M40 recoilless rifle

Uncommon card · No. 113756

The M40 recoilless rifle is a portable, crew-served 105 mm recoilless rifle made in the United States. Intended primarily as an anti-tank weapon, it could also be employed in an antipersonnel role with the use of an antipersonnel-tracer flechette round. The bore was commonly described as being 106 mm caliber but is in fact 105 mm; the 106 mm designation was intended to prevent confusion with incompatible 105 mm ammunition from the failed M27. The air-cooled, breech-loaded, single-shot rifle fired fixed ammunition and was used primarily from a wheeled ground mount or M92 ground mount. It was designed for direct firing only, and sighting equipment for this purpose was furnished with each weapon, including an affixed M8C .50 cal spotting rifle. 297 M50 "Ontos" were built as self-propelled light armored tracked anti-tank vehicles. They had six 105 mm M40 recoilless rifles as their main armament, which could be fired in rapid succession against a single target to guarantee a kill. The M40...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Rhk111, CC BY-SA 4.0