Shooting position: I've not watched biathlons, but think about standard hunting positions. The fellow in on the left side of the second photograph would shoot to his left, with the rifle across his body and aligned with his heels.
And where did you find the 3.5 inch rocket launcher? I never heard anybody refer to it as a "super bazooka", or anything other than "3.5 inch rocket launcher", by the way.
The loader should be standing more around to the side, as much clear of the backblast area as possible, right close to the firer, with only one hand on the rocket behind the warhead. The other hand would only come up to remove the safety ring just prior to inserting that part of the rocket (there was a spring-loaded plunger underneath that was part of the fuze mechanism, which was the segment between the warhead and rocket motor) and then move clear again. The rocket was electrically initiated, and, in theory at least, and as we were told, could be initiated prematurely by static electricity. The fewer hands (or other body parts, like face) that one had in the backblast area, should that happen, the better.
I cannot remember if the loader was on the same or opposite side as the firer. There's a brief clip at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DVDxBBpfcM which shows him on the opposite side, which makes sense.
We carried 3.5 inch rocket launchers, which we owned, on exercise, but fired Carl Gustafs (and, yes, it's an "f" in Gustaf and not a "v" as is commonly seen) borrowed from 1 RCR in London on the range at Ipperwash. Some 1954-manufactured 3.5 inch HEAT rounds were found in 1975 and we fired some in November of that year. Unburnt propellant in the rocket exhaust was a problem in cold weather, and the age of the ammunition probably exacerbated that - the firer of the first round had a small chunk blown through his lip and a few other flecks in his skin, so everybody afterwards wore a balaclava with a small chunk of corrugated cardboard stuffed inside to cover the exposed eye. There's something that you can add to your kit for authenticity...
There was much mirth that day - rounds skipping down range as the rocket had to hit almost dead-on for the fuze to work (we put a guy with binoculars atop the heavy timber ammo bay to see where they ended up), or detonating about fifty metres (tops) in the frozen ground in front of the team, leaving a small, shallow crater with a thin, narrow channel leading away from it. The rocket was very slow-moving (only 340 feet per second), so there was a noticeable shift of weight forward as it travelled down the tube. If the weapon was not supported properly, the tube could dip. The RSO caught a glop of mud in the chest from one of those instances, and it was classic. His hands flew up to his chest, he collapsed into a sitting position, legs splayed, eyes bugged out, completely white, and gasped "I'm hit!!! I'm hit!!!" He could feel the molten mud oozing between his fingers, which made it rather difficult to convince him that he was alright as we were howling with laughter.
One of the launchers had an N/S detent latch - the mechanism on top of the rear of the launcher that would prevent the rocket from falling out if tipped up. Everybody had been taught to push the rocket in until the detent latch engaged, with a noticeable "click". We noticed one loader, a fairly new Private, with his arm buried up to the elbow because that detent latch was not clicking. That launcher was added to the sizeable pile of blinds (duds) off to the side, and subsequently blown in place by an un-amused WO who had to trundle up from London to take care of that pile, plus all of the "skippers" downrange in the scrub.
I don't think that anybody actually hit a target - two old hulks barely recognizable as Shermans.
I do not remember which incident finally shut the range down, but it was either Lieutenant I'm hit!!! or the guys who'd stuffed their rocket halfway up their tube.
I suspect that that was the last time that 3.5 inch rocket launchers were ever fired in the CF.
The Good Old Days...
