

The word “bazooka” originates from an extension of the word “bazoo”, which is slang for “mouth” or “boastful talk” and which ultimately probably stems from Dutch bazuin (trumpet).ĭuring World War II, " bazooka" became the name of a new anti-tank weapon.īazooka (instrument), the musical instrument "Bazooka" after which the weapon was namedīazooka (chewing gum), a brand of chewing gumīazooka Joe, the comic character advertising the chewing gum brandīazooka Joe (band), a British pub rock band, with its name derived from the comics characterīazooka (album), an album by Pat Travers & Carmine Appiceīazooka (taiwanese band), a Taiwanese thrash bandīazooka (G.I.

Jazz musicians Noon Johnson and Sanford Kendrick also played the bazooka. Radio comedian Bob Burns, who has the credit of inventing the instrument some 20 years earlier, popularized the bazooka in the 1930s. Unlike the trombone, the remainder of the bazooka works mainly as a megaphone to amplify the volume of the sound.
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In other words, the player's lips produce pitches as they vibrate on the bare pipe end or in conjunction with the optional mouthpiece and leadpipe unit but not in resonance with the full tube length of the instrument. In reality, all of the bazooka's notes produce purely in falset.

This effect gives the bazooka its characteristic warbling, echoing sound. Manipulating the horn's length changes tone quality as subtle harmonic overtones fluctuate. From its start within a lipreed mouthpiece (which may consist of nothing but the bare tube or employ a mouthpiece which is handmade to emulate one from a low brass instrument), the air column expands into a wide length of pipe which slides freely around a narrower length of pipe which itself terminates in a widely flaring bell.Īlthough the slide action of the bazooka appears to alter pitch, this isn't the case due to the extremely wide diameter of the horn's tubing. The bazooka is a brass musical instrument several feet in length which incorporates telescopic tubing like the trombone. The term "bazooka" still sees informal use as a generic term referring to any ground-to-ground shoulder-fired missile weapon (mainly rocket propelled grenades). comedian Bob Burns.ĭuring 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 cm (among other minor changes) and widely issuing it as the Raketenpanzerbüchse "Panzerschreck" ("Tank terror"). 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. The bazooka also fired a high explosive squash head (HESH) round, effective against buildings and tank armor. 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. Also referred to as the "Stovepipe", the innovative bazooka was among the first generation of rocket-propelled anti-tank weapons used in infantry combat. Bazooka is the common name for a man-portable recoilless antitank rocket launcher weapon, widely fielded by the United States Army.
