Funniest Funnie?

Doesn't have to be Hobart's Funnies. But what were some of the wildest or crazy war machines that were spawned from the war?

 

the sound guns come to mind,heres a link..ray.

YouTube - SRL: Weird Weapons of WWII

 

Is this a type of "favourite" thread or a your asking for information?

 

3 examples:



The Italian manned torpedo




the German mistel parasite plane



the Japanese toy tank

 

some more of the mostly unknown projects,that may interest you,ray..

youtube links will find others too! that relate to your question..

YouTube - Advanced German Weapons of WWII - Part 1 of 3

 

What about these:

The great panjadrum:Panjandrum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Or this: Neger, the mini submarine (or manned torpedo) that couln'd dive, great target practice for all those light aa guns. Neger - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Shinyo: a kamikaze speed boat. Also great target practice for the light aa: Shinyo (suicide boat) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(The Italians had a similar weapon but being a much smaller and much faster target and non kamikaze it made mavbe a bit more sense, in each case two of these boats disabled a cruiser that was lying in harbor)

If i may inlude WWI, you have the wooden mortars, made out of a tree trunk (i hope these were one shot only) and spring powered grenade throwers and air pressure worked mortars.

The bat bomb, always a good laugh: Bat bomb - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Kurmmlauf: a stg44 with an bended barrel attachment: Axis History Factbook: Machinenpistole vorsatz P

Russian aircraft carriing bomber (okay developed prewar, but used at least one time during the war): Zveno project - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Walther U-Boats powered by fuels amongst which Higly concentrated H2O2, Range was laugable, fuels extreme dangerous: History of the Walter boats - German U-boat Types of WWII - uboat.net
The British build two of them after the war and took years to try to get them safe (with the help of the German engineers that had build the walter boats) and gave up on them. Note that the Kursk sinking was possibly due to a H2O2 powered topedo exploding.

The Me 163 rocket fighter. Also H2O2 powered. Very short powered flight time due to high fuel consumption. After wich it was to glide back to base during which it was a sitting duck for any fighter. Many blew up on landing because there was some fuel left in the tanks, and it landed on a ski. No power meant only one landing attempt was possible (and this gliding !). Fuels Burnt (or exploded i don't know) on contact wit each other, very nice to refuel ! Fuel burned on contact with organic materials (including the pilot or ground crew)
I know that this aircraft is usually seen in a much better way, because it was one of the German wonder weapons but omho given all the defects as a war weapon it could only have been useful as a record breaker.
Speed was so high that the pilot could hit nothing (only highly experiencde ones which the germans barely had in this stage of the war ( and should have been ued as instructors for new pilots as the US did) and new pilots were barely able to fly their fighter (conventional ones not hot rods such as these)). 5 minutes powered flight time ! Fuels extremely difficult to produce and to handle. a page on it: but very positively biased: Komet Me163 - Chief test pilot Rudy Opitz tells it like it was - Flight Journal.com Page 1

Bachem Natter: Essentially a manned AA missile. Used H2O2 too. Bachem Ba 349 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dora and Gustav gerat: i think i don't have to tell you about these ones.

V3, Millipede: multichambered cannon to bombard London. Never got to the operational stage. Suffered from burst barrels, a satisfactory shell was afaik never developed, and problems with firing the side chambers at the right moment.

The anti tank dog: Soviet-Empire.com - The Soviet Anti-Tank Dog Mine

A favorite of mine tough it must have been quite effective: The ice mine (German): a mine specially designed to be buried in the ice of frozen rivers and to be exploded by electric wire contact when Russians were crossing the ice.

Static flamethrowers (German): Flametrowers to buried before defensive positions and could be activated from a distance.

oh, and there are so many more


Many Greetings, Aglooka

 

the old panjadrum,big flop,I saw footage of it being tested,and yup flop....your finding answers to your questions now too,ray.

 

He he he, the Churchill AVRE with a bobbin was funny, It's a Hobart funny tank with a HUGE DRUM that lays reinforced cloth to prevent other vehicles to sink into the sand on D-day. here is an impage

 

There are some good pictures of funnies on this Wikipedia page.

 

Office of Strategic Services film report on a demonstration of "Hobart's Funnies"

Very good film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKTP5oBgd50