Philippines to purchase more rocket propelled grenade launchers

An RPG-7 with optical sights and ammunition.

With the Philippine Army in the process of replacing their old 90mm recoilless rifles with 40mm RPG-7 type rocket propelled grenade launchers, the Philippine Marine Corps (PMC) is following suit by also opening a Php514.8 million (US10.1 million) tender for more than 700 RPG launchers as part of its Squad Rocket Launcher Light project.

Also included together are 22,000 rounds of  high explosive fragmentation and anti-tank, as well as thermobaric ammunition. The project also includes RPG training launchers and training rounds, both of which use 7.62x39mm practice rounds.

Based on documents released by the Philippine Department of National Defense (DND), the RPGs should be delivered within the year from release of Notice to Proceed.

In an online interview by APDJ with Filipino defense page MaxDefense Philippines, it was mentioned that the Philippine Army already operates more than 1,000 RPG launchers including recently delivered Russian RPG-7V2, the mainstay Bulgarian ATGL-L, and a few Chinese made Type 69 launchers donated in 2018 by the Chinese government.

Some of the Type 69s may already be with the PMC for familiarization and training.

In addition, the Philippine National Police Special Action Force (PNP-SAF) which is the special operations unit of the country's police force, is also expecting the delivery this year of several dozens RPG-7 type launchers ordered from an Eastern European country. 



[1] Philippines Department of National Defense
[2] MaxDefense Philippines