you may be speaking about would be called the "sear" in English. But I may be wrong in my nomenclature.

[A.B]

Covan, Sir!

The magazines for the M/45B-C contains 36 rounds. On that exercise, we taped 2 magazines together side by side, which made changing magazine when the 1st was empty, done rapidly. Even with those 2 full magazines with 9mm ammunition to the weapon, the weight is yet still "nothing really", compared to for example doing the same with an AK assaultrifle by for example 7,62 mm caliber ammunition. Well, depends on which AK one has of course, but the AK-4 we used, was the Heckler & Koch's "G3"-model. Later on, the AK-5 was introduced. Saw the first ones of those, while I was down at 6th Air Wing, in summer of 1987.

T G C!

Sincerely
A.B

[SuperScout]

Yah, sur, on der linguistics thing! Ve haf a bunch of dem Scanahoovians over her in Texas. My favorite recollection of them was from my old church, whose ladies sent us cans and cans of baked cookies. But that's another story.

Seems I recall my son, the Ranger, telling me that he was armed with a Gustav during "Operation Just Cause," that eliminated Manuel Noreiga from power in Panama.