davebarrack
patreon
Grrl Power #1301 - This looks like a job for the Riviera Kid!
🕑 Added 2024-11-04 11:00:11 +0000 UTCThank you for the support! You guys are awesome!
There was a time in the era of competitive Quake 3 when I was young enough to have ridiculous reflexes and a DSL line giving me a sub-fifty ping. (Do you younguns still know what ping is? Everyone has broadband these days, and ping doesn't really come up unless you insist on playing on a server on another continent for some reason.) Anyway, my favorite weapon in the game was the railgun. Hitscan for life, baby! The best thing about the combination of hitscan, young person reflexes, and minimal ping was that anytime anyone jumped in Quake 3, they had a predictable trajectory until they landed again. Granted, a jump in Q3 only took you off the ground for like 3/4 of a second, but it was enough. PEW! Or more like a PWEWP! sound.
My point with this is, Peggy waited till the RPG was at the top of that arc, rebounding from the bump in the terrain as the guy tried to bring it back on target. Basically it was in the most predictable spot it would ever be and moving the least it would ever be. I did google "will a grenade explode if you shoot it." I mean, it seems obvious, but I wanted to not rely on every movie ever where someone shoots a grenade. The answer was "maybe?" Basically you have to ignite the explosives in the grenade, and just putting a hole in it or shattering it doesn't guarantee anything. Maybe there's a spark, but probably not. But if you hit the stuff inside the grenade that makes the grenade explode, then the grenade will probably explode. Again, it's not a guarantee. I didn't find any hard numbers, but I came away with the impression it was like a 40-ish percent chance, and maybe higher if the pin has been pulled and chemical things are starting to happen inside the grenade. I also stumbled into the "can you shoot a grenade out of the air" and the answer was basically, sure, if you're a good shot. The issue is what happens if you do that. With a bullet, it's likely to explode, if it's a live grenade, if you hit it with some buckshot, it's less likely to explode. Not that it won't, just there's less chance the exterior gets shredded and something ignites on the inside. Also, the chance of actually knocking it back exactly into to the lap of the person who threw it is best left to the movies. Like, in the history of warfare since hand grenades have existed, it's probably happened at least once, but, yeah. Don't count on it.
RPGs are basically the same as grenades, except they have propellant. That and launching them is what arms them. Though hopefully there's like a one second delay after you fire so you don't do something like accidentally shoot the hood of your truck when it hits a bump and you blow your everything. I assume "better" RPGs do that, and old school RPG7 doesn't have a lot checkboxes that would help them pass and OSHA inspection.
Comments
Gelatinous Cube
Guess I should just change that to "Nuclear Warfare". I mean, really a nuke only has to be relatively close, right? And then there's the whole "nuclear hand grenade" that the military flirted with just to make things extra spicy and double up on the "The Closeness".
akrasia
John Malkovich did that in the film RED. Good, silly fun.
akrasia
I'm pretty sure it counts for tactical nuclear warfare too.
Gelatinous Cube
Close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades (rocket or otherwise), and global thermonuclear warfare.
Brett
Ahh, nice to see a Red Dwarf fan :P
eddi_TBH
Both of them.
eddi_TBH
Even the kinetic darts generate enough heat to cook everything in the tank. Ammo explosions are a bonus.
eddi_TBH
Crush the contacts together like it was a sledge hammer might do the trick.
eddi_TBH
The Russians used them on other anti-tank weapons as well. Cheap and reliable. But not very smart.
eddi_TBH
Bursting at least. If it gets back to the rocket part, then you'll see an explosion you can't miss.
eddi_TBH
If it hadn't hit the grenade, it would have still been another head shot.
Timothy Mayfield
Check out Ballistic High Speed on YouTube. They had a not fun incident with an RPG. Disrupting the launch can cause bad things to happen to the launcher and the person holding it.
Simon Magid
I just want to note here that you are not making me particularly more eager to volunteer for driving Russian tanks. And I was not all that eager for it in the first place. o.o (I have seen some of these videos. They're spectacular but not a big argument for replacing your Abrams with a T-54 or T-55. o.o)
Eric Loken
Yes, it's a shaped directional charge, that doesn't mean you could stand beside it and not be hurt.
Eric Loken
That's what happens when the Russian tanks compete in the Turret Toss, the propellant in the shells in the turret is cooking off. The kinetic kill AP rounds don't have explosive, and the HE rounds are fewer in number and more stable. But the propellant is supposed to combust easily,
Jared Kolbly
They did, and I didn't really like how they did that one. They pointed out that the RPG used wouldn't be armed unless it flew further than it did in the referenced movie and unlikely to explode, so they went straight to having it fly further so it could arm and basically just had it properly detonate mid air which had the directional explosion throw molten metal towards the target. The reference clip showed that when the RPG was shot in the nose midair a rod was pushed out of the back of the RPG while destroying it before it exploded into a fireball, which wouldn't happen if the RPG was armed since it would probably detonate before it got destroyed. I wanted them to try destroying an unarmed RPG in the unique way it was in the referenced movie before deciding it was implausible for it to explode and altering the parameters.
