Did you know that the US Bazooka round with its shaped charge is the offspring of a French study that was passed on to the US embassy in Lisbon by the French engineer leading the project in 1940?

Interesting. The shaped charge IIRC was invented by a Brit and used against ships as the "limpet mine" in WWI. This lead to the PanzerFaust,Bazooka in WWII, the great air drop Rockeye bomblet in Viet Nam [best used in Desert Storm]and today the concept is used today to demolish buildings and make clad metal items like sheets of steel/titanium. Isn't science wonderful !!

The shaped charge was actually invented by the South for use by the Confederate submarine Hunley during the war of northern agression!

This is what I found:

Charles Edward Munroe was the inventor of "The Monroe Effect" in explosives in 1885. He noted that a high explosive with a cavity facing a target left an indentation. The earliest known reference to the effect appears to be 1792, and there is some indication that mining engineers may have exploited the phenomenon over 150 years ago. The Monroe Effect was rediscovered by Von Neumann in 1911, but no practical applications were developed.

Shaped charges were first developed after World War I to penetrate tanks and other armored equipment. A cylindrical charge that lies flat against the armour and is being initiated in one end gives a directed detonation effect so that a hole is created at the point of contact is Generation I. If that charge is equipped with a conical hole the force of the explosion will be channeled further and increases the chances for a penetration it is Generation II. The most common type of hollow charge munitions is the jet creating hollow charge, also called Hollow Charge Generation III. The other type of hollow charge munition is the projectile creating munition. It is referred to as Genetration IV. Gen I and Gen II (developed during the WW II) are predecessors to Gen III and IV but they are no longer in use in any munitions.

Totally agree on Monroe effect and hollow charge. German paratroopers used these demolition charges on Eben Emael forts armored cupolas.
But there was no weapon like the bazooka before the French Army Technical Section launched a project in 1935.
Many other projects have been passed to Allied or captured by Germans.
Thanks some smart people, they never found out about the MAS semi auto rifle, the MAS AT rifle and many other projects.