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A grenade launcher is a weapon that fires a specially designed, large caliber projectile, often with an explosive, Smoke screen, or tear gas warhead. Today, the term generally refers to a class of dedicated firing unitary grenade cartridges - for example the widely used 40mm type. The most common type are man-portable, shoulder-fired weapons issued to individuals, although larger crew-served launchers are issued at higher levels of organization by military forces.Stuart Casey-Maslen, Sarah Parker, Gilles Giacca The Arms Trade Treaty: A Commentary, Oxford University Press 2016, p. 115-116
Grenade launchers are produced in the form of standalone weapons (either Single-shot or repeating) or as attachments mounted to a parent firearm, usually a rifle. Larger crew-served automatic grenade launchers such as the Mk 19 are mounted on Weapon mount or vehicles.
Some armored fighting vehicles also mount fixed arrays of short-range, single-shot grenade launchers as a means of defense.
A late example of such a system was the Japanese Type 91 grenade, which could be used as a thrown hand grenade, or fitted with adaptors to either be fired as a rifle grenade or used as a projectile by the Type 89 grenade discharger, a light infantry mortar.
The system has some advantages; since it does not have to fit in a weapon's barrel, the warhead can be made larger and more powerful compared to that of a unitary grenade round, and the rifle's weight and handling characteristics are not affected as with underbarrel systems unless a grenade is actually mounted. While older systems required the soldier to carry a separate adaptor or cup to attach to the rifle to make it ready to launch (such as the German Schiessbecher), later rifle grenades were often designed to attach to the standard factory-mounted flash hider of the parent rifle; for example, the NATO-standardized 22 mm rifle grenade can be mounted to most post-WWII Western military rifles without the need for an adaptor.
The disadvantage of this method is that when soldiers want to launch grenades, they must mount the grenade to the muzzle prior to each shot. If they are surprised by a close-range threat while preparing to fire the grenade, they have to reverse the procedure before they can respond with rifle fire. Due to the lack of a barrel, rifle grenades also tend to be more difficult to fire accurately compared to under-barrel or stand-alone designs.
Prior to the development of lightweight disposable antitank weapons such as the M72 LAW, large rifle grenades such as the ENERGA were the preferred method for allowing infantry who were not part of dedicated antitank teams to engage vehicles. Rifle grenades have largely fallen out of favor since the late 1960s and early 1970s, replaced in most of their traditional roles by dedicated grenade launchers, though a recent resurgence in interest in such devices for special purposes has occurred.
Heavier multi-shot grenade launchers like the ARWEN 37 are used as tear gas and smoke projectors in riot control, while military launchers like the Milkor MGL are used to provide heavy sustained firepower to infantry; most such devices, dating back to the Manville gun, use a revolver-style cylinder, though a handful of pump-action weapons built like oversized shotguns, such as the China Lake grenade launcher and GM-94, also exist. Magazine-fed semi-automatic designs such as the Neopup PAW-20 and XM25 CDTE have also been created for military use, using smaller rounds (respectively 20 and 25mm) for purposes of practicality in terms of the size of the magazine, and reduced collateral damage compared to 40mm rounds.
The arms manufacturer Rheinmetall plans to start serial production of their magazine-fed fully-automatic grenade launcher SSW40 later in 2025.
As with the M79, the concept of mounting a dedicated grenade launcher to a service rifle has its roots in the Special Purpose Individual Weapon program; though the experimental Colt XM148 grenade launcher had been produced earlier, it had proved too problematic to adopt. One AAI submission for SPIW mounted a "simple" single-action, single-shot breech-loading underbarrel grenade launcher in lieu of the required semi-automatic multi-shot device. With refinement, this was adopted as the M203 grenade launcher in 1968.R. Blake Stevens, Edward Clinton Ezell, The SPIW: The Deadliest Weapon that Never was, Collector Grade Publications 1985, p.99 A variety of lengths of M203 are available along with numerous parts kits to fit it to various rifles aside from the AR15 pattern weapons it was designed for.
More modern Western grenade launchers address some of the shortcomings of the M203, such as the sliding breech limiting the weapon's ability to load outsize projectiles and the lack of factory-fitted sight mounts, with designs like FN Herstal's ELGM and Heckler & Koch's AG36 featuring a swing-out breech to provide better access, integral sight mounts, and built-in support for standalone conversion. A variant of the latter weapon, the M320 Grenade Launcher Module, was salvaged from the failed XM8 program and adopted in 2008 as the US military's replacement for the M203. M320 , Globalsecurity.org
Soviet development of an underbarrel launcher for the AK rifle series began in 1966 and in 1978 produced the GP-25, a muzzle-loading device for the AK-74 rifle using a mortar-like grenade round which functions by venting its propellant through holes in the base; this is a variation of the high-low system used by Western rounds, with the base of the projectile acting as the high-pressure chamber and the launcher's barrel acting as the low-pressure chamber. Further developments led to the GP series of grenade launchers.
