M67 Recoilless Rifle

In July 1970, I was on a fire-base serving temporarily as a supply sergeant.  One day I decided to walk around the berm and pose with some of the unusual weapons we used for defense.  This particular weapon is a M67 Recoilless Rifle.

The M67 weighed a little over 37 pounds and was 53 inches long.  The bore size was 90 mm.  As you can see, it could be fired by a soldier standing up.  The Army has a 106 mm version that was far heavier and was usually mounted on a jeep.

A soldier can fire this weapon without being knocked backward by recoil because some of the gases produced when fired push to the rear as well as to the front.  That is why they call the weapon recoilless.  Being recoilless, it could be dangerous to stand directly behind the weapon when fired due to the back-blast.

The flechette round that is standing up in front of me weighed about 7 pounds.  It had a maximum range of about 300 meters.  Flechettes are small steel darts with fins.  When fired from the berm at the enemy, the flechettes dispersed forward in a cone angle of about 8 degrees.  Flechettes were designed to stop and wound the enemy, not necessarily kill them.  Wounding the enemy is better than killing them because it takes more people in the rear to serve those that are wounded versus killed.

Something about getting hit with a blast of flechettes does not sound very appealing.