The latest version of the Carl-Gustaf grenade launcher is designed to combat combat combat vehicles and tanks. It allows to destruct enemy forces and reinforced objects, as well as to illuminate and smoke the battlefield. In Sweden there is an intensive training from the service of Carl-Gustaf M4 with the participation of respective Polish soldiers.
Karlskoga is simply a 27-thousand-year-old town lying 250 km west of Stockholm, which houses the largest arms manufacture centre in Sweden. At its headquarters, Saab Bofors Dynamics, a maker of rocket and anti-tank systems, organized a training (11–22 November), involving respective soldiers of various types of armed forces from Poland, including 3 instructors from the Territorial Defence Training Centre in Toruń.
Training with cognition and handling of the Carl-Gustaf M4 grenade launcher was prepared for military technicians and instructors. Polish soldiers take theoretical and applicable classes. In the first part of the course, they learned about construction, tactical data, and the principles of utilizing an anti-tank grenade launcher. In the second, applicable part of the training, classes are carried out with direct operation of the grenade launcher and with the usage of specialized trainers. According to the CSWOT press officer Lt. Krzysztof Wójcik, the shooting takes place utilizing both training and combat ammunition. – The full is very well organized and planned. In the applicable part we can practice various scenarios. And Carl-Gustaf in the M4 version in my opinion is the best multitasking weapon in his class – 1 of the students evaluates.
– After the training and examination, the territorialists will return to the country, where in the future, as part of the teaching activities of the Training Centre for Territorial Defence Forces, they will conduct classes for further soldiers from various OT brigades from all over the country, says Lieutenant Wójcik. Instructors from CSWOT took part in abroad training many times, e.g. in the USA and the UK. The Centre itself regularly conducts more than 40 different courses, including operators Javelin launcher, a warmate rocket system., sharpshooters or snipers. In 2023, more than 2500 soldiers took part in the CSWOT classes.
Let us remind you that in March of this year the Armed Forces Agency on behalf of the Ministry of Defence ordered from a Swedish maker 6,000 Carl-Gustaf M4 grenade launchers with fresh fire control devices FCD 558 and ammunition of various types (e.g. anti-tank, shrapnel-burning, anti-tank-split, smoke, lighting, training). The value of the contract to be implemented between 2024 and 1927 is about PLN 6.5 billion gross (PLN 12.9 billion net).
Carl-Gustaf is simply a medium-sized 84 mm anti-tank grenade launcher, the first version of which (M1) was created in 1946. In the following decades, Swedish grenade launchers were utilized by soldiers of more than 40 countries – from Argentina to Zambia. The latest version, presented in 2014, features armed forces including the USA, Sweden, Latvia, Estonia, Denmark and Hungary. Carl-Gustaf M4 weighs little than 7 kg and its dimension is 950 mm (M3 – about 10 kg and 1015 mm). Depending on the kind of ammunition, the effective scope of the grenade launcher ranges from 300 to 2100 m.
