Elbonia is needing a universal heavy portable weapon for the infantry. The main contenders are CG M4 and RWG 90. Overall CG seems to be the flavour of the year?

This is one of my favorite topics; we had a great thread on it, now lost to the forums sands of time, "man portable HE systems."

I was initially quite enamored with the Russian RPG and NATO CG 'reloadable' class of launchers due to the superior accuracy / optics. And that is probably the way to go for an Afghanistan like long range COIN.

But now with what we've seen with the Ukraine War, I've come to view the disposable launcher as a better option, especially for a war of national defense. 

-Disposable ensures there is no launcher / ammo separation ie a situation where there are shells on hand but no launcher. This is especially important in a high attrition warfare where the Carl Gustaf guy and his launcher gets destroyed by artillery or lost in no mans land. 

-Disposable allows multiple members of squad to fire HE simultaneously / or stage multiple launchers ready to go to rapidly fire a sequence should first shot miss/fail to disable the vehicle.

-Disposable allows members of the militia or civilian population to be handed a launcher with simple instructions to wage an insurgency. This actually happened at least once in the opening days of the Ukraine war with great effect:

https://www.politico.eu/article/meet-the-grandpa-from-bucha-who-greeted-the-russians-with-his-grenade-launcher/

Early in the morning of February 27, 2022...the residents of Bucha spotted an approaching column of Russian military vehicles. Didkovsky saw the Russians from his two-story brick house on Vokzalna Street.

He was ready for them: A couple of days earlier, he’d persuaded his comrades near the Giraffe department store in Irpin to give him several grenades and an RPG-18 grenade launcher.

“I understood that if they pass our street quickly, they will get to Giraffe, where there were not enough people to meet them — only a few soldiers and civilians. So even if I die, I will be able to at least stop them for a while and let others prepare for a fight.”

He grabbed the RPG and climbed onto his old vehicle trailer parked near his fence, where he lay in wait for a fuel truck to pass.

He fired, just as Ukrainian soldiers had showed him to before Russia’s full-scale invasion. The truck burst into flames, blocking the street for the rest of the Russian military convoy.

....he hid in his neighbor’s outdoor toilet. From there, he called his comrades to pass on the coordinates of the Russian column.

gatnerd said:

I was initially quite enamored with the Russian RPG and NATO CG 'reloadable' class of launchers due to the superior accuracy / optics. And that is probably the way to go for an Afghanistan like long range COIN.

But now with what we've seen with the Ukraine War, I've come to view the disposable launcher as a better option, especially for a war of national defense.

  There is no rule which says you must make a choice to use only one or the other. 

Not a squad leader, assistant squad leader, machine gunner, assistant MG gunner, or grenadier, carry 1 or 2 66mm disposable launchers.

stancrist said:

There is no rule which says you must make a choice to use only one or the other

Certainly in reality, but for the OP vis a vis Elbonia, there was a request for a 'universal' option, which I took to be one or the other. 

gatnerd said:

for the OP vis a vis Elbonia, there was a request for a 'universal' option, which I took to be one or the other.

I can certainly see how you would take it that way.  And considering his mention of RGW 90, it may well be what he meant.

But to my mind, a "universal" weapon is one which can be loaded with different ammo types depending upon the situation.

I do not consider a disposable weapon to be a "universal" option, because the user is stuck with the pre-loaded ammo type.

Plus, the disposable launchers typically have only a few different ammo types, which severely limits their mission capabilities.

stancrist said:

Plus, the disposable launchers typically have only a few different ammo types, which severely limits their mission capabilities.

Yes, for the arbitrary 'universal elbonia requirement' the CG is more versatile as it has the widest variety of projectiles.

In terms of reality, I think versatility favors the disposable launchers as they are not constrained by the 84mm bore of the CG. So an Army (Ukraine, Cyprus, Taiwan, etc) can stock multiple types of disposable launchers based on mission. 

ie

RGW-90: General purpose anti fortification and light vehicle 

PZF-3: Dedicated anti vehicle / anti tank

M72 LAW: Anti personel and insurgent / militia 'handout' weapon 

And as technology evolves they can just switch to buying different disposable launchers (ie a new PZF-4 with better anti tank performance).