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Thursday, July 31, 2014

A little about Hamas' RPG-29

Times of Israel reports:
Very little face-to-face fighting is taking place in Gaza. Mimicking the tactics used by Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas heavily relies on two types of weaponry: anti-tank missiles and improvised explosive devices (IEDs). The anti-tank weapon of choice is the Russian shoulder-launched RPG-29, and is used against infantry troops and armored vehicles.
If the RPG-29 is Hamas' main method of targeting IDF troops, what sort of damage does it do if it hits a building?

The Strategy Page says:

The RPG-29 is the most common recent development of the RPG line. It entered production just before the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. It is available through legitimate, or black market, arms dealers and is more expensive than the RPG-7 (which is manufactured by many countries.) RPG-29 launchers cost over $500 each, and the rockets go for about $300 each.
With a ten pound launcher firing a 14.7 pound 105mm rocket, the RPG-29 warhead is designed to get past some forms of reactive armor (ERA). The larger weapon (3.3 feet long when carried out, six feet long when ready to fire and 65 percent heavier than the 85mm RPG-7) is more difficult to carry around and fire, but has an effective range of 500 meters. The warhead can also penetrate five feet of reinforced concrete.


This is amplified bythe World Guns website in Russia:
When used against buildings or entrenchments, the PG-29V can penetrate more than 1,5 meter(5ft) of concrete or brick wall and then cause significant damage to troops beyond the wall.
If this weapon can pulverize 1.5 meters of reinforced concrete, imagine what it can do to civilian houses and buildings in Gaza - and the people inside them - when their walls are probably less than one tenth that thickness.

Oh, sorry, I forgot. Only IDF weapons cause damage and casualties in Gaza. Hamas weapons magically only hit Jews.