Carl Gustaf: Recoilless Rifle | Anti-Tank Chats

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The real secret to it's effectiveness is the pre-firing side hug issued by the loader.

We were learned (Swedish infantry in mid 80's) that the GRG (GRANATGEVÄR) aka. Carl Gustav will continue to be operated until there are no one left in the platoon. Most important weapon for us. Great fun to fire, but a beast to carry.

My training officer in the Swedish army had participated in one of the submarine hunts in the early 1980s. He was posted on a small island in the southeastern archipleago, equipped with a Carl Gustaf, when he saw the conning tower of a submarine break the surface. He had received any ammo yet, and could just watch in frustration when it disappeared. Later, he got some HEAT rounds, and had to be dragged off the island when the hunt was called off. He really wanted to kill a Soviet sub with his Carl Gustaf!

Carried one of these as a reservist in the 80`s. The experience of firing it cannot be described politely.

You know the fun is about to begin when you hear someone call out "Bring up the Carl G" or "Get me the Gustaf"

I trained on the Carl G in the Canadian Army way back in 1982. I think there is the potential for a misunderstanding in this video. As is the case with all shaped charges, penetration is unaffected by range. However as it is a relatively slow projectile, reduced engagement ranges for moving targets is advised for reasons of accuracy.

The marvel of this tool is that it was on its way to becoming obsolete. In the last decade, it made its way back, and now it is in high demand.

A friend of mine was part of a CG crew back in the day. Probably around 1980 or so. He was told his crew had fired the most live rounds of any crew ever. And they were good. Good enough to make a couple of live round firings during a show where the king of Sweden was present. Unfortunately, the gunner had the wrong distance dialed in on his sights, so instead of hitting the target, he hit a fir tree behind the target and cut that tree off. Leaving a five meters high tree trunk. He didn't recognize what the problem was, and fired another shot, hitting the top of the tree trunk. Still not the intended target. The officers told my buddy afterwards that the king, Carl XVI, realized what had happened. And that he was impressed by the precision of the weapon, and the gunner, who managed to hit the top of the tree trunk in his second shot. He, and his weapon, were obviously able to hit the same spot again and again. So he was totally okay with the show.

I was able to get qualified on this weapon while in the Canadian Forces in the 80's. It was a "blast".

In Australian service in the 80s , it was known (unofficially) as the Charlie Guts Ache.

You have to be next to one yourself to truly understand how violent the firing of this weapon is. When you pull the trigger you can feel the air being sucked away. We had a firing drill and the instructor didn't feel like going through returning the spare rounds that we hadn't used so he told us to shoot as many as we wanted. I fired some 8 in rapid succession after which I got a nose bleed. They are better today, but the main draw back was the weight.

I never marveled at the sheer destructive effectiveness of a weapon until I was trained on the gustav. In the hands of an experienced crew, it is the most lethal thing on the battlefield.

I'm disappointed that you didn't mention that a Carl Gustav, operated by a small group of Royal Marine Commandos, severely damaged the Argentinian corvette ARA Guerrico, during the invasion of South Georgia at the start of the Falklands war. There can't be many infantry anti-tank weapons that have severely damaged a warship.

I did an uphill assault through a maize field in germany carrying this thing at its original 14kg weight. By the time i broke cover of the maize i was too jelly legged to make it to the treeline and just faceplanted. Brought a tear to my eye remembering the joy of youth.

I was trained on this weapon in the Swedish army back in 1989, but specialized in its bigger brother the 9cm recoilless cannon. What's said here apply to use within the British army. In Sweden we do it slightly different. The loader doesn't check the rear at the time of loading, but do so when the gunner calls out "skott kommer" (shot coming). Then the loader checks the rear, and if clear calls out "klart bakåt" (clear rearwards). Also the ranges given are not universal. In the '80ies we were taught to fire HEAT at up to 300m on moving targets and 400m on stationary. 25 years later those distances had been halved. (I have no clue why. While training we had no problems hitting the targets.) Smoke and HE rounds could be used at ranges up to >800m.

I was trained on this when I joined the Royal Marines back in 1964! LOTS of fun seeing how accurate it was/is still to this day..

Great weapon. In the Norwegian army we attached them to rucksack frames so that we could carry them easily on our backs.

I love HEAT. And that's not just because I live in Australia. It's a real multipurpose round because the blast effect is also considerable.

In 1976, my (infantry) soldiers fired off a Cav Regiment's entire annual allocation of 'Charlie Swede' Illumination rounds in one night, supporting that Cav Regiment's night firing shoot. The back blast succeeded in excavating a small trench.