Do RPG-7s sound like bottle rockets when launched?

[Silent Bob]

I was watching Blackhawk Down last night and whenever the Somalis would launch a Russian RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade at the Rangers, it would make a sound like a bottle rocket or some other firework being launched. Do they sound like this in real life? Or was this a Hollywood thing.

 

[blades67]

Totally a Hollywood thing.

 

[Mal H]

If it sounded like a bottle rocket in the real world, the RPG would go about 8 inches and plop on the ground. That is, if it could detach from the launcher in the first place.

 

[Intune]

Never seen one fired but I can tell you that if it's anything like the old LAW it's a huge BOOM! and you don't want to be anywhere behind it. Try to shoot one out of a bedroom window like in the movies and you & anything in that room will be dead before the projectile reaches the intended target.

 

[Silent Bob]

Remember the scene in Rambo 2 when Rambo fired the LAW from inside the helicopter? Hee hee. I have heard AT-4s being launched, they are a loud boom! as well.

 

[Sean Smith]

It makes a big boom. Maybe if you reduced the volume by a factor of 1,000 it would sound like a bottle rocket?



One great thing about True Lies was when the idiot terrorists try to fire a shoulder-launched missile from the inside of a truck, and the backblast blows the crap out of everyone inside.

 

[Travis McGee]

True Lies! Great flick!
I love it when Arnold is flying the Harrier and dumps the terrorist onto his sidewinder and says "You're fired!"

 

[Silent Bob]

An article on RPG-7s from Infantry magazine:

http://www.g2mil.com/RPG.htm

 

[Jeff White]

It's a BOOM wait a second or two (depending on range to target) then Boom. First boom is the rocket motor burning. It's burned out by the time the rocket leaves the launcher, second boom is the warhead.

They don't trail nearly as much smoke as they did in BHD. I'll have to watch the DVD again. I thought the sound engineers did a pretty good job of portraying them. I guess I didn't catch the whooshing shound.

Jeff

 

[Sactown]

RPG's shooting look exactly like a bazooka firing. The don't slowly come out the barrel of a bazooka, more like a boom.

 

[telomerase]

>First boom is the rocket motor burning. It's burned out by the time the rocket leaves the launcher,

No, RPGs don't work like that at all. You're describing a bazooka or a LAW. RPGs have a small charge that launches the projectile, then the main rocket motor ignites more than ten meters away. So RPGs can be fired from buildings, unlike LAWs or most recoilless weapons (Armbrust excepted). Reference:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/rpg-7.htm

 

[Mordwyn]

according to a buddy of mine that just retured from Iraq, they sound like a loud WOOOOOOSH!!!!

That beeing the case I guess they sound like a big bottlerocket

 

[Marko Kloos]

An RPG launch sounds like a loud bang. The ignitor charge lights off the main propellant charge, and the warhead on top of the propellant charge goes downrange in a hurry. There's no smoke trail, and you can't follow the warhead as it leisurely streaks down the road like in BHD. It goes a couple hundred feet a second.

 

[telomerase]

>It goes a couple hundred feet a second.

The maximum velocity is about 300 meters per second.

 

[Marko Kloos]

Which is roughly 900 feet per second.

I never could follow a RPG warhead with my eyes like they portray in most war movies. It was always *BANG*, followed by the *BANG* on the target side a fraction of a second later.

 

[Al Thompson]

It'll also knock the wax right out of your ears. Those things are loud!

Mordyn, I've always been close to the RPGs we fired - I wouldn't dought your buddy.

RPGs also tend to self destruct at 600 to 1000 m or so. Interesting trait. I understand that they are also counter-intuitive when shooting in a cross wind - haave to lead the target from a down wind POA as the fins on the back of the rocket turn the rocket into the wind like an arrow.

 

[SodaPop]

Marko- just out of curiosity................where did you get to your experience with RPGs? East Germany left-overs?

 

[Marko Kloos]

Marko- just out of curiosity................where did you get to your experience with RPGs? East Germany left-overs?

Yep. A guy who went to NCO school with me was in ordnance disposal. They had a few happy months in 1990-1991 when they got their hands on much East Bloc equipment for eval and disposal. Never got to fire an RPG-7 myself, but I've seen them shot at inert target hulks quite a bit.

Our own Panzerfaust 1 worked on the same principle as the RPG, and that one I did get to shoot a few times. Same thing...no whoosh, just bang.

 

[SodaPop]

What ever happened to all the East-bloc stuff when Germany reunited? Did everyone trade in their AK for a G3 (and now a G36) or did they hold on to them for awhile?

 

[duckfoot]

Dragons'
At-4s'
smaws'
Laws’
Javelins’
TOWs'

All go BOOM out the launcher

And make can a mess of who ever shoot it

When shoulder launching from the prone make sure that your legs are out to the side or you’re going to lose calves and a heels off your legs, seen the after math of a Spanish marine who forgot this tidbit of info when on a range, not pretty, doc said that he would never walk again.