Shoulder-fired missile

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Shoulder-fired weapons system

• Top left: Shoulder-fired reloadable rocket launcher: RPG-7
• Top right: Shoulder-fired single-use disposable surface-to-air missile launcher: FIM-43 Redeye
• Lower left: Shoulder-fired reloadable recoilless rifle: Carl Gustaf 8.4 cm recoilless rifle
• Lower right: Shoulder-fired single-use disposable light antitank weapon: AT4

Shoulder-fired missile, shoulder-launched missile or man-portable missile, among other variants, are common slang terms to describe high-caliber shoulder-mounted weapons systems; that is, weapons firing large, heavy projectiles ("missiles"), typically using the backblast principle, which are small enough to be carried by a single person and fired while held on one's shoulder. The word "missile" in this context is used in its original broad sense of a heavy projectile, and encompasses all shells and rockets, guided or unguided (compare with guided missile). A more formal variant is simply shoulder-fired weapons system and the like.^[1]

Shoulder-launched weapons may be guided or unguided, and the systems can either be disposable, such as the Panzerfaust 1, M72 LAW, AT4, etc., or reusable, such as the Panzerfaust 2, Carl Gustaf 8.4 cm recoilless rifle, RPG-7, etc. Some systems are classified as semi-disposable, such as the Panzerfaust 3.