The Pallad (also known as the wz. 1974) is a 40 mm Polish underslung

grenade launcher A grenade launcher is a weapon that fires a specially-designed large-caliber projectile, often with an explosive, smoke or gas warhead. Today, the term generally refers to a class of dedicated firearms firing unitary grenade cartridges. The mo ...

, developed for use with the AKM assault-rifle and intended to replace the kbkg wz. 1960 grenade-launcher rifle. The name of the weapon reflects the Polish-language word for

palladium Palladium is a chemical element with the symbol Pd and atomic number 46. It is a rare and lustrous silvery-white metal discovered in 1803 by the English chemist William Hyde Wollaston. He named it after the asteroid Pallas, which was itself ...

. The development of the weapon drew on concepts provided by Józef Brodacki. The wz. 1983 Pallad D, the stand-alone version of the wz. 74, features a stock and AK type pistol grip. There are also variants compatible with 40x46mm NATO named GP-40 (40x46mm version of wz. 74 Pallad) and GS-40 (40x46mm version of wz. 83 Pallad-D).

Users

* – 10 (''5,56mm'' karabinek-granatnik wz. 1974) were given from Poland and in use by Lithuania before 2003 * – ''7,62mm'' karabinek-granatnik wz. 1974 (limited use), ''5,45mm'' karabinek-granatnik wz. 1974 (phased out), ''5,56mm'' karabinek-granatnik wz.1974 and wz. 83 Pallad-D are in use by

Polish Land Forces The Land Forces () are the land forces of the Polish Armed Forces. They currently contain some 62,000 active personnel and form many components of the European Union and NATO deployments around the world. Poland's recorded military history stre ...

References

40×47mm grenade launchers Grenade launchers of Poland Military equipment introduced in the 1970s {{Poland-mil-stub