Vespa - Scooter Mounted Recoilless Rifle

[vespa]

The anti tank vespa scooter was the child of italian design and french military. The vespa was mounted with a 75mm
recoiless cannon. The pilot rides on the cannon (which has a leather saddle bolted on it) and while the connon could be fired from the vespa but it was usually shot from a tripod. It was used in vietnam by the french paratroopers which
asked for a fast, light, powerful anti tank vehicle with good autonomy;probably they should have been more specific.
2000 of the anti tank vespa where made around 1959 and deployed in Indochina. Each vespa carried 4 or 7 shots.
The vespa mounted 75 mm recoilless rifle,anti-armour cannon, was very light in comparison to a standard 75 mm cannon but was still able to penetrate 100 mm of armour by HEAT warhead. The recoil is counteracted by venting propellant gases out the rear of the weapon which eliminated the need for a mechanical recoil system or heavy mounts, enabling the weapon to be fired from the Vespa frame. The motor was 2 strokes 150cc, top speed 80 Km/h. Some people say that farmers in Vietnam are still riding this vespas.

 

[gf0012-aust]

Welcome to the DT Forums

Please read the forum rules before posting any more articles

Note in particular that there is an expectation that anyone posting articles from other sources will also contribute to the debate by adding their own input

Anyone can copy and paste, - we don't need that. What we expect is additional commentary so that it generates healthy debate

Otherwise people can just use google.

 

[Capricorn]

The anti tank vespa scooter was the child of italian design and french military. The vespa was mounted with a 75mm
recoiless cannon. The pilot rides on the cannon (which has a leather saddle bolted on it) and while the connon could be fired from the vespa but it was usually shot from a tripod. It was used in vietnam by the french paratroopers which
asked for a fast, light, powerful anti tank vehicle with good autonomy;probably they should have been more specific.
2000 of the anti tank vespa where made around 1959 and deployed in Indochina. Each vespa carried 4 or 7 shots.
The vespa mounted 75 mm recoilless rifle,anti-armour cannon, was very light in comparison to a standard 75 mm cannon but was still able to penetrate 100 mm of armour by HEAT warhead. The recoil is counteracted by venting propellant gases out the rear of the weapon which eliminated the need for a mechanical recoil system or heavy mounts, enabling the weapon to be fired from the Vespa frame. The motor was 2 strokes 150cc, top speed 80 Km/h. Some people say that farmers in Vietnam are still riding this vespas.

Not sure how successful such an arrangement would have been in the jungles.

This arrangement could at best be used to carry the weapon along with some qty of ammo.