Comments by "The Immortal" (@theimmortal4718) on "Why China Uses this Massive Sniper Grenade Launcher" video.

We use the Carl Gustaf for this. Can fire HE, HEDP, airburst, rocket assisted rounds, HEAT, smoke, illumination, and incendiary. Way more flexible. We have 2 per platoon. We can kill everything from drones, troops, armored vehicles, and bunkers with it. It's the ultimate Swiss army knife, and the newly issued one is 15 pounds empty. That's half the weight of this weapon
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@m1garandMUSIC I kinda doubt this would do much against armor at all. Id rather drop a four pound shell at long range than this
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@m1garandMUSIC Yeah I get what the intent is, but I doubt it works out well. Even 40x53mm isn't great on even lightly armored vehicles. The hole made by them is tiny and doesn't have much effect if it gets through. The only reason a grenade machine gun would be a threat to light armor is that you can shoot it 20 or 30 times. Grenades also have a huge amount of wind drift and spin drift. They fly off course easily. They don't fly to the target nearly as well as you'd think. Even a bushmaster 25mm has pretty bad drift at 1000 meters, and it's pushing 3X the muzzle velocity of these grenades. The US abandoned this concept for several reasons. Inaccuracy, lack of sufficient effect on target, excessive weapon weight, and expense were the main ones. We have put our efforts into the M3E1 Carl Gustaf for this role, instead. The weapon weighs 1/3 as much, has the aid of computerized sights including a laser range finder, has more economically sound ammo, is more accurate, better range, and hits way harder. It's also more flexible and every light infantry platoon has two in the weapons squad. The Goose can fire HE, HEDP, Airburst, incendiary, HEAT, tandem HEAT, flechette, rocket assisted, smoke, illumination, and even laser guided missiles. Rounds range from 7 to 10 pounds, with effective ranges from 500 meters out to 2500 meters. The Chinese have nothing like it. The HE 448 round is a real monster. You can wipe out a whole squad in the open or in defilade at a km with an airburst. Other rounds can knock out drones, troops, armor (including tanks), and bunkers. Before long, SAAB will also have a loitering munition round with a 10 km range. It's amazing. This Chinese weapon has little utility and doesn't seem worth the weight for what it offers.
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@brandonlevy8680 This 35x32mm grenade does not have a sabot round. It's an HEDP round. It has a copper cone with a fragmentation sleeve. When the fuze detonates, the charge shapes the copper cone into a small penetrator that shoots into the armor. It's not a sabot AP round. You only get that with high velocity autocannons and larger. The 35x32mm round is weaker than the US 40x53mm HV grenade, though it's going faster. It has a smaller warhead. We already know the performance of the 40x53mm HEDP, and it 50mm at 65 meters
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It literally blew up in guys hands....
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Wrong. The weapon parts aren't interchangeable, it was 25mm, and it was cancelled years ago because the round was ineffective
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@WilliamOPearce That's not even close to the truth. The fact is, the US Army and Marines have been steadily upgrading the entire time. We're using everything people would consider high tech, from scout drones, loitering munitions, top attack antitank missiles, the most heavily armored IFVs in use, AI net centric communications and sensor packages, long range Himars, etc. Ukraine isn't the US vs Russia. It's the third most powerful military in the world being stalled by a weak nation with NATO weapons deliveries. The fact that Ukraine has lasted this long against Russia is amazing. It's the equivalent of Steve Erkul lasting 10 rounds in the ring with Mike Tyson. The fact they've gone from having Russians attacking all over their country, to containing them, to striking deep into Russia is quite a development.
