Saturday, September 16, 2006
This Day in American History
On this day in 1941, CBS radio debuted "The Arkansas Traveler". The program was later renamed "The Bob Burns Show". Burns played a very strange musical instrument called the ‘bazooka’. The U.S. Army chose the name to identify its rocket launcher, because it looked so much like Burns’ musical bazooka. Weird, huh?
The Nazis copied our bazooka and called it the panzerschreck. Our soldiers have kept with the bazooka concept, through the LAAWs to the M136 AT4 to the current FGM-148 Javelin. The rest of the world went with the Nazi panzerfaust, the Russian copy of which is now nearly universal, called the RPG.
The Nazis copied our bazooka and called it the panzerschreck. Our soldiers have kept with the bazooka concept, through the LAAWs to the M136 AT4 to the current FGM-148 Javelin. The rest of the world went with the Nazi panzerfaust, the Russian copy of which is now nearly universal, called the RPG.
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 7:08 AM 
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It's interesting that nobody has copied the British version: the PIAT. PIAT stands for "Projector, Infantry, Anti-Tank", and it was a mostly spring powered launcher.
While it had some advantages, it was mostly a failure (though the Wikipedia article here says that it was used until 1950). If the launcher failed to auto-recock, it apparently took a 200 lb. pull to reset the spring.
While it had some advantages, it was mostly a failure (though the Wikipedia article here says that it was used until 1950). If the launcher failed to auto-recock, it apparently took a 200 lb. pull to reset the spring.
I think they were using the PIAT at the end of the Rhine bridge in Arnhem in the movie A Bridge Too Far I thought it was pretty cool but had no idea it was spring powered. Thanks, Doug.
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