This Russian Grenade Launcher Is a Terror on the Battlefield

Warrior Maven Video: The Advanced Multi-Purpose round destroys enemy fighters, tanks, bunkers and concrete walls

By Charlie Gao,The National Interest

The U.S. military’s M203 underbarrel grenade launcher is an iconic weapon. It is commonly seen on rifles from the 1970s forward, it replaced the Vietnam-era M79 stand-alone grenade launcher as the “squad leader’s artillery,” allowing a skilled infantryman to eliminate enemy concentrations and hardpoints without needing to call for fire.

The benefits of such a weapon were not lost on military planners in the Soviet Union. While accounts on when work began differ, the project to develop a grenade launcher meant to be attached to a rifle is generally accepted to have begun in the early to mid-1970s.

The work was assigned to the ЦКИБ СОО design bureau in Tula under the direction of V. N. Telesh, with the Moscow state enterprise ГНПП «Прибор» in Moscow becoming involved later. Tests of the new weapon concluded in 1978, and the weapon was accepted into service as the GP-25 “Костер” (Bonfire), with the GRAU index 6Г15.

The GP-25 initially entered service with only the VOG-25 point-detonating high-explosive round, but in 1979 the VOG-25P airburst round entered service. In Russian service, the GP-25 has been attached to the AKM, AK-74, and AK-74M and continues to be the most common grenade launcher in use today. More advanced launchers like the GP-30 and GP-34 have only been procured in small numbers.

The GP-25 shares many key differences from its American counterpart, the M203. The largest difference is the ammunition, which is caseless and muzzle-loading. This theoretically improves the rate of fire and eliminates the need to deal with shell casings but can prove dangerous to the operator.