M20A1B1 Bazooka Question

[Bravo2Uniform]

I just purchased a 1955 demilitarized M20 bazooka.

Why? Because bazooka, that's why. It also is from my M38A1's era and, again, because bazooka. I cannot stress enough the importance of "because bazooka".

I also have a training round, manual, and depot manual. Aside from needing repainting, it is only missing the integral wrench (which I have ordered).

Does anyone know what the rockets were carried with in the field? The FM shows a crate you can build for the rockets but nothing on how they were carried by soldiers when soldiering. Anyone have any ideas? I looked in my book of Korean War uniforms but didn't see anything. I don't have the book on Cold War / Post Korean War uniforms and equipment.

 

[SgtMajHarper]

Greetings fellow"super bazooka" owner. There were some of these still around when I joined the Marines, also flame throwers (one more thing I need and the wife doesn't concur). The rounds came 3 to in a wooden crate

and the individual rounds were inside of the usual black cardboard tar tubes like grenades and artillery fuses. The ground guys would generally hump rounds in tar tubes under the top flap of their pack, sometimes a pack full or one in a hand. I know the smaller bazookas had a round carrier like 60 mm mortars did, but never saw anyone use one of them. As far as I know there were only three types of rounds available:



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M28A2	HEAT	9.00 lb (4.08 kg)	23.55 in (598.2 mm)	4.54 lb (2.06 kg)	10.58 in (268.7 mm)	1.88 lb (0.85 kg) Composition B	PI-BD M404A1 or M404A2
M29A2	Practice	8.96 lb (4.06 kg)	23.55 in (598.2 mm)	4.65 lb (2.11 kg)	10.58 in (268.7 mm)	Inert	Dummy M405
M30	WP	8.96 lb (4.06 kg)	23.55 in (598.2 mm)	4.47 lb (2.03 kg)	10.58 in (268.7 mm)	2.33 lb (1.06 kg) white phosphorus	PI-BD M404A1 or M404A2

I have a bazooka for a couple reasons.....#1, I can, #2, it's a bazooka, #3, when the libbo's say "no one needs a bazooka!" , I can say I have one...why not?

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[Guyfang]

Back in 1963?, I can remember some guys getting arrested for bank robbery in California. They used bazookas. They set one up, covered it with mattresses and lots of sand bags against the wall. Using a string, (real high tech) to pull the trigger, they blew holes in bank walls at night. Considering that banks are not normally located in pastures, and that explosions tent to draw attention, they still managed to do this three times, before being caught. Ever since then, I have always thought it would be nice to have one!

 

[SgtMajHarper]

Somewhere out there a third world country has a couple warehouses full of ammo for these babies.....I gotta check my lottery ticket!

 

[Bravo2Uniform]

Similar to Movie

Back in 1963?, I can remember some guys getting arrested for bank robbery in California. They used bazookas. They set one up, covered it with mattresses and lots of sand bags against the wall. Using a string, (real high tech) to pull the trigger, they blew holes in bank walls at night. Considering that banks are not normally located in pastures, and that explosions tent to draw attention, they still managed to do this three times, before being caught. Ever since then, I have always thought it would be nice to have one!

[h=1]That must have been the inspiration for the Clint Eastwood movie, "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot" (1974). There was also a Brinks armored car facility robbery in 1965 that used a Lahti 20 mm anti-tank weapon.[/h]Check it out: https://www.americanrifleman.org/ar...thunderbolt-lightfoot-the-20-mm-brinks-heist/

 

[Bravo2Uniform]

Somewhere out there a third world country has a couple warehouses full of ammo for these babies.....I gotta check my lottery ticket!

You know it. I hope they are brought back. As I understand it, the return of M1 Garands and Carbines from South Korea was delayed for years (Obama Administration, IIRC) because they were assault rifles. Is there an emoticon for roll eyes? I can't find it, my own eyes are rolling at the ludicrousness of that thought.

 

[Bravo2Uniform]

Greetings fellow"super bazooka" owner. There were some of these still around when I joined the Marines, also flame throwers (one more thing I need and the wife doesn't concur). The rounds came 3 to in a wooden crate

and the individual rounds were inside of the usual black cardboard tar tubes like grenades and artillery fuses. The ground guys would generally hump rounds in tar tubes under the top flap of their pack, sometimes a pack full or one in a hand. ​

That seems right. I've seen those tubes, I'll bet if I can't find one I can make a sufficiently realistic looking facsimile.

