Manokan Rifle Grenade - SMRAW
The Manokan series of SMRAW grenades, or Special Manokan Riflemen's Assault Weapon, are based on the Super ENERGA rifle grenades and RAW grenade developed for the U.S. military. The purpose of the grenades are to provide an equivalent level of firepower to rocket launchers such as the M72 LAW, without requiring a launching tube, being approximately 4-5 times lighter weight, and to allow the grenades to be hand thrown by the use of a different style of detonator, replacing hand grenades in terms of both weight and function. The goal is to make each hand grenade capable of providing support out to longer ranges than can be hand thrown, while also equipping each soldier with the equivalent of multiple M72 LAWs. Grenades are incredibly important for clearing out buildings and structures and other defensive positions at close range, but take up a disproportionate amount of weight, or close to 5-10% of a soldier's total load out, and are not useful at long range, where soldiers are most likely to be in combat. By replacing hand grenades with dual use rifle grenades that can be hand thrown, or fired from the rifle, it allows for soldiers to carry the same overall load-out but have weapons that are also useful at long range. With the grenades being approximately 1 pound a piece, they are roughly the same size as an M72 LAW warhead, and thus possess the same overall capabilities for armor penetration, or over 8 inches which is sufficient to defeat most lightly armored vehicles and many Russian tanks from the side. As the rifle grenades are dual use shaped charge weapons, they are just as useful for anti-armor purposes as they are for anti-infantry.
While around the same size and capabilities of the SUPER energa, their design construction is more or less based on the U.S. military RAW grenade. Originally, 1, 3, 5 and 7 pound RAW grenades were offered up in the design, however the mass produced RAW grenade designs were only mass produced in the 7 pound variant. The manokan variant comes in 1 and 7 pound variants, to be lightweight and easy to carry in to combat, with the 1 pound variant being the most common version. The 1 pound grenade like the RAW grenade utilizes an optical fuse designed to allow the round to detonate without a need for impacting the target, allowing it to detonate at a more precise distance from the target and in mid-air, both improving the effectiveness of the shaped charge round by increasing the stand-off distance and allowing it to detonate without need for contact on a surface which may not always activate the fuse in simpler systems, and allows for the rounds to air burst, increasing the effective range of the shrapnel by up to 300% and making it more likely to hit targets around barriers. The same laser designated air bursting systems for the 25mm grenade can be used to program the rifle grenades, which can also utilize the same thermal vision autotracking fire and control systems commonly found on rifles. The grenades can be mounted on standard 22mm NATO rifle grenade mounts which are on the end of rifle barrels, or be mounted on 25mm or 40mm grenade launchers, and shares many of the same features. The rounds can either be pre programmed to air burst at specific distances, or detonate a few inches from the target due to it's optical sensors, ensuring an air-bursting round either way.
To be propelled from the barrel it is mounted on, the grenade launching devices produces a small bursting charge in the barrel it is mounted on, which propels the grenade approximately 10 feet before the air-burning rocket is activated. By using an air-burning rocket, the grenades do not need a more complex and dangerous system often found on other rifle grenades. It does not require the weapon switch to blanks or fire a live cartridge to propel it, which both almost completely reduces the recoil and backpressure present in rifle grenades which are hard on users and guns, and removes the danger of accidentally using the wrong type of round when firing or a live fire round hitting an unintended target. The rocket is initiated either by a button on the grenade itself with a slight delay or with a weapon mounted wire or cable designed specifically to activate it. When the weapon fires off of the grenade, it moves 10 feet before it is armed, and the grenade pin is released approximately the same time the air-burning rocket activates, ensuring safety.
Furthermore, by using an air-burning rocket, the rocket has a very flat trajectory, and doesn't produce backblast like in normal rocket launchers. This makes the grenade much safer to fire than a standard rocket launcher, and produces a lower signature which is less likely to give away the soldier's position. These rockets can be fired in doors and at odd angles, and conceal the soldier's firing position far better. The extremely flat trajectories were often noticed with the original RAW grenades, being known to have nearly flat trajectories out to 300 meters, making them easy to aim with little modification to the weapon or grenade. The air-burning rockets used are more efficient than what can be used in a single use rocket which burns inside the tube, and therefore there is a greatly extended range, giving the rockets at least a 600 meter range in a completely flat trajectory, and allowing them to reach nearly a mile if angled upwards. The effective range of the rocket is 600 meters, while the maximum effective range is approximately 1100 meters.