A number of experimental weapon systems have attempted to produce combination weapons which consist of a permanently attached grenade launcher and a carbine assault rifle, often with the rifle mounted underneath the launcher, most notably the XM29 OICW, XM29 OICW , Globalsecurity.org but so far the only such weapon to reach full production is the S&T Daewoo K11, adopted in limited numbers by the South Korean military.
Automatic grenade launchers generally use a higher-velocity round than infantry weapons; NATO launchers use a 40×53mm grenade round rather than the 40×46mm round used by infantry. There are exceptions to this rule: the crank-operated Mk 18 Mod 0 grenade launcher, a unique example of an AGL which was not fully automatic, and the Mk 20 Mod 0 grenade launcher both used the 40×46mm round, and the Chinese Type 87 grenade launcher, a device intended to be employed like a general-purpose machine gun, uses the same 35×32mm low-velocity grenade round as the QLG91B underbarrel launcher for the QBZ-95 assault rifle.
Lethal rounds are usually fitted with an inertial fuzing system which arms the warhead after it has rotated a set number of times, in order to prevent the user from harming themselves if a grenade encounters a nearby obstruction.
Western launchers are primarily either the 37 mm flare caliber intended for civilian and law enforcement use, or the larger military 40 mm caliber. This is intended to prevent civilian-legal flare projectors being used to fire lethal military ammunition, since lethal rounds are not manufactured in 37mm caliber. The reverse is not true; a full range of less-lethal ammunition is available in 40 mm caliber, and an increasing number of law enforcement launchers not intended for the civilian market are chambered for 40×46mm rounds.A. Hunsicker, Behind the Shield: Anti-Riot Operations Guide, Universal-Publishers 2011, p. 170 in use by a U.S. Army soldier]]Recently militaries have paid great attention to the development of Airburst round with integrated sighting systems, which can be used as point-detonating rounds as normal, or fuzed to detonate in mid-air at a preset distance to engage targets in cover with their fragments. This ammunition was first developed as High Explosive Air Burst (HEAB) as part of the Small Arms Master Plan (SAMP) projects: Joint Services Small Arms Program (JSSAP) , Globalsecurity.org the Objective Individual Combat Weapon (20×28mm and 25×40mm low-velocity) and Advanced Crew Served Weapon (25×59mm high-velocity) projects. The low-velocity round was to have been used by the XM25 CDTE. ATK XM25 “Game-Changer” Semi-Auto 25mm Airburst Grenade Launcher/Individual Airburst Weapon System (IAWS) Goes to Combat: DR Provides the Cool Skinny on this Potentially Revolutionary Infantry Weapon System - DefenseReview Following the failure of the SAMP weapon programs, the United States developed 40 mm grenades incorporating similar technology, including the 40×53mm MK285 Programmable Prefragmented High Explosive/Self-Destructible (PPHE/SD) round for the Mk 47 Striker AGL MK285 40mm High Velocity Ammunition , Globalsecurity.org and more recently the SAGM round for 40×46mm underbarrel launchers, an airburst-only computerized grenade which does not require an integrated sighting system.Eric Kowal, Enhanced grenade lethality: On target even when enemy is concealed , Army.mil, September 4, 2014 Other countries have also produced grenades using similar technology, including South Korea for the S&T Daewoo K11, Australia during the Advanced Individual Combat Weapon program, and China for the ZH-05 grenade launcher module.
A "grenade launcher" or "grenade launcher mount" is usually included in the list of features defining an "assault weapon", though this is a legal definition which primarily affects firearms with flash hiders compatible with rifle grenades, H. R. 4269 Assault Weapons Ban text , "(44) The term ‘grenade launcher or rocket launcher’ means an attachment for use on a firearm that is designed to propel a grenade, rocket, or other similar destructive device." New York Magazine, "What Makes a Gun an Assault Weapon?" "Grenade launcher or rocket launcher: Attachments that allow grenades or rockets to be fired from the muzzle or a separate barrel." since firearms that are designed specifically for launching explosive grenade rounds and their ammunition are already federally restricted as destructive devices. Several state assault weapon bans extend this to include under-barrel 37mm flare launchers on the list of banned features. Maryland CR § 4-301(e) , General Assembly of Maryland
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