Missing Backblast: Difference between revisions
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=== Aversions and Subversions |
=== Aversions and Subversions === |
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== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] == |
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] == |
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* The [[WW 2]] British anti-tank weapon called [[wikipedia:PIAT|the PIAT]] may resemble a rocket launcher, but is actually a spigot mortar that uses a small confined explosive charge in the base of the projectile to propel it from the weapon. This system produced no backblast, but resulted in, you guessed it, SEVERE RECOIL, even with the presence of a large cocking spring to absorb it. |
* The [[WW 2]] British anti-tank weapon called [[wikipedia:PIAT|the PIAT]] may resemble a rocket launcher, but is actually a spigot mortar that uses a small confined explosive charge in the base of the projectile to propel it from the weapon. This system produced no backblast, but resulted in, you guessed it, SEVERE RECOIL, even with the presence of a large cocking spring to absorb it. |
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** And according to Ian Hogg (in his book ''Grenades and Mortars'' from the old Ballantine Illustrated History of WWII/The Violent Century series), if you didn't hold onto the PIAT ''real tight'' when it fired, the recoil that was supposed to re-cock the spigot against its powerful spring would instead (a) knock you flat on your backside and (b) fail to shove the spigot back fast and hard enough to re-cock it- which meant you had to re-arm the PIAT by hand, which was emphatically not fun. |
** And according to Ian Hogg (in his book ''Grenades and Mortars'' from the old Ballantine Illustrated History of WWII/The Violent Century series), if you didn't hold onto the PIAT ''real tight'' when it fired, the recoil that was supposed to re-cock the spigot against its powerful spring would instead (a) knock you flat on your backside and (b) fail to shove the spigot back fast and hard enough to re-cock it- which meant you had to re-arm the PIAT by hand, which was emphatically not fun. |
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*** Not fun is putting it mildly. The spring needed over 100 pounds of force (over 50 |
*** Not fun is putting it mildly. The spring needed over 100 pounds of force (over 50 kg). Many soldiers found it impossible to do solo, and very few could do it while staying behind cover, something important when trying to fight a tank. |
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* Other weapons had different ways of dealing with the backblast problem. The World War One ''Davis Recoilless Gun'', used by British Naval Air Service flying boats to shoot at surfaced U-Boats, had two barrels pointing in opposite directions with a central breech system. One barrel fire a high-explosive shell (at the intended target); the opposite barrel fired a "counter-shot" composed of bird shot and axle grease of the same mass as the shell to provide the recoilless effect. The Davis Gun's manual stated that care had to be taken to avoid ''pointing the counter-shot barrel at any part of the aircraft''; fabric and wood biplanes don't react well to a blast of bird shot at point-blank range (to say nothing of what it would do to a crew-member). |
* Other weapons had different ways of dealing with the backblast problem. The World War One ''Davis Recoilless Gun'', used by British Naval Air Service flying boats to shoot at surfaced U-Boats, had two barrels pointing in opposite directions with a central breech system. One barrel fire a high-explosive shell (at the intended target); the opposite barrel fired a "counter-shot" composed of bird shot and axle grease of the same mass as the shell to provide the recoilless effect. The Davis Gun's manual stated that care had to be taken to avoid ''pointing the counter-shot barrel at any part of the aircraft''; fabric and wood biplanes don't react well to a blast of bird shot at point-blank range (to say nothing of what it would do to a crew-member). |
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* Much later, in the 1980s, the West German ''Bundeswehr'''s ''Armbrust'' ("Crossbow") shoulder-fired anti-tank rocket launcher solved the backblast problem by a method similar to the Davis Gun, except that its "counter-shot" was a mass of plastic chips ejected at much higher velocity than the rocket, which worked otherwise like the Russian RPG-7 (launched by a recoilless charge, then igniting its own solid rocket motor a safe distance from the launcher). The plastic chips mainly came out as plastic ''dust'', very much like the exhaust from a sandblaster, which lost speed and damaging capability after about 1-2 meters of travel. You ''still'' didn't want to stand right behind the ''Armbrust'' when it fired, but it was specifically designed to be fired from inside a building or other "hide" without injuring or killing the crew with backblast in the confined space. |
* Much later, in the 1980s, the West German ''Bundeswehr'''s ''Armbrust'' ("Crossbow") shoulder-fired anti-tank rocket launcher solved the backblast problem by a method similar to the Davis Gun, except that its "counter-shot" was a mass of plastic chips ejected at much higher velocity than the rocket, which worked otherwise like the Russian RPG-7 (launched by a recoilless charge, then igniting its own solid rocket motor a safe distance from the launcher). The plastic chips mainly came out as plastic ''dust'', very much like the exhaust from a sandblaster, which lost speed and damaging capability after about 1-2 meters of travel. You ''still'' didn't want to stand right behind the ''Armbrust'' when it fired, but it was specifically designed to be fired from inside a building or other "hide" without injuring or killing the crew with backblast in the confined space. |
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