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This would do next to nothing against an IFV. Even if it penetrated, the after armor effects would suck and probably be stopped by the spall liner. Then a gunner would grease you with a dozen 25mm HE rounds at 250 rounds per minute
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@brandonlevy8680 None of that is true. An M3E1 Gutaf weighs 15 pounds unloaded, with no sight. This weighs 28 pounds, unloaded with no sight. In other words, the Gutaf with 2 rounds weighs the same as this unloaded. A squad can have as many 84mm rounds as they're willing to carry. Gustafs can fire HE, HEAT, HEDP, airburst programmable HEDP, tandem HEAT, smoke, illumination, flechette rounds, and a laser guided HEAT missile with a 2500 meter range. Rounds can be rocket assisted and come in CS confined space rounds that can be fired from within a room. The Gustaf can also have a computerized FC that can predict flight path to each round, sending environmental and even the temperature of the round in the breech. A Gutaf can easily destroy a whole squad in the open with an airburst 448 round at 1500 meters. Only one shot needed peppers everything within 25 meters with 4000 fragments. All from a round that weighs 6 pounds. The Gutaf is superior in every way, and we have 2 per light infantry platoon.
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@minhducnguyen9276 I seriously doubt this can pose much of a threat towards armored vehicles
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Why would we want this? We're fielding 2 M3E1 Carl Gustafs to every light infantry platoon. The 84mm 448 rocket assisted, confined space HEDP round is a programmable fused round that can be fired for impact or airburst effects. The M3E1 with two rounds weighs less than this thing is unloaded. It also has 3.5 pound warhead vs maybe 1/4 pound for this thing. The Gutaf is better in every way imaginable
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We ditched it because the round was ineffective and the guys were blowing up while guys were holding them
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 @mcarrowtime7095 MK19 is 40x53mm
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@donovanchau3483 As far as I know, penetration has more to do with diameter than length. A 100 mm missile, regardless of length, will have less penetration than a 152mm missile. It's the diameter of the cone or plate that matters. A 40mm grenade would have more penetration than a 35mm, and a 60mm would have more penetration than a 40mm. Energa rifle grenades were 75mm
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We have loitering munitions. No point
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This would do zero damage to an IFV or tank
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@TheOriginalJAX That's the claimed penetration against a solid sheet of RHA, which I doubt, also. Modern IFVs and tanks use spaced laminate armor. Meaning, the round would penetrate the first plate and splash against the second. Something like the Bradley has 2 spaced 1/4" plates and a spall liner. The slug produced by a 35-40mm GL is tiny, about the size of a 9mm bullet. The after armor effects of something like that is abysmal. Tanks have much more armor. Even AT weapons like the 66mm LAW won't kill a tank. There's a reason autocannon gunners use sabot rounds against other IFVs. Small HE and HEDP rounds don't produce enough damage for a kill.
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@TheOriginalJAX I'm not basing anything on hypotheticals. I'm basing my opinion on being a retired infantryman with 24 years of service, half of which was in heavy brigades. We know that the 40x53mm grenade is more powerful than the Chinese 35x32mm grenade. The 40x53 has a maximum penetration of 50mm at 90 degrees. That's under the most ideal conditions. Even if a weapon penetrates armor, it has to DO something after it does. It's called an after armor effect. Small grenades just don't have much. I wouldn't want to fight a tank or IFV with a MK 19 and neither would anyone else with experience. Those are capable of striking a vehicle with a fusillade of rounds in full auto and still wouldn't fo much. Even using a 25mm autocannon that's firing DU sabot rounds at 4500 fps would be suicide. That's why we use TOW missiles. These grenades would have a decent chance of killing or sounding troops, as that's what grenade launchers are designed for, but they straight up suck against armored vehicles. Of course, with a weight unloaded of 28 pounds, and the 23 pound tripod is necessary for long range and auto fire, there's better choices against most targets. The explosives in a 35mm or 40mm grenade are just too small.
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@TheOriginalJAX I AM one of those Bradley gunners. I've spent more than 10 years in a Bradley turret. HE is used for taking out soft skin vehicles and troops. Not armor. It won't do anything to armor, and is a waste of ammo. I DO know what these weapons are capable of. I've used them extensively in multiple tours overseas. All weapons have their limitations, and it's wise to know them well. Cappy was a dismount in a national guard unit for one deployment at the very end of Iraq. Most of his knowledge is from online resources, and he doesn't claim otherwise. I retired as a company 1SG 7 months ago. Even with large HEAT warheads fired from something like the AT4 or RPG, it can take several hits to disable an armored vehicle. Plinking with a tiny grenade will have a negligible effect. You don't just need to hit, you need to penetrate, and then you have to do damage after penetration. The smaller the copper slug entering, the smaller the damage. It's just physics. Big toys take big rounds to kill.
