Its name roughly means "tank killer", derived from the French "véhicule blindé" (armoured vehicle) and the suffix -cide.

This rate of fire was considerably in excess of the M20A1 bazooka since Blindicide used a mechanical firing pin hitting a percussion cap in the tail of the rocket motor rather than a hand grip magneto system that required trailing wires from each rocket to be connected to terminal posts on the launcher as each round was loaded.

The high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) rocket of the RL-83 Blindicide can penetrate 300 millimeters of rolled homogeneous armour or one meter of concrete.

This used a blank 20 mm cartridge to produce a flash and a bang, but the round fell only a few feet in front of the launcher.

A complete launcher and the remnants of several projectiles recovered from Aden are held by the Imperial War Museum.

[4] In recent years it has been reported that the Mexican Army deployed Blindicides against improvised armored vehicles in use by drug cartels.