The RPG is a shoulder-launched weapon capable of firing various warheads propelled by an ultra quick burning rocket motor. It is a favored weapon of insurgents, and widely available on the international arms markets. The weapon has no high pressures except in the rocket, and can be made inexpensively from stamped sheet metal or diecast aluminum or zinc.

     An RPG launcher fires a rocket out of a tube. The launcher rests on one's shoulder. The rocket is percussion fired with the exhaust exiting the open rear end of the firing tube.

     It is hazardous to stand closer than 50 meters to a shooter's exhaust. The rocket burns out before it leaves the tube. Just as the rocket emerges from the tube, stabilizing fins spring out from the rocket.

     Accuracy limits the standard weapon to a practical range of 50 meters, although it can reach 150 meters in skilled hands. It has an indirect fire (bombardment) range to 900 meters.

     The general purpose grenade is designed for use against medium armor, light bunkers and targets of opportunity. It explodes on impact. It has a conical shaped charge warhead with a (usually) copper fluidic penetrator.

     The case and charge generate moderate amounts of shrapnel and blast. The basic round is moderately effective against troops, buildings, vehicles including Armored Personnel Carriers and aircraft, including helicopters.

     The Soviets (Russians) developed the now classic version of the RPG during WW II, imitating important design features of the US Bazooka and the German Panzerfaust.

     The abbreviation RPG is an interesting example of a cross-cultural designation, since it translates to both English Rocket-Propelled-Grenade and Russian as Raketniy-Protivotankoviy-Granatomet, "a rocket antitank grenade launcher."

28 May 1968 the RPG was the weapon that caused the largest loss of 720th MP Battalion combat casualties in one night, during a Viet Cong ambush. SSG John Herman Wilkens, SP/4 Dennis Rae Mason and PFC Roy William Neal, all of A Company, were killed when two RPG's struck their gun jeep during a night Operation OVERTAKE escort mission.

     The RPG was also used with devastating effectiveness against numerous allied supply convoy, ship, river barge and helicopter ambushes.