Soldat al armatei americane îmbrăcat în haine de iarnă, îngenuncheat și ținând în mână un M18 Bazooka. Arma vine este un articol separat care cuprinde mai multe părți. Brațele figurii sunt, de asemenea, părți separate.
The Bazooka was an American unguided anti-tank missile launcher with a cumulative warhead from the Second World War and the post-war period. In the basic version (designation: M1), the weapon weighed 5.9 kilograms, was 137 centimeters long, and the effective range was up to 140 meters. The caliber of the weapon was 60 mm.
The first works on individual anti-tank weapons of the American infantry took place as early as 1933, but only the outbreak of World War II significantly accelerated them. The first copies of the bazooka were used during the fighting in North Africa in 1942, where they proved to be a useful and effective weapon. Over time, improved versions of the M1 model appeared: M1A1 (a model with a simplified structure, but with an improved electrical system) and the M9 and M9A1 (versions with better targeting devices and a reduction of the service to 1 soldier in the M9A1 version). After World War II, the bazooka was still being developed, which resulted in the M20 Super Bazooka with a caliber of 88.9 mm, with a new missile capable of penetrating armor up to 280 mm thick and significantly increased range. There was also the M20B1 model with a reduced mass aluminum launcher. The last versions of the bazooka were withdrawn from the US Army in the 1960s, and the M72 LAW launcher was adopted in their place.
The Korean War (1950-1953) was fought between the troops of South Korea, supported - on behalf of the United Nations - by American, Australian and British troops, and the troops of the DPRK, i.e. North Korea, supported more or less officially by the USSR and the PRC. Infantry, of course, was the largest type of US armed force fighting in Korea. The US Army and USMC sent several infantry, infantry and marines divisions to Korea, including: 2nd Infantry Division, 7th Infantry Division and 1st Marine Division. The main strike force of the infantry division were three regiments of infantry, supported by divisional artillery and various types of support units (e.g. sappers, communication and logistics). On average, in 1950-1951, the division had between 12,500-13,650 officers and soldiers. Over time, the division structure turned out to be ineffective and the infantry units were reorganized into brigade formations, relatively well saturated with artillery, communications and sapper units. It is worth noting that the basic shooting weapon of the American infantryman was still the M1 Garand rifle and its modernized version of the M1 C / D Garand. The WWII M1918A2 BAR rifle was also used as a manual machine gun, while the M2 Browning was the heavy machine gun. It is worth noting that the American infantry had quite good, especially at the end of the conflict, hand-held anti-tank weapons in the form of Bazooka and Super-Bazooka armor.