  bazooka is the common name for a man-portable recoilless antitank rocket launcher weapon, widely fielded 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 rocket motor 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 bazooka also fired a hesh round, effective against buildings and tank armor. 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. during world war ii, 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&nbsp;cm (among other minor changes) and widely issuing it as the raketenpanzerbÃ¼chse "panzerschreck" ("tank terror"). the term "bazooka" continues to be used informally as a genericized term to refer to any shoulder-fired missile weapon (mainly rocket propelled grenades). ==design and development== the development of the bazooka involved the development of two specific lines of technology: the rocket-powered (recoilless) weapon, and the shaped-charge warhead. it was also designed for easy maneuverability and access. ===world war i=== the rocket-powered recoilless weapon was the brainchild of dr. robert h. goddard as a side project (under army contract) of his work on rocket propulsion. goddard, during hi
American_inventions Anti-tank_rockets_of_the_United_States World_War_II_infantry_weapons_of_the_United_States