The Rocket Propelled Grenade - Gordon L. Rottman

One of the freebie Osprey's from the past Covid 19 lockdown, this book details the RPG weapon and it's 6 decades of development.

Created as a defense for infantry against tanks, this is one of the most common "support weapons" of recent warfare.

Lightwieght, rather compact, inexpensive, ease to build and maintain... all these factor in to the weapon's popularity, and it is used by armies, militia, insurgents... and not only against tanks or AFV's.  Personnel, fortifications, ships, aircraft... all have been shot at with these weapons, and this Osprey takes a deeper look at how it came about.

It is actually a recoilles weapon, and the RPG term as we know in english is rather misstranslated from the original cyrillic designation of hand antitank grenade launcher.  The nowadays weapon was first tested in 1954 and developped from there, though it's historical ancestor was the WW2 German Panzerfaust.

The book takes a look at how AT guns and rifles from WW2 slowly changed form and way of functioning to the portable rocket launchers of today, by looking at it's various development versions and sorts of ammunitions used.
It also takes a look at the various uses, from the jungles of Vietnam to the streets of Baghdad, as various forces started to deploy them more and more en masse, as well as how effective they actually are against AFV's and other targets.

An intresting book for the more modern wargame minded players, like those who play Spectre and the likes, but to be honest this wasn't my cup of tea.