As against the heavier German
tanks, the 2.36 in bazooka was not sufficiently
effective against the rugged T34, arguably the best
tank developed in WWII. The 2.36 could penetrate
the T-34 armor, but only marginally, and could be
defeated by the sloping, heavy armor surfaces.
Unless firing from a flanking ambush, or catching
the T-34 rounding a corner, the infantryman was
faced with the 3.5in sloping frontal armor, and an
85mm gun. Actually, the 2.36 should never have been
deployed in Korea, as the M9A1 and other 2.36 inch
models had been withdrawn from service shortly
after WWII, and nominally replaced with the M20, of
similar design but with a larger rocket. The M20
was deadly against the T34.
To escape backblast, the operator
held the bazooka on his shoulder with about half
the tube protruding behind him. The chief defects
of both bazookas were their unwieldy weight and
length, their short effective range, and their
cumbersome two-man operating team. Beginning with
Vietnam the Army switched to light antitank
weapons, or LAWs, such as the M72, a one-shot,
disposable weapon that weighed 5 pounds fully
loaded yet could launch its rocket with reasonable
accuracy out to 350 yards.
Both the 2.36 inch and the 3.5 inch
bazookas were deadly effective against dug-in
troops, as a short-range anti-pillbox and
anti-personnel weapon. They were also effective
against mobile machine gun and mortar crews who
moved forward with the second assault, or
submachine gun, platoons, to support them at close
range.
