Here's your strange grenade launcher porn for the day.  I was going through some manuals on the XM174E1 launcher the other day and found these.  As many of you already know, the XM174E1 was a select fire grenade launcher fielded in Vietnam that fed from a 12-round sprocket and chain driven magazine.  They were produced by Aerojet in Downy, California and made in small numbers, mainly for Army testing but issued to Air Force Air Police for perimeter defense too.  There are very few survivors out there but a few exist in various Army and Marine Corps Museums including Rock Island and Quantico and several in storage at Anniston.

The two manuals shown, the -10 operators and -14 maintenance and parts are both draft copies and the only ones I've encountered.  I don't know if they ever printed finalized copies but I doubt it.  Anyway, here are the covers and a nice view of the gun and tripod from the -14.  

What I thought is really interesting was their choice of images of the gun for the pocket sized -10 operators manual.  The sexy Connie Rodd character, created by Will Eisner and seen in various Technical Bulletins and PS Magazine, was pretty popular during Vietnam but not so PC for today's Army.  But I honestly can't remember a similar photo to the babe in short skirt and heels in any other TM.  Figured it would be appreciated here.

Nice!!!

The 1st man purse

kinda matches the shoes also

Kool!!  I got to have one!!

-fjruple

It is cool.

Granddaddy Mk19 must've been fun to play with. Now to build myself one that's semi automatic. Doesn't look much more beyond an M2 receiver with different internals, a M70 barrel, and a custom built magazine.

Giant watch spring, waterjet cut sprocket, and a toothed drive belt as a conveyor should get it done.


Edit: M79 barrel not M70, overtime and lack of sleep getting to me.

Cool photo.

Any insight as to how reliable they were as a system and how reliable the magazine in particular was?

I know it's highly unlikely but of all people you'd probably have it; do you have a picture of it disassembled specifically showing the bolt?

I get more of a M1919 receiver and a M79 barrel vibe.

Good point on the M79 barrel, hadn't noticed that error in my previous reply. The rear plate/grip is I think what gives off that 1919 vibe. If we're going 1919 I'd say supersized. I have a hunch it's close in size to an M2 receiver, although I've never seen one in person. Likely uses a completely custom receiver though.

Edit: after doing a quick search for some additional pictures of the XM174 I guess it would've been a 1919 receiver as the base. I'd be curious to know exactly what mill work they did on the inside of the plates compared to a 1919.

I first heard about this grenade gun back when I was a kid reading Punisher comics. Pretty cool to finally know that there's a person out there that has actual operational experiences with this

Interesting, I would've thought that some sort of torque stop would've been built into the magazine to stop it from being over tensioned. Guess that would've been on the Mk2 model.