China Lake
| Factions | Weapon | Icon | Classes | Ammo | Explosion | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Damage | Radius | |||||
 US |
 China Lake |
 |
Gun Game | 4 / 8 | 125 | 175 |
| Designation | Weapon Type | Fire Modes | Fire Rate | Bullet Spread ° | Range Modifier | Muzzle Velocity | Projectile weight | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| China Lake | Grenade Launcher | Semi | 60 RPM | 3° & 1° ADS | Unaffected | 70 m/s | 230 g (0.5 lbs) | 7kg (15.43 lbs) |
| Full name | Caliber | Place of Origin | Date | Armory | Barrel Length | Total Length | Weapon Script Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| China Lake pump-action grenade launcher | 40mm grenade | USA | 1967 | Naval Air Weapons Station (NAWS) China Lake Facility | 14.5 in (368 mm) | 34.50 in (876 mm) | weapon_china_lake |
The China Lake pump-action grenade launcher or NATIC is a pump-action grenade launcher that was developed by the Special Projects Division of the Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, which provided equipment to United States Navy SEALs.
HISTORY
The M79 and XM148 grenade launchers were single-shot, and the repeating T148E1 grenade launcher was unreliable, so a request was made to China Lake engineers. Navy SEAL teams were pleased with the resultant pump-action grenade launcher. The tubular magazine held three 40x46mm grenades, and so with one grenade in the chamber, four grenades could be fired rapidly before reloading. In fact, a skilled operator could fire four aimed shots before the first one landed. The grenade launcher was extremely light for its size, since a significant portion of it was made of aluminum.
Submitted for field trials in Vietnam, this weapon apparently performed quite well with HE-Frag ammunition.
The pump-action grenade launcher features leaf iron sights similar to the M79. The front sight is a fixed square notch. Depending on if the leaf is folded or not, the rear square notch is either fixed or adjustable from 75 to 400 m in 25 m increments.
The larger screw on the left side of the receiver was designed for a quadrant sight to be mounted.
Sources differ as to how many weapons were produced. One claims that between 20 and 30 were made. However, according to another source, only 16 were made. The highest original receiver number found is 50, but it may never have been made into a functional weapon. SEAL historian Kevin Dockery has confirmed 22 completed guns being carried on Navy records. Only three originals currently remain under US Navy control; the rest have been demilitarized.
The China Lake Model is sometimes mistakenly referred to as the "EX-41" or as the "China Lake NATIC". The EX-41 was a design prototype created in the mid-1990s based upon the earlier China Lake Model pump 40mm. The EX-41 was only produced as a single prototype as a follow-up design created two decades after the China Lake Model was produced. The China Lake NATIC designation is also erroneous as the weapon was never known by that designation. Since it was made on an ad hoc basis for special operations forces, it was not formally adopted and has no official military designation. Thus the SEALs referred to the experimental weapon as the "China Lake grenade launcher" in reference to the facility which produced it.
All four remaining original China Lake Model grenade launchers are on display in museums. Serial number 4 is at the National Navy UDT-SEAL Museum in Fort Pierce, Florida while serial number 13 is on display in the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Serial number 2 is stored at the Naval History and Heritage Command in Washington DC. One additional launcher is on limited display in a military restricted US Navy facility at NSWC Crane.
SOURCE
CSG/Trident Reproduction China Lake Grenade Launcher
