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RPG-26 Aglen Anti-Tank Weapon

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Marky
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Pro-Russian "Rebels" in Eastern Ukraine armed with RPG-26. One of the tactics used by Russia was to make sure these folks were "mostly" armed with weapons pre-dating the last 15 years.

We briefly discussed this weapon in a video published last week. Those of you who watched it know it came into our possession by a circuitous route.

Since then, we have had numerous inquiries about close up pics. So while I has some down time at in my office, I snapped some images trying to place it on the wall.

As you can see, I am sticking it under a US M72 LAW since it is functionally a copy. At least in the same family of design. Off the top of my head, I believe (and could be mistaken) the only difference between the RPG-22 and the RPG-26 is the telescoping tube feature found similarly on the M72 LAW.

RPG-26 Aglen explained.

As far as I can discern, this particular example was made in 1990 in Russia. And was exported to us via Ukraine.

Interestingly one of the issues we had in acquiring one was the cross pollination between the MILSURP collector community and the air-soft gamers. I don’t claim to know much about air-soft. I think I pretty much know what it is about. But is seems there are a fair amount of Western air-soft kids buying empty RPG-26 tubes and converting them to fire pellets. Or something? That wasn’t really clear to me.

One of the many 1990 markings on the tube body.

But in the world of capitalism and free markets, if there is a buck to be made, the Chinese will swoop in with a cheap knock-off and soak up some of those air-soft dollars. The problem happens when items initially sold as toys end up being passed off to unsuspecting buyers as legit military surplus.

Even our legit military example was exported out of Ukraine as something for the air-soft community. AKA a toy. So? Does that mean they are declaring it was made as a toy or being sold as a toy? It doesn’t take much imagination to wonder what kind of crazy laws are on the books in some of these dark corners of the world.

Pro-Russian “Rebels” in Eastern Ukraine armed with RPG-26. One of the tactics used by Russia was to make sure these folks were “mostly” armed with weapons pre-dating the last 15 years. But as things heated up, you saw things like BUK AA missile systems.

Bottom line: It’s not a toy. It’s deactivated. But not a toy in the least bit. This RPG-26 now resides as part of our reference collection in the armory.

 

Marky
www.John1911.com
“Shooting Guns & Having Fun”

Marky
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