In photographs of American soldiers from the 1970s, from time to time, fighters come across who have the M-16 rifle is attached to some strange ball, similar to an ordinary hand grenade, only much more. Obviously, shooting with such a ball on a rifle muzzle is not very convenient. A natural question arises: why is it needed at all, what was it used for?
The ball, hanging on a special bracket on the American M-16 assault rifle and similar to a hand-held fragmentation grenade, is called "Brunswick RAW". This contraption appeared in the 1960s at the suggestion of the US Department of Defense, which was interested in expanding the tactical potential of small arms, along with an increase in the tactical "flexibility" of the infantryman. The project was supervised by the notorious Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, better known as DARPA. What a strange thing, but a grenade-like object - this is a big grenade!
Although the first Brunswick RAW models were designed and shown to the Pentagon back in the mid-1960s, the military became interested in the project only in 1977, when the Vietnam War had already ended. So, what is the Brunswick RAW grenade anyway? Initially, it was a high-explosive fragmentation munition of 140 mm caliber with a grenade mass of 1.36 kg. The mechanics of firing Brunswick RAW was reminiscent of rifle grenade firing from World War I and World War II.
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It was assumed that such grenades could be used for enemy infantry entrenched in fortifications. In addition, a cumulative version of the Brunswick RAW was being developed to counter fortifications and light armored vehicles. The firing range when using a high-explosive charge reached 200 meters. However, despite the best efforts of the DARPA designers, the bizarre system was never put into service.
In continuation of the topic, read about the main Russian machine gun is 60 years old: how it appeared and why it is one of the best in the world.
A source: https://novate.ru/blogs/081221/61503/