The Swedish Recoil less Anti-Tank Rifle: Carl Gustaf's pvg m/42

摘要

After a series of tests and minor modifications, the Swedish Armed Forces (Svenska. armen) found the weapon suitable and adopted it in 1942 under the designation Pan- less Anti-Tank Rifle sarvaernsgevaer Modell 1942 or, in short, pvg m/4-2. A two-man team, one operator and one loader, handled the breech-loading, single-shot weapon. The loader swings the tail section of the barrel, which is designed as a nozzle based on the Venturi Principle, to the side. Then he pushes a cartridge in and swings the tail section back in place. The weapon is now ready to fire. The nozzle allows a well-dosed amount of gas pressure to escape to the rear so that there is hardly any recoil. Special ammunition had to be devel- oped for this mode of operation, because a closed cartridge base would not have worked. The case of the 20×180R cartridges therefore has a slightly fragile base with a primer located in the middle. When the round is fired, the gas pressure works in both directions. To the front, it drives the projectile through the barrel. To the rear, when a specific pressure is reached, it blows out two pieces of the base. That way a part of the gas pressure can leave the weapon through the nozzle to provide reactive force and countering recoil. A major disadvantage of recoilless and low-recoil weapons is the loss of gas pressure for propulsion of the projectile. The cartridge case is therefore extremely voluminous and contains a large propellant charge to compensate for the loss of gas pressure.