Recoilless

Design

Recoilless rifle rounds for breech-loading reloadable systems resemble conventional cased ammunition, using a driving band to engage the rifled gun tube and spin-stabilize the projectile. The casing of a recoilless rifle round is often perforated to vent the propellant gases, which are then directed to the rear by an expansion chamber surrounding the weapon's breech. In the case of single-shot recoilless weapons such as the Panzerfaust or AT4, the device is externally almost identical in design to a single-shot rocket launcher: the key difference is that the launch tube is a gun that launches the projectile using a pre-loaded powder charge, not a hollow tube. Weapons of this type can either encase their projectile inside the disposable gun tube, or mount it on the muzzle: the latter allows the launching of an above-caliber projectile. Like single shot rocket launchers, the need to only survive a single firing means that single-shot recoilless weapons can be made from relatively flimsy and therefore very light materials, such as fiberglass. Recoilless gun launch systems are often used to provide the initial thrust for man-portable weapons firing rocket-powered projectiles: examples include the RPG-7, Panzerfaust 3 and MATADOR.