M1 Bazooka

Lore & Background

During World War II, the German armed forces captured several bazookas in early North African and Eastern Front encounters and soon reverse engineered their own version, increasing the warhead diameter to 8.8 cm (among other minor changes) and widely issuing it as the Raketenpanzerbüchse "Panzerschreck" ("rocket anti-armor rifle 'tank terror'"). Near the end of the war, the Japanese developed a similar weapon, the Type 4 70 mm AT rocket launcher, which featured a rocket-propelled grenade of a different design. During the Korean War, the M1 and M9 Bazooka series was replaced by the larger caliber M20 Super Bazooka.

Reader's Guide

The name "bazooka" comes from an extension of the word bazoo, which is slang for "mouth" or "boastful talk", and which probably stems from the Dutch bazuin (buisine, a medieval trumpet). The word bazooka appears in the 1909 novel The Swoop, or how Clarence Saved England by P. G. Wodehouse. During World War II, "bazooka" became the universally applied nickname of the new American anti-tank weapon, due to its vague resemblance to the musical instrument invented and popularized by 1930s American comedian Bob Burns. Shortly after the first prototype launcher and rockets had been tested by firing into the Potomac River, U.S. Army colonel Leslie Skinner, and Lieutenant Colonel Edward Uhl took the new system to a competitive trial of various types of spigot mortar at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in May 1942. The new rocket launcher scored several hits on a moving tank while the five different mortars achieved none. The trial was watched by various senior officers, among them Major General Gladeon M. Barnes, who commented, "It sure looks like Bob Burns' bazooka."

Did You Know?

• The bazooka's development involved rocket-powered weapon technology pioneered by Robert H. Goddard during World War I.
• The M10 shaped-charge grenade was effective at defeating up to 100 mm of vehicle armor, not 60 mm.
• The M1A1 launcher was introduced by late 1942, not early 1943.