TT news agency reported that the Swedish Ministry of Defense Peter Hultqvist saying, Sweden will provide Ukraine with an additional 5,000 Saab AT4 (Pansarskott m/86) disposable anti-tank launcher to Ukraine. In February 2022, Sweden had approved the delivery of military equipment and weapons to Ukraine including 135,000 field rations, 5,000 helmets, 5,000 body shields, and 5,000 anti-tank weapons. That makes for a total of 16.000 AT4 from Sweden and U.S. to help Ukraine stop the aggression. Currently, many European countries as well as Canada and United States have already sent millions of dollars worth of military equipment and weapons to Ukraine, after the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian armed forces.
The AT4 is a Swedish 84 mm (3.31 in) unguided, man-portable, single-shot, disposable, recoilless smoothbore anti-tank weapon built by Saab Bofors Dynamics (previously Bofors Anti-Armour Systems and before that FFV Ordance). Saab has had considerable sales success with the AT4, making it one of the most common light anti-tank weapons in the world. The name AT4 is a word play on the 84 mm caliber of the weapon, (84) ‘eighty four’ being a homophone of ‘A-T-4’. The name also doubles as an alpha-phonetic word play on the weapon’s role due to “AT” being a common military abbreviation for “Anti-Tank”.
The AT4 is intended to give infantry units a means to destroy or disable armoured vehicles and fortifications, although it is generally ineffective against current modern main battle tanks (MBTs), especially those with reactive armour. The name was created for export purposes as the nickname “eighty-four” already was a common English nickname for the Carl Gustaf 8.4cm recoilless rifle after its caliber. The Swedish Army also recognized these improvements and subsequently adopted the Americanized version of the AT4 as the Pansarskott m/86 (Pskott m/86), with the addition of a forward folding hand grip to help steady the AT4 when being aimed and fired.
The AT4 may be considered a disposable, low-cost alternative to a Carl Gustaf 8.4cm recoilless rifle. The AT4 took many of its design features from the Carl Gustaf, which operates on the principle of a recoilless weapon, where the forward inertia of the projectile is balanced by the inertia of propellant gases ejecting from the rear of the barrel. But unlike the Carl Gustaf, which uses a heavier and more expensive steel tube with rifling, the disposable AT4 design greatly reduces manufacturing costs by using a reinforced smoothbore fiberglass outer tube. This lightweight and thin barrel and low pressure, combined with the almost complete lack of recoil.
