Scorpion rocket launcher. (This one is legitimately neat. YES, the designers know what backblast is, and the design redirects it to the side and away from the shooter. NO, the launcher is not permanently attached to the M16, it fixes using the bayonet lug and goes on and off just as quickly.)
Huh, yeah that’s actually a neat design. The fact that the back blast now goes in two directions must make that fun (“fun”) to use; at least with a regular shoulder-launched recoilless anything, you only need to make sure there’s nothing or nobody behind you that you don’t mind turning into dogfood and regrets
It was developed as one of many proposed weapons to fill the U.S. Army’s desire for a squad level weapon that could be fired from inside a building, and packed more anti-armor punch than a 40mm.
Think about the time period and planners thinking about how to stop hypothetical hoards of BMPs rolling through West Germany.
This, along with other weapons, weren’t adopted because the Army pivoted doctrine away from focusing on new squad level weapons that could damage IFVs, to larger weapons like the TOW that could take out MBTs. The change in thinking traded lightweight and abundance organically to infantry on the move, for better performance per system.
Scorpion rocket launcher. (This one is legitimately neat. YES, the designers know what backblast is, and the design redirects it to the side and away from the shooter. NO, the launcher is not permanently attached to the M16, it fixes using the bayonet lug and goes on and off just as quickly.)
Huh, yeah that’s actually a neat design. The fact that the back blast now goes in two directions must make that fun (“fun”) to use; at least with a regular shoulder-launched recoilless anything, you only need to make sure there’s nothing or nobody behind you that you don’t mind turning into dogfood and regrets
It was developed as one of many proposed weapons to fill the U.S. Army’s desire for a squad level weapon that could be fired from inside a building, and packed more anti-armor punch than a 40mm.
Think about the time period and planners thinking about how to stop hypothetical hoards of BMPs rolling through West Germany.
This, along with other weapons, weren’t adopted because the Army pivoted doctrine away from focusing on new squad level weapons that could damage IFVs, to larger weapons like the TOW that could take out MBTs. The change in thinking traded lightweight and abundance organically to infantry on the move, for better performance per system.