M20A1B1 Bazooka Question

[Guyfang]

Some time in the past I went to a used bookstore in town. As luck would have it, an ex-GI had sold all of his manuals to the store. I bought the entire collection. There are books about weapons (.50, M-60, Bazooka’s, LAW rockets, etc) NBC equipment, conditions and how to fight when someone gases, nukes or bacterializes the battlefield. There’s stuff for spec-ops, engineers, field medicine it’s a bit mind boggling what all was in there. I’ve been slowly going through them to see what to keep and what should go. Too many decisions... I know of one book I don’t want to keep. Two copies of field sanitation is overkill.

The best place to look for this stuff is the second hand store on every Post. My son the cop loves it when I bring home an old TM, or TB. He reads them cover to cover.

 

[frank8003]

 

[sigo]

I was looking for "B" battery information. Did the first bazooka with wooden handles use them.
B batteries were used at the time for tube radios.
Then I found that 6 bazooka were mounted on one very light aircraft.
Upon arriving in France in 1944, US Army Major Charles Carpenter, an Army aviator flying liaison and artillery-spotting lightplanes like the military version of the Piper J-3 Cub, the L-4 Grasshopper, was issued a new L-4H version during the concluding stages of "Overlord", taking this "light attack" role against German armor by himself. With a 150-pound pilot and no radio aboard, the L-4H had a combined cargo and passenger weight capacity of approximately 232 pounds. This margin allowed him to eventually mount a total of six bazookas, three per side on the lift struts as other L-4s had done.
View attachment 759592

Bazooka Charlie! Great story of innovation and bravery. I'm surprised that L-4 could carry the six bazookas AND his giant brass ones.

 

[saddamsnightmare]

May 13th, 2019.
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NB on the return of weapons from S. Korea. Good luck! Most were used up and rebuilt so many times that it is very hard to find a useable one in the lot. I used to know the Springfield Armory rebuild marks, and an M1903-A3 I had in 1982 was so rebuilt that the parts were off many O3's, and the resultant weapon was so worn out it was pretty much useless. The only comparable wear pattern I have seen was a WWII USMC M-1 Garand, that had been taken apart so many times for inspection that the barrel was excellent, and every screw hole was swaled out from being assembled and disassembled so many times. I guess that is an oddity of a USMC small arm.

 

[M813rc]

The best place to look for this stuff is the second hand store ...

A buddy of mine picked this up for me at Goodwill in Austin the other day for $34; a complete PG-7 sight (for the RPG-7 launcher), in the case with all the accessories. Likely someone's bring-back from the 'recent unpleasantness'.
He called and asked "You want it?" Well, yes......

Cheers