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I know exactly how Bradley gunners choose ammo types, and I know exactly how armor works in these armored vehicles. I've shot dozens of gunneries and fought in combat with them. I've also led mixed armored infantry companies with M1 Abrahs tanks in our formations. What do you want to know? I can answer any questions you have
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@TheOriginalJAX How would someone go about "demonstrate circumstances in which it would fail"? I can tell you that wind drift and spin drift exist. Anyone who has shot grenade launchers and HE from a autocannon will tell you this. Spin drift will carry the round off of target, and grenades like this are heavy influenced by wind. It's the reason we shoot these in bursts at range- they become area weapons with a beaten zone. I've already told you about the limited effect of small warheads on targets. The penetrating on armor is minimal, in reality, and the kill radius in the open is very small. Much smaller than a hand grenade, for example. The electronics needed to make the programmable airburst rounds function aren't nearly as inexpensive as you would imagine. We did a cost analysis and surmised that it would be more efficient to use that tech in a larger round with a much matter explosive, as in the Carl Gutaf. That fires an airburst round with a much higher yield that can cause casualties to an entire squad in a weapon that is much more flexible and is also lighter. The Chinese have failed to produce an accurate sniper rifle appropriate for infantry use. This is their solution to the accuracy problem. They also have failed at fielding a true smart weapon like the M3E1 Carl Gutaf. That's the US equivalent to this technology, and were fielding 6 to every US Army light infantry company. I truly don't understand why so many people are enamored with thus weapon. It's an enormously heavy weapon for what it does, and if I had to choose a heavy support weapon to accompany on a patrol, this wouldn't be it.
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@TheOriginalJAX I have made entirely structured arguments, including examples. I've done everything but draw you schematics. Instead of saying "IFV and tank armor is thin", I have you actual dimensions and a detailed description of how that armor is composed. I can tell you anything you want to know about the capabilities of these systems, but you haven't even asked a question. The truth is, civilians watch these videos about military weapons and jump to the conclusion that this or that weapon is amazing or garbage based on what they heard on the internet. When guys who've had to fight in combat tell the realities on the ground, they bristle. Many people use the example of Ukraine as proof that a weapon like this would be useful. Where would it be useful, where other weapons would be less appropriate to carry? If you're ambushing armor, you want dedicated anti armor weapons, including drones. If you're reacting to contact against troops, belt fed machine guns are your best option, as they saturate the kill zone with much denser fire. Bunkers are best engaged with anti structural munitions with tandem warheads. If your sniping at long range, you want a weapon that is capable of 1 moa and isn't highly effected by wind and bullet drop. Rather than trying to look for a scenario in which this weapon would fail, it would be more useful to come up with a scenario in which this would succeed where another weapon would fail. Are there any that come to mind?
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The Gustaf already can, with a warhead 10 times the size
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I've always wondered what a 40x53mm insert for the M4 Carl Gutaf would look like. Something that would function in the Goose like a submunition training round but fire grenades. It could have the same 16 inch barrel length as the MK19, a built in suppressor to control flash and sound, and fire MK19 rounds with the aid of the Goose's sights. It would have the same 750 fps muzzle velocity and 1000-1500 meter point target effective range. A goose team could carry a couple of dozen 40mm rounds in addition to the full powered 84mm rounds and function similarly to this
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@znail4675 No, thats the training submunition for the Gutaf. It also has a 7.62 submunition. The predecessor the Gutaf for the Marines is the 83mm SMAW, and in the US army they mostly used disposable 66mm LAWS and 84mm AT4 for decades. The prior man portable 90mm was the recoilless before the Gustaf. We've never had a 20mm HE round that's not shot from an automatic cannon
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@znail4675 The US has been using the Gustaf in SOF and the Rangers for the past 35 years. I used one in Afghanistan back in 2010 with the 101st. It doesn't matter who produces it. The point is that the US has invested in getting 2 M3E1's into every weapons squad in the army and 3 in every marine weapons platoon. The Goose is not fairly new to the US
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No. It's just too small to be effective, was hundreds of dollars per shot, and blew up in a soldiers hands. It was garbage
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We have the Gustaf. It's a smart weapon that has a 3.5 pound warhead.
