/vr/ - Retro Games

>>4553580
That's actually a good question. I'm not familiar with all the exacts of the M79 LAW and it's designs, but I'd figure it's because it's a grenade launcher with a tall ladder sight, as you may have to launch a grenade at far distances.
Since you rest your cheek on the comb of a stock to aim down the sights, the stock can't be too low, or you can't quite get a proper "cheek-weld", not easily anyway.

I figure also since 40mm grenades are relatively heavy projectiles, the force coming back as recoil can be rather brisk (recoil is affected by a lot of things, but primarily the weight of the weapon versus the projectile weight and it's speed), so you wouldn't want your cheek to be resting on a stock that slants backwards like on a normal gun, when that force suddenly comes back, as you'd smack yourself in the face pretty hard.