Matador grenade launcher: As the Israeli-Singapore-German weapon found itself in the Armed Forces, and what its advantage is

The focus understood when they began to produce a grenade launcher, how it is used in Ukraine and what its characteristics. Matador is a 90mm one-time grenade launcher that is designed to defeat the enemy armored vehicles and fortifications. The development began in the 1990s to replace outdated Armbust in the Singapore army, which were developed in Western Germany in the 1970s.

The peculiarity of Matador is that after many conflicts in the world, the developers have come to the conclusion that not only the destruction of armored vehicles but also various structures is not less important for a grenade launcher. The development of a new grenade launcher was answered by STK, Dynamit Nobel Defense (DND) and Rafale. The latter joined the works later because interest in the Army of Defense of Israel appeared.

Produces DND grenade launchers called Matador, RGW 90 or Panzerfaust 90. Since 2004, DND belongs to Israeli Rafale. Visually, Matador inherited the design of his predecessor ARMBurst, but it was not easy. The novelty received a long start -up pipe, octagonal shock absorbers around the muzzle and Venturi pipe. The product is made of reinforced fiberglass with polymer and foam shock absorbers. The optical sight is attached to the weapon with the usual picatin rail.

Thanks to the materials, the grenade launcher came out quite light, its weight is about 8 kg. The HH Matador grenade launcher has several options for the combat part: Heat is designed to destroy tanks and Hesh for fortifications or lightweight equipment. The effective range of Matador firing ranges from 20 to 500 meters.

The cumulative grenade is able to break up to 500 millimeters of homogeneous armor, and the armor-piercing-fugitive charge makes a hole in a concrete wall with a diameter of 45 centimeters. In addition, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems has created several more variants of grenade launchers themselves: since the start of the full -scale war, Ukraine has purchased about 2,900 disposable grenade launchers, more than 6400 by Germany and the Netherlands.

Therefore, there were about 9,300 grenade launchers in the Armed Forces. They are used on all lines of the front, Ukrainian defenders destroyed Russian armored vehicles with Matador even in Mariupol. Probably, weapons were delivered to the surrounded city thanks to GUR operations with helicopters who flew to the city. Thanks to your design, you can use a grenade launcher from closed rooms.

However, it is dangerous to be behind the grenade launcher operator, and it is necessary to move to a distance of at least 2 meters. Defense forces have repeatedly destroyed Russian tanks, BMPs and APCs. On YouTube channel "Guys from the forest" made a survey on the Matador grenade launcher, which told the features of the product. Among other things, they said that sometimes a dynamic tank protection can stop the Matador grenade. But the product itself is quite easy to shoot.