Bazooka, shoulder-type rocket launcher adopted by the U.S. Army in World War II. The weapon consisted of a smooth-bore steel tube, originally about 5 feet (1.5 metres) long, open at both ends and equipped with a hand grip, a shoulder rest, a trigger mechanism, and sights. Officially titled the M9A1 Rocket Launcher, it was called bazooka after a crude horn of that name used by radio comedian Bob Burns.

Bazooka U.S. Signal Corps/National Archives, Washington, D.C.

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The bazooka was developed chiefly for attacking tanks and fortified positions at short range. It launched a 3.5-pound (1.6-kg) rocket with a diameter of 2.36 inches (60 mm) and a length of 19 inches (483 mm). The rocket carried 8 ounces (225 grams) of pentolite, a powerful explosive that could penetrate as much as 5 inches (127 mm) of armour plate. To escape backblast, the operator held the bazooka on his shoulder with about half the tube protruding behind him. During the Korean War the M20 “Super Bazooka” was used. This was an aluminum tube that launched a 3.5-inch (89-mm), 9-pound (4-kg) rocket carrying 2 pounds (0.9 kg) of combined RDX/TNT explosive. The chief defects of both bazookas were their cumbersome weight and length and their short effective range (about 120 yards [110 metres]). For this reason, beginning in the Vietnam War the U.S. Army abandoned bazookas in favour of light antitank weapons, or LAWs, such as the M72, a one-shot disposable weapon that weighed 5 pounds (2.3 kg) fully loaded yet could launch its rocket with reasonable accuracy out to 350 yards (320 metres).

The bazooka was the first weapon of its kind—that is, the first infantry weapon capable of reliably destroying a tank—and it inspired the German Panzerschreck and Panzerfaust. The latter was the first rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) and thus the progenitor of the most common infantry antitank weapon from the 1960s on.