The Mk 19 grenade launcher has been around for a while, since 1968 in fact. In some ways, it reminds me of a gigantic MAC-10 made out of cheap sheet metal, but still able to throw those 40 mm high-explosive potatoes with high reliability. It seems someone spent a few hundred thousand dollars on the Mk 19 pictured above. It got all sorts of thermals, laser rangefinders and ballistic computers attached to it. To compare, the price of a Mk 19 is $20,000 (Wikipedia).

These are Canadian and Spanish members of the eFP Battle Group, and they are conducting a defensive operation as part of a combined training exercise at Camp Adazi in Latvia.

Fun fact – the 40 mm ammunition used in the Mk 19 is 40×53 mm, so it’s not interchangeable with the one that the M203 uses (40×46 mm).

The picture is taken by Sgto 1 Alfonso Cortés Pinilla, enhanced Forward Presence Imagery Technician, Ejército de Tierra (Spain).