A blowgun or blowpipe is a simple weapon consisting of a small tube for firing light projectiles, or darts. The wielder blows into one end, forcing the dart out the other.
Often, for increased effectiveness, the dart is tipped with a poison, most famously curare.
Blowpipe is a man-portable surface-to-air missile which was in use with the British Army and Royal Marines from 1968.
Blowpipe was replaced by Javelin, which is of a very similar design but improved in performance and with a semi-automatic guidance system - the operator now controls the missile by keeping the target in the sight crosswires and the unit steers the missile to the sight.
Blowpipe missile systems are still being found in weapon caches as recently as June 2003 in Afghanistan [4] [5].
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