• GardenGeek@europe.pubEnglish
    13·
    3 days ago

    Trivia: The term “rocket-propelled grenade” is a backronym derived from Russian. RPG (also the name of the bazooka seen in the meme, originally manufactured in the Soviet Union) stands for “ruchnoy protivotankovy granatomyot,” which literally translates to “hand-held anti-tank grenade launcher”—a slightly more precise description than the general English term.

    • hakase@lemmy.zipEnglish
      3·
      2 days ago

      Huh, TIL.

      I always thought the distinction was that bazookas had the payload inside a tube, while RPGs had it on the end of a stick, making the staff in the pic an RPG. Is that not the case?

      • PugJesus@piefed.socialMEnglish
        3·
        2 days ago

        “Bazooka” is a funny term in English, insofar as it can be used either very specifically (for a small family of early American anti-tank weapons) or very generically (for nearly all shoulder-launched anti-tank weapons). Such as in the movie The Dark Knight (2008), a character expressing surprise at being attacked with ‘a bazooka’ (in actuality an RPG-7).

        The weapon in the pic is an RPG of some variant, but casually (and confusingly) you could refer to it as a ‘bazooka’ in many Anglophone non-militaria circles.