I never saw a bazooka anywhere but a museum. We knew that there were old recoilless rifles in storage but I never saw one. i was told they were kept for use in situations where the TOW and other munitions didn't have time to arm - like in a close urban environment (Panama, IIRC).

We had the LAW and TOW. I think there was something called a Dragon, it was a long tube and I had to hump that thing once through a bunch of brush. Kill me right now If I ever have to do that again. There was also something that had four barrels, it was like a LAW but for bunkers, it was HE not armor piercing. I might have been dehydrated and dreamed those last two up, I was served in the mid - 80's to 90's so I've slept since then.​

 

[DeucesWild11]

I saw one at the Sussex NJ show a few years ago for $300 and now wish I had bought it.. Because Bazooka!

 

[Guyfang]

That seems right. I've seen those tubes, I'll bet if I can't find one I can make a sufficiently realistic looking facsimile.

I never saw a bazooka anywhere but a museum. We knew that there were old recoilless rifles in storage but I never saw one. i was told they were kept for use in situations where the TOW and other munitions didn't have time to arm - like in a close urban environment (Panama, IIRC).

We had the LAW and TOW. I think there was something called a Dragon, it was a long tube and I had to hump that thing once through a bunch of brush. Kill me right now If I ever have to do that again. There was also something that had four barrels, it was like a LAW but for bunkers, it was HE not armor piercing. I might have been dehydrated and dreamed those last two up, I was served in the mid - 80's to 90's so I've slept since then.[/LEFT]
[/LEFT]

I cant swear this is true. But I did hear it directly from a gentleman in 1980. I was in F Company, 709th Maintenance Bn, in Ft Lewis. One fine day we had a gaggle of "VIP's" come through the shop. Several congressmen and other assorted folks. I was the Platoon Sgt for the Maintenance Platoon. I had a group of "Guests" about through the facility, and we paused to get something to drink. One of these folks, was a rather tanned fellow, who spoke with an accent that sounded German. So I asked him in German, if he was German. "No", he replied. And then went on about the Yiddish language being very close to German. "Not that I am Yiddish, mind you". But he spoke very good German, much better then me. He told me he was there to look at a new upgrade to the TOW system. He then switched to English. He started to ask the TOW repair guys about what the changes were to the new TOW round, and if it was a bit more reliable. Somehow we got on the subject of how far the round had to travel before the S & A, Safety/Arming device would arm the bird. Our TOW NCOIC rattled off some figure in meters. The "Gentleman" with the tan, off hand mentioned that in the Yom Kippur War, the Israelis discovered that by taking a ball peen hammer and smacking, (denting? cracking?) the nose cone of the round, it would detonate between 75-100 meters. Everyone just looked at him. Then he smiled and walked over to the gaggle of visitors. Later, our TOW guy said that just not possible. But he didn't sound sure, and never said why. Any of you guys ever heard anything like this?

 

[CARNAC]

I think there was something called a Dragon, it was a long tube and I had to hump that thing once through a bunch of brush. Kill me right now If I ever have to do that again. There was also something that had four barrels, it was like a LAW but for bunkers, it was HE not armor piercing. I might have been dehydrated and dreamed those last two up, I was served in the mid - 80's to 90's so I've slept since then.[/LEFT]
[/LEFT]

Yep, the Dragon. I was a qualified gunner for it. Never fired a live one but saw it done twice. The missile had a tendency to slightly depress the tube during launch. We were warned of this. Sure enough, the first life fire I saw the firer skipped it into the ground on launch and it was all over with then. The missile went down range but it never got close to the target. Second firer didn't repeat that mistake but still didn't hit the target.

The 4 barrel 66 mm is the M202 FLASH
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M202_FLASH


I'm a firm believer in the AT4. A little heavy but...imho...accurate as it worked for me at about 300m after only limited training that occurred 18 months before I needed that training, never shot the training round and yet with one shot, my duty was done. Firm believer in the AT4. LAW less accurate but carrying 2 or 3 versus just 1 has some benefit.

