PG-7 also had a self destruct time of 13 seconds or and something like 920 meters..... As you state the chain link was merely to crush and destroy the shape charge before it hit the barrier it was truing to defeat.
We used to shoot 7’s and 7M variants into the sky to test em ...... very few these days will not detonate , impact or not.
Also the caps would stay on when shooting through thick foliage or tall elephant grass. Saw these puppies go boom when fired in heavy rain when the safety caps were removed from the piezo .....
Crazy days......miss em bad sometimes Archy !
Note too that in Somalia, the bad guys made good effect of that feature to get RPG-7 airbursts against US helicopters, a technique developed by the Palestinians for use against Israeli Hueys. In the 1970s I was involved in getting some parts from Bell for some ex-Israeli Agusta-Bell 205A Huey Cheetahs, a couple of which were dotted with little bitty dents on the aluminum skin where RPGs had time-detonated a little further out than their firers had intended. Of course, we didn't get the birds where they had come closer....
Also the caps would stay on when shooting through thick foliage or tall elephant grass. Saw these puppies go boom when fired in heavy rain when the safety caps were removed from the piezo .....
Yep, also a design feature, not a flaw. The Soviets realized that there'd be places in the world where they might be shooting through wooden doors/mud huts/ sheet-tin sided buildings or thin-skinned unarmourde vehicles, and arranged their HEAT projectiles so that they could be used either way- even through ice, as some Finns cheerfully demonstrated to me on one well-fueled occasion.
Here, hold my Kossu, and watch this!?