M60 recoilless gun
The M60 recoilless gun is an 82-mm antitank recoilless gun developed in the former Yugoslavia. It entered service with the Yugoslav People's Army in the 1960s.
Description
The M60 is mounted on a towing carriage with wheels for transport and firing. Aiming is done with an optical sight. Ammunition for the M60 includes two fin-stabilized HEAT rounds. The first HEAT projectile for the M60 had an effective range of 500 meters. The second was an improved version that used a rocket booster to increase the effective range to 1,000 meters.
The maximum range of the piece is 4,500 meters. Direct fire is limited to 1,500 meters against stationary targets and 1,000 meters against moving targets. The M60 is credited with a 220mm penetration of armor with its HEAT round.
Users
Yugoslavia: It was used by the Yugoslav People's Army.
Serbia
Croatia
Republic of Macedonia
Syrian National Coalition: It is being used in the Syrian Civil War.References
Notes
Bibliography
Recoilless rifle
A recoilless rifle (RCLR) or recoilless gun is a type of lightweight tube artillery that is designed to allow some of the propellant gases to escape out the rear of the weapon at the moment of ignition, creating forward thrust that counteracts some of the weapon's recoil. This allows for the elimination of much of the heavy and bulky recoiling mechanisms of a conventional cannon while still enabling the unit to fire a powerful projectile. Besides this, the lower pressures involved allow thinner walled and lighter tubes, lowering further the weight of the cannon. Technically, only devices that use a rifled barrel are recoilless rifles. Smoothbore variants are recoilless guns. This distinction is often lost, and both are often called recoilless rifles.
Though it is similar in form and appearance to a rocket launcher, it fires modified artillery shells, not rockets. The key difference from rocket launchers (whether man-portable or not) is that the projectile of the recoilless rifle has no propulsion of its own—once out of the rifle, it behaves as a normal artillery shell and does not accelerate further, as a missile or rocket would. Nevertheless, there are also boost-after-launch rocket-propelled projectiles available for modern recoilless rifles.
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