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57mm "Recoiless" rifle


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I noticed that the Stephen Ambrose mentions a "shoulder fired, 57mm recoiless rifle". Does anyone know anything about it? It seems to me that something like that would, at very least, be tripod mounted and fire "over the shoulder", with the backblast hopefully extending over the prone user.

Does anyone know anything about this? More Ambrose crack smoking? (I noticed that in the afterword of Citizen Soldiers, in the paragraph on typos, he comments on the 88mm-carrying panther, noting that it had a ".75mm" gun. Dang that's a small shell...).

Sage

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Guest Big Time Software

Must be more of the same sort of errors that are apparently all throughout that book (Charles wrote Ambrose a letter even smile.gif). There was no shoulder fired 57mm recoiless. It is, instead, how you pictured it. Just like the post war 106mm, only half as big wink.gif And yes, CM does in fact have the bugger!

Steve

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Guest Big Time Software

Actually, although I cannot prove that Mr. Ambrose does not smoke crack smile.gif I can say with surety that the 57mm recoilless rifle can indeed be fired from the shoulder. In this case it's a lot like a regular bazooka, and has no great advantage over that weapon.

That's why it's much better to put it on a mount, so you get much better accuracy and therefore greater effective range. This is how it was usually used (and is used in CM). Now you've essentially got a bazooka that can be fired accurately out to several hundred meters - and it's still quite light and portable. Not a bad antitank weapon.

BTW, you must have a 2nd edition of that book; mine doesn't have the "typos" paragraph. But the 88mm Panther was one of the errors I wrote to Mr. Ambrose about. biggrin.gif The decimal in front of the 75mm "correction" is not mine, however. wink.gif

Charles

[This message has been edited by Big Time Software (edited 06-09-2000).]

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Um... er... yah! -- the .75mm KwK45 L70! It was the -- uh -- the squeeze-bore high-density round modification! Yah! And, uh, they only built one -- but it was destroyed during a top-secret commando mission because -- erm -- because the Allies got wind of it, and were afraid it would turn the tide of the war! And Ambrose got an exclusive interview with the mission commander! His name was... uh... Sgt Kelly! And he faced down the .75mm armed Panther with just a .45 pistol! In the middle of the street! With only two other members of his team as back-up! Yah, that's the ticket!

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Guest MantaRay

Wasn't the 57mm Recoiless Rifle just an upgrade on the 56mm RR? Bobby Brown, Whitney Houston, Pee Wee Herman, and I were all sitting around one night talking about this very thing. Strange that you would have brought this up. biggrin.gif

Ray

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[This message has been edited by MantaRay (edited 06-09-2000).]

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