The Hand Cannon That Failed: The Army Had High Hopes for the T-148 Grenade Launcher

War Is Boring

Technology, Americas

Fail.

In 1953, U.S. Army Lt. Col. Roy Rayle took up his new post at Springfield Armory. Best known for his work on the M-14 rifle and M-60 machine gun, he spent his time at the government arsenal taking part in several different projects — including the development of the T-148 grenade launcher.

The Army hoped the 40-millimeter weapon and its three-round magazine would make for a deadly hand-cannon. In theory, it would give soldiers even more firepower compared to the single-shot version Springfield engineers were cooking up at the same time.

“The Infantry Board at Fort Benning had specified a three-shot grenade launcher, and that was our main effort,” Rayle recalled in Random Shots: Episodes in the Life of a Weapons Developer. “By 1955 … I began to worry about the awkwardness and poor accuracy of the three-shot launcher.”

The Army weaponeer was right to be concerned. Over the next decade and a half, American troops in Vietnam found that the launcher was simply too bulky and fragile for combat.

The T-148 developed from a larger project to give troops the ability to launch explosives, and do so accurately, farther than they could chuck hand grenades. Experiences from World War II and the Korean War undoubtedly informed the Army’s goals.