One of the most iconic weapons of war ever made arose from Soviet experiences in World
War II, when Red Army infantry had no answer to invading German panzers.
Simple and effective, the broomlike RPG-7 became one of the most effective antitank
weapons of the postwar period.
Widely exported, the "RPG" became a symbol of revolution and terror, fielded by armies
and guerrillas from Berlin to Phnom Penh.
The Soviet Union in World War II had a serious problem: It had no effective handheld antitank
weapon for its infantry.
The Soviet Army had hundreds of infantry divisions fielding as many as a million infantrymen
at any one time, but individual grunts had little to defend themselves with from German
armor such as the Panzerkampfwagen II and III.
The development of shaped-charge antitank weapons dramatically improved the infantry's
odds of stopping an armored attack.
The principle of the shaped charge was first demonstrated by Charles Munroe, a professor
at the US Naval Academy, in 1888.
A cone-shaped cavity is placed against a slab of metal, or tank armor, and an explosive
charge is detonated behind it.
The cavity channels the force of the explosion through the cone to the tip.
This enables a shaped-charge warhead to penetrate armor up to seven times the diameter of the
charge.
Shaped charges developed for military use became known as high-explosive antitank (HEAT)
warheads.
The great advantage of HEAT warheads was that unlike traditional armor piercing antitank
rounds, they did not rely upon projectile velocity and density to penetrate armor.
A HEAT charge lobbed at a tank by hand had the same effectiveness as one fired from a
high-velocity tank gun.
The German Army was the first to field an effective, man-portable antitank weapon, the
Panzerfaust.
The Panzerfaust was basically a stick with a shaped-charge warhead launched by a black-powder
explosion, and yet early versions could penetrate up to 140 mm of armor.
The final version, the Panzerfaust 250, featured a reloadable launch tube and a pistol grip.
The Soviets took the Panzerfaust 250 and developed their own version, the Ruchnoy Protivotankovyy
Granatomet-2, or RPG-2.
Commonly mistranslated as "rocket-propelled grenade," it actually means "handheld antitank
grenade launcher."
The RPG-2 entered service with the Soviet Army in 1949.
Rocket-propelled, it had a range of 150 meters and could penetrate 180 mm of armor.
This made it possible for the rawest of recruits from the motherland to destroy the latest
NATO tanks, including the American M26 Pershing and British Centurion, with ease.
The RPG-2 was widely exported abroad and armed both North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong units
during the Vietnam War.
The RPG-2 was followed up by an improved version, the RPG-7, in 1961.
The RPG-7 had a slightly better range: 200 meters vs. 150 meters.
Unlike the RPG-2, which had simple iron sights, the new version had the PGO-7 telescopic sight,
which had 2.8× magnification, an illuminated reticle, and a sight reticle to assist in
ranging and aiming at moving targets.
A cone-shaped blast deflector was added to the rear of the launch tube and a foregrip
was added for increased stability.
The PG-7 HEAT round could now penetrate 260 mm of tank armor, increased to 300 mm with
the improved PG-7M warhead.
The RPG-7 enhanced the portable antitank weapon concept in other ways.
The RPG-7D, designed for paratroopers, broke down into two pieces to make it easier to
air transport.
New grenades included the OG-7 high-explosive round, useful for unarmored targets and enemy
infantry.
The advent of so-called explosive reactive armor, which uses boxes of explosives reduce
the effectiveness of HEAT rounds, caused the Soviets to develop the PG-7R tandem HEAT round.
The longer, bulkier grenade featured not one but two explosive charges, the first to neutralize
reactive armor and the second to detonate against the armored vehicle itself.
The RPG-7 was issued at the squad level in the Soviet Army and the rest of the Warsaw
Pact nations, meaning every squad of six to nine infantry had one dedicated RPG gunner
and his assistant.
This meant that a Warsaw Pact infantry company could mass up to nine RPGs to defend its sector
at close range, in addition to antitank guided missiles.
Thanks the Soviet Union's generous support of guerrillas and revolutionary movements
worldwide, RPGs were also used in Central America, Southeast Asia, conflicts throughout
Africa and the Middle East.
RPGs were even used by the German Red Army Faction in an attempt to assassinate an American
general and by the Irish Republican Army against the British Army in Northern Ireland.
In 1993, the RPG-7 was used to shoot down Super 64, a Black Hawk helicopter operated
by the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, triggering the now-infamous Battle of Mogadishu.
One of the most famous users of the RPG was the original Afghan mujahideen, who used them
in great numbers against Soviet occupation forces from 1980 to 1988.
Even now, nearly 60 years after its invention, the RPG continues to see service worldwide.
RPGs were a persistent threat in the Iraq War, first arming the Iraqi Army and then
anti-government and anti-Coalition forces.
Following in the footsteps of the mujahideen, the Taliban field the RPG in prodigious numbers;
as author Gordon Rottman has pointed out, seven out of eight US Army helicopters shot
down in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2009 were downed with RPGs.
RPGs are active with Hamas and Hezbollah, can be found among nearly all sides in the
Syrian Civil War and are used by fighters loyal to the Islamic State.
The RPG-7 was replaced by a further improved model, the RPG-16, in the 1970s.
The most recent RPG, the RPG-29, was adopted in the waning days of the Soviet Union in
1991 and is in frontline service with Russian Ground Forces today.
The RPG-29's standard antitank round is a tandem warhead HEAT round, with thermobaric
fuel-air warheads available for use against bunkers and fortifications.
The RPG-29 has achieved penetration against modern Western tanks in three incidents, all
in Iraq, against Abrams tanks (twice) and a Challenger 2 tank.
Soviet experiences in World War II made effective antitank weapons an imperative at all levels,
all the way down to the infantry squad.
While many of the Soviet Union's and later Russia's weapons were a generation behind
their Western counterparts, that was certainly not the case in handheld antitank weapons.
As tensions between the United States, NATO and Russia increase, it planners should keep
in mind that even Russian light infantry can be extremely dangerous to armor.