Saab has received orders from the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration (FMV) for deliveries of both the new High Explosive round and Fire Control Device for the recoilless Carl-Gustaf® rifle. The order values are approximately SEK 300 million and SEK 65 million respectively and deliveries will take place during 2022-2023. The ammunition in this order will be used by the Swedish Armed Forces (Försvarsmakten). The new High Explosive round is programmable and can communicate with the new Fire Control Device. This means that the Carl-Gustaf operator will be able to quickly configure a chambered round.
“This order indicates the beginning of the future for Carl-Gustaf. Through our expertise within ground combat weapons and advanced technology, we will, for the first time, enable communication with the ammunition. It gives the Carl-Gustaf operator an effective, but still easy to handle addition, to the already wide portfolio of Carl-Gustaf ammunition,” says Görgen Johansson, head of Saab’s business area Dynamics.
These two additions, in combination with the order for Carl-Gustaf M4 placed in 2019, will mean a significant increase in capability for the Carl-Gustaf system in Sweden. The Carl-Gustaf recoilless rifle, designated in Swedish service as the Granatgevar m/48, (Grg m/48 – “grenade rifle”, model 1948) is an 84-mm man-portable reusable anti-tank weapon originally produced by Carl Gustafs Stads Gevärsfaktori (that later was merged into Saab Bofors Dynamics) in Sweden. In Sweden, it is simply called the grg (gé-er-gé). M2, M3. M4 on order will replace all old M2, M3 between 2020 and 2023.
Improvements to the ammunition have been continual. While the older HEAT rounds are not particularly effective against modern tank armor, the weapon has found new life as a bunker-buster with an HEDP round. In addition, improved HEAT, high explosive (HE), smoke, and illumination (star shell or flare) ammunition is also available. For full effectiveness, illumination rounds have to be fired at a very high angle, creating a danger for the gunner as the backblast from firing can burn him. For this reason, several armies have retired the illumination rounds, while the U.S. Army requires that they be fired from a standing position.
