Most Stupid Weapon of WWII

One guy mentioned the Short Stirling ... It is debatable ... but if this I've just read is true, I think it deserves the title of stupid weapon

They ordered to build a four engined bomber to carry the same payload over Germany than the Wellington ... without an actual increase of the plane´s performance, especially true for the service ceiling.

 

...launched by 150 members of the Women´s Royal Naval Service , they had the distinction of being the only offensive combat weapon operated by women.

From "Britain´s war machine" by David Edgerton

 

There's the Great Panjandrum. Developed by Nevil Shute, under the British Admiralty's Directorate of Miscellaneous Weapons Development, it was built with 10 foot wooden wheels with axle between them containing a 2 ton drum of TNT. It was supposed to be launched from the ramp of a landing craft just off a Normandy beachhead. in theory it was supposed to go up to 60 mph on the beachhead and smash into the German coastal defenses blowing a hole in the defenses the size of a tank. In order for it to be propelled forward, there were 70 solid fuel rockets along the rim of each wheel. This is where it gets bad, on top of having all these rockets spinning the entire thing like a crazed wheel firework, there was absolutely no way to control its movements and where it was heading. And if one rocket failed to ignite or was less powered than the others more disaster would ensue.
Thinking of the chaos it probably created when launched and everyone trying to run away from it makes me giggle a little. I don't know why.


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1cyBcGDzQzI

 

Yes...but think of WHEN it was ordfered Vickers and Shorts had limited production capacity for such aircraft when they were ordered before the war... as did Armstrong Whitworth for the Whitley, etc. The Air Ministry spread orders around, ordering as many from each company as it could build, and ensuring also that supply wasn't dependent on only one or two manufacturers or factories But buried in the ORs., the Operational Requirements...they could specify the same bombloads and equivalent performances - so the RAF may have been flying off different aircraft, but could calculate the same bombloads being delivered, no matter by what aircraft.

We'd done the same earlier in the interwar period, with fighters and light bombers getting ordered in penny packets...enough of each model to only equip one or two squadrons...from a variety of companies - keeping all of them working through the lean interwar period and the Depression

 

...and also at least made use of the large quantities of the two types of "incendiary wafer" that had been developed for Bomber Command to attempt the same job in 1940....trying to set Germany's forests on fire.

 

Bat Bombs.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_bomb

 

Seems most stupid or useless or "play around" weapons come from Nazi Germany:

- Me163
- The huge arty pieces (Dora, Karl etc.)
- King + Sturm + Jagdtiger + Elefant (Maus was only prototype)
- He177 (flawed design cause Hitler/and or Göring wanted it to have dive bomber capabilites, also engines were bad)
- Bismark /Tirpitz (quite useless ships for the strategic situation Nazi-G was in)
- Graf Zeppelin (dito, but wasnt completed)
- T35 heavy tank
- Russian flying tank (name?)
- "Volksgewehr-Pistole" - in the end of the war Ger had not enough hand weapons to arm the so called "Volkssturm" (kind of last stand militia), so 2 firms developed very cheap weapons for them. However they were more or less useless cause totally unreliable and no accuracy (apart from the fact, the Volkssturm had no training). Later so called Gauleiters who controlled Volkssturm went over to "organize" (steal) weapons from the Wehrmacht. Göring used Luftwaffe owned material to arm his "own Volkssturm" to protect his luxury house and garden ! Most nazis totally corrupt.
- Japanese Oka & Kamikaze
- V1 (this was quite useless&waste of resources, however I won´t add the V2 because if it were more acurate it could have done good service)

In a more moral mindset I might add fire bombs and atomic bombs.

 

Has this silly thing been mentioned yet?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hf3fgfHoTOc

 

Yeah, way back in 2008 and then all but a year later in 2009.

 

I'm just saying but when i saw the size of those shells that that gun uses, it blew my mind.

 

The Davy Crockett was a nuclear weapon with a warhead delivering a payload in the 10-250ton range. I.e. the same explosive content scaled between the payload of a single Lancaster bomber or a wing of two squadrons of Lancaster Bombers. That is about one 20th of the tonnage delivered in the carpet bombing in support of allied operations in Normandy. These did not have the effect of destroying tanks.

The long term collateral damage from tactical nuclear weapons makes these a pretty dumb weapon.

 

Very interesting. Would have thought any nuclear device deployed would be absolutely devastating...Would 2 wings of bombers be ultimately more destructive than a DC M388 nuclear (what is it) portable rocket?

 

The "Davy Crockett" was essentially a recoil less rocket launcher with an atomic warhead. A ground mount (tripod) is pictured above; I believe there was a jeep mounted version as well. I suspect the crew was told to launch it from a location where they could take cover before impact. If you look at blast radius vs range for instance the US pinapple grenade was potentially leathal at over twice the range it could be thrown I believe (the chance of getting hit by a large fragment at that range was pretty low though).

 

I was recently reading about the ridiculously huge P. 1000 "Ratte". It's amazing it was even given a concept drawing. The propulsion power necessary would have been mind boggling.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landkreuzer_P._1000_Ratte

 

Retire the trophy! We have a winner!

 

:bow:

 

Has anyone heard of the Nazi Triebflugel? I do not think it even got off the drawing board especially since it was developed at the end of the war.

 

AFAIK, it made it to the wind tunnel testing stage before the factory was overrun by the Allies.

Given the experience of the 1950's era Lockheed XFV and Convair XFY Pogo, the Triebflugel would have had some major problems to overcome. Probably more, given that it was a far more complicated design.

 

Lol.

 

Has anyone heard of how the British used a thing called Icebergs? They were pretty much just icebergs used for ways to land aircraft when they were hunting for U-Boats. The project was codenamed Project Habakkuk. Though I am quite partial to the attempted use of cats as ways to spy on the Soviets not long after WWII was over. hehehe...