Hugh Eckert
In George MacDonald Frasier's "Quartered Safe Out Here," a trooper almost puts a mortar round nose-in to the tube, which according to Frasier would have detonated it. Dunno what kind of mortar- whatever infantry mortar the British were using in the Burma campaign...
Cha0sniper
Also, if you shoot a grenade and it doesn't explode, you've probably just destroyed the grenade and accomplished your objective anyways lol
Erin Palette
I was about to be That Person, but I figure in a universe where superpowers make physics do weird things, I can accept that an RPG-7 round will explode when shot. (That is, if it really is exploding.)
John
I do believe Mythbusters did an episode of what happens if you shoot a RPG in midair.
Marc Vun Kannon
I was thinking Red, where the 'old man' shot a launched RPG with a revolver right on the nose and detonated it backward on the agent who launched it.
BigKumaDM
I mean its basically a bomb on top of another bomb so yeah, always treat it like its dangerous, im just saying whats in the manuals XD
M Bair
I have seen videos that say rpg7's have a protective cap over the contact fuse that you have to remove manually. And that tripping while running with a loaded rpg7 with this cap removed has been known to be explosive if the warhead hits the ground point first.
Justaguy
If it's still up, "howthingswork.com" was good for stuff like this.
Justaguy
Rpg grenade has an arming distant, usual about 6-12 feet I think, where the rotating of the projectile moves the safety seperator out from betweens two contact points, that allows the grenade to them explode on impact. It is, I guess, possible that fast enough projectile in the other direction could somehow bypass this safety mechanism if at just the right angle?
William Elliott
assuming it was manufactured right or not modified. The common wisdom as I have heard it, is once the warhead is uncapped, its hot. as commented on by Gun Jesus on Forgotten Weapons "Not OSHA approved" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MrwJM1_kw8
Simon Magid
It doesn't look to me like it is exploding. More like it is being effed up by kinetic energy and maybe the propellant going off. If the charge went off, it seems to me that it would definitely make a bigger boom.
Simon Magid
True, but it is worth mentioning that even with directional explosions it only means that *most* of the energy goes into the armor, not *all* of it. I still wouldn't want to watch from close up.
William Elliott
Also depends on who manufactured the warhead and where. The arming system might be buggy [armed in the tube] or non existent [Ivan had too much vodka that day]. Also, the little button on the nose is the detonator initiator for the shaped charge warhead [thats why it has that big warhead with the long pointy nose] so IF its live, and the round sets off the nose fuse, shaped charge warhead goes BOOM before it launches. IIRC there were some mortars that could be slammed to the ground and then thrown like a grenade because the hit would arm the impact fuse.
Kizik Ucalegon
"Old man my ass."
Jared Kolbly
If I remember correctly, I have heard that a common arming method for RPGs is velocity. I think I heard that as they got up to speed the wind resistance on the fins would fully deploy them, thus arming the RPG at a safe distance from the user. Another thing I have heard is that their explosion is usually directional, meant more for piercing armor than doing area damage.
magnumsoldier
I spy a Red Dwarf reference!
Whoriar
An rpg round is usually not armed until it has traveled a set distance from the launcher. (various devices such as inertia or rotary failsafe are common) but hey, taliban don't have access to top tier ammunition and som degree of "made in shed" is to be expected
BigKumaDM
I *really* hate to be that guy but RPG-7s don't arm until after the arming pin at the front has been pulled up and then it has traveled over 5 meters after being fired. This goes for RPG-2sas well. the RPG-23, 29, 30, and 32, have no listed arming distance in their use manuals, however most sources says to assume a 5 meter arming distance on them as well as they are just newer models of the same tech.
Cat Tillinghast
The grenade *might* explode; the propellant will *definitely* explode
Michael Obert
And boom goes the rocket launcher.
Michael Obert
I was gonna a say, John Malkovoch would be proud; Peggy didn't even need to get the Pig
Matthew Dodgen
Mythbusters definitely tested this to a degree, and they determined that if you shoot it before the rpg is armed it will fragment but not explode. Still you never know if you'll get lucky and it will go boom. 😊
Brittany Huckey
RPG7 wouldn't pass OSHA 😅🤣😂
Wings of Genesis
There is a video on Youtube from the guntubers Ballistic High-Speed about the whole process and even accidental catastrophic failure of an RPG and RPG-Launcher and as soon as the RPG pin is pulled it is live (you can adjust the explosion timing)
Steve Ronuken
I'm remembering R.E.D. :D
Serp Auer
Ah Peggy being the source of a mythbusters myth!