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Not really. It's backwards thinking
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@WilliamOPearce None of that had ANYTHING to do with what I'm talking about. The history of the conflict is irrelevant. Are you replying to someone else? I said that this is a David and Goliath situation, and Russia is experiencing strikes on their own soil. As long as Ukraine continues to fight, Russia hasn't won anything. In fact, they've just put more Russians in danger by the fighting expanding into Russian soil, and every bit of the occupied territory is getting hit constantly. They're even getting Capitol ships in the black sea fleet sunk
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Less weight? It's 28 pounds, unloaded. Each grenade is half a pound. With a tripod, it's 51 pounds I wouldn't call that light
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The 84mm 448 round is rocket assisted, programmable fused for impact or airburst, and has an effective range of 1500 meters Saab is also working on a Gutaf launched loitering drone with the same fuse and a 10 km range. Both can be used to kill troops in the open, knock out bunkers and lightly armored vehicles and drones. They will also offer the loitering munition with a 3 pound HEAT warhead for top attack on vulnerable tank top armor
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It's called an RWS mounted MK19. We've been using them for a loooong time
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SAAB just uses the tech for the 84mm 448 round. An explosion 8 times the size out of a weapon that is half the weight....
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It's 51 pounds with the tripod. Ammo is 2 per pound
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Where do people get this nonsense from? That's not true at all
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 @hughmungus2760 A Bradley would laugh at you
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@hughmungus2760 Every Brad in Iraq carried ERA. The armor is spaced laminate. It's two 1/4 inch steel plates separated by an inch. Added to the sides is another 1/4 steel plate with a 3 inch space for affixing ERA. That's three 1/4 steel plates along with foam rubber, and a kevlar spall liner on the inside before this round can get through. It would stand no chance after the first plate and would splash against the second It can take high velocity 14.5mm AP rounds on all sides, and 30mm AP on the front. These rounds would splash off a Bradley and do no damage
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@hughmungus2760 A Gustaf has a ffv751 tandem HEAT round that can penetrate 24 inches of armor at 500 meters. The HEAT-RAP 551 can hit an armored vehicle at 1000 meters and penetrated 20 inches of RHA. They also have the HE448-RAP is a programmable round with airburst and an effective range of 1500 meters
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@hughmungus2760 That's the bog standard old M2A2 ODS Bradley we've been using for decades, not even the A3
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 @seanforsythe78 Also really small round that you practically have to hit a guy with to do any damage. Completely underwriting. Meanwhile, a Gustaf can kill a whole squad from 1km away
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@seanforsythe78 There's just too many other solutions. A FPV drone for a few hundred dollars, for instance. The weight of this gun is 28 pounds, and each round is a pound. The tripod is necessary for anything long range, and that's a 23 pound monstrosity. The total package with 40 rounds is about 90 pounds. Or you could fire a 6 pound loitering munition like the switchblade 300 that can do the same thing at 6 miles without giving away your position
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@seanforsythe78 That's because it doesn't have a clear purpose in modern warfare
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Nah. The 25mm round was completely ineffective. Instead, the US decided to invest in the 84m MAAWS. Better range, more flexible, and can airburst a target with 4200 pieces of buckshot sized balls with 1 lb of explosive. Same technology with a much bigger package. We have two Gustafs per infantry platoon.
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Lol. Yeah, right. This wouldn't do anything to a Bradley. Even the PG7 RPG struggles to kill a Brad. This wouldn't do a thing, and then you'd get a face full of 25mm HE after the gunner sees you in his thermal sight
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