Never fired a TOW but have seen it fired several time, saw it hit targets, and saw the effect. Wonderful weapon system.
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I'm not sure about a delay on the bazooka round. There might have been but I would think there is also a means/method/process to bypass a delay. Go about 15 minutes into this film and here's why....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcNOv5Ejp4s

 

[GUNNUT in Iowa]

Dragon (less sight) just in front of the "Nuclear Hand Grenade"

AT-4 in front of the Dragon

M-20 A1B1 "Super Bazooka" in front of the Dragon.

"Super Bazooka" rocket in front of the bazooka (the blue round)

M-7 A1 rocket in front of the "Super Bazooka" rocket (the black round with white letters)

M-72 LAW (extended) in front of the M-7 A1 rocket

M-72 LAW (collapsed) in front of the extended one

M-72 LAW rocket in front of the collapsed launcher (red and black)

 

[SgtMajHarper]

Here's an opportunity for me to utilize my "mature years".....when I went in towards the end of Vietnam, we wore the green sateens satteside and green jungles in the field and bush, steel pots and everything painted green. We still had recoilless rifles, the Ontos was like a little tank with 6 106 recoilless' mounted on it, M48 tanks, lots of old trucks and some new flat fendered M151 Jeeps. The LAW was widely used , we had .45's and some M-14's still in some artillery units and we routinely shot ammo dated from WWII.

Then I got out and did the civilian "thang".

I missed being around Marines (probably should be studied), went back in the reserves and now we had camo everywhere. The Erdl jungles in green and brown versions, M16A2's, spaghetti pistols, TOW's, dragons and these new Hummers would go places I didn't have the nads to take a Jeep. Bazooka, flame guns and mostly any weapon made of steel and wood were now gone. LAW's were out and AT-4, SMAW's were in.

Now that I am retired I see LAWs are back in again and saw some guys using M-14's in the desert.....be we could find some justification for bazooka if we looked.

 

[M813rc]

As stated above, the 4-barrel rocket launcher was the M202. It was supposed to be the modern flame thrower, and had incendiary rockets.
We had some in our armory when I was in the Marines. I thought they were cool, and always wanted to take one out and fire it, but we were never allowed to.
They never left the armory until around 1983, when we had to box them up and send them off to be destroyed because they were going out of service.
I've been trying to find a demil'ed one for years, no luck so far.

We had seen pictures of the new "jeeps" we were going to get to replace the M151 and the M880s. We kinda wondered how a jeep was supposed to replace both. When the first Humvees arrived, we were amazed at the size of it, they didn't look that big in the pictures! I suppose we had mentally shrunk them down to fit our idea of a jeep.

Cheers

 

[Choppers]

ba ZOO ka.

Means cool in 27 languages.

 

[Bulldogger]

Dragon (less sight) just in front of the "Nuclear Hand Grenade"

AT-4 in front of the Dragon

M-20 A1B1 "Super Bazooka" in front of the Dragon.

"Super Bazooka" rocket in front of the bazooka (the blue round)

M-7 A1 rocket in front of the "Super Bazooka" rocket (the black round with white letters)

M-72 LAW (extended) in front of the M-7 A1 rocket

M-72 LAW (collapsed) in front of the extended one

M-72 LAW rocket in front of the collapsed launcher (red and black)

View attachment 759455

Looks like a good start to a collection...

 

[Bravo2Uniform]

... mentioned that in the Yom Kippur War, the Israelis discovered that by taking a ball peen hammer and smacking, (denting? cracking?) the nose cone of the round, it would detonate between 75-100 meters.

Smacking a TOW round...no thanks...I'll just take your word for it, sir.

 

[Bravo2Uniform]

ba ZOO ka.

Means cool in 27 languages.

Even works in sign language!

 

[Bravo2Uniform]

...spaghetti pistols...

Now, for a few dollars more, you can have a kraut pistol!

 

[Bravo2Uniform]

View attachment 759455

I'm impressed and inspired!

 

[Bravo2Uniform]

I saw one at the Sussex NJ show a few years ago for $300 and now wish I had bought it.. Because Bazooka!

As a gun collector, I can tell you the only guns ever regret are the ones you sell or should have bought!