Bazooka (/bəˈzuːkə/) is the common name for a man-portable recoilless anti-tank rocket launcher weapon, widely deployed by the United States Army. Also referred to as the "Stovepipe", the innovative bazooka was among the first generation of rocket-propelled anti-tank weapons used in infantry combat. Featuring a solid-propellant rocket for propulsion, it allowed for high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) warheads to be delivered against armored vehicles, machine gun nests, and fortified bunkers at ranges beyond that of a standard thrown grenade or mine. The universally-applied nickname arose from the M1 variant's vague resemblance to the musical instrument called a "bazooka" invented and popularized by 1930s U.S. comedian Bob Burns.

Bazooka
Soldier with Bazooka M1.jpg
M1 Bazooka
Type
Recoilless rocket anti-tank weapon & Rocket Propelled Grenade Launcher
Place of origin
United States
Service history
In service
1942–present
Used by
See Users
Wars
World War II
Chinese Civil War
First Indochina War
Korean War
Algerian War
Vietnam War
Bangladesh Liberation War[1]
Bay of Pigs Invasion
Yom Kippur War[2]
Falklands War
Production history
Designer
Edward Uhl[3]
Designed
1942
Produced
June 1942 – May 1945 (2.36 inch bazookas)
No. built
112,790 (M1)[4]
59,932 (M1A1)[5]
26,087 (M9)[6]
277,819 (M9A1)[6]
? (M20)
1,500 (M25)[7]
During World War II, German armed forces captured several bazookas in early North Africa 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" ("Tank scare"). 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.[center][/center]

The term "bazooka" still sees informal use as a generic term referring to any ground-to-ground shoulder-fired missile weapon (mainly rocket propelled grenade launchers or recoilless rifles) 8-