Most Stupid Weapon of WWII

The rolls-royce of pistols.

 

All right, after they removed the 40 mm gun the Churchill became a real weapon.

 

Personally, I don't know if this counts, but I nominate the Zimmerit paste.

The Germans spent ages applying this paste to all their tanks, to counter a magnetic mine threat that just didn't exist. You gotta ask yourself how many more tanks they would have constructed, how many more they would have gotten to the frontlines, if they didn't waste resources on this idiotic idea.

 

The krummlauf actually began life as a test fixture in confined areas. It was designed to deflect rounds fired from 20mm-30mm cannons and MGs downward. This eliminated the need for a several hundred meter, or more, range to test-fire the weapons for functionality. The primary concept for modified units was to fit ball turrets on tanks and engage swarming troops on or near it or fellow tanks.

How do "looks" contribute to a weapon's handling? The problem with military 9mm is the FMJ round that goes with it.

The MP40 uses hotter (+P) ammo to cycle the open bolt design. I don't recall any acknowledgement that you can only fire one mag safely.

I would love to know where you pulled this out of...

You clearly lack any substantial weapon handling or knowledge. Three descriptive sentences in a video game manual does not impart true knowledge of the weapon. The FG42 was designed for a specific role. It was never intended to play an MG34 in a standard infantry role. Slow rates of fire make a weapon controllable and accurate as you can easliy adjust fire to engage a target.

Aside from the typo, I agree.

I recall the two volume King Tiger combat history books have many pics of tanks being repaired/maintained in the field.[/QUOTE]

The 9mm is, and always will be, popular due to its lighter weight and low recoil. The switch to the M9 was really an effort to placate Nato allies that reminded us of our efforts to "enforce" standardization of MG and rifle ammo within the Alliance. The 45 acp is not dead in the US military; USSOCOM issues the H&K Mk 23; Marines issue a custom 1911; USN SEALs have the SIG P220 in their armory.

Its design and manufacture essentially made it disposable.

The magnetic mine threat came from Russian use of the vast number of captured German HHL 3s.

 

The Italian Army. lol

Quote from a ww2 comic book from an Italian to a German after a failed Italian attack on a Allied position

"Hey, we a lovers not fighters. The fighting we chose to leave to you so we can be at home wooing the ladies."

HAhaha always loved that one.

 

How about...

 

There was a great little film clip of that goofy thing being tested in Britain, and in one test it went wild and chased down a little dog (he escaped) and then careened into the military observers area. NOT a brain storm for sure.

 

The Turret in Norway (it is still there and open for visits) is actually one of the original Gneisenau turrets.

Many greetings

Aglooka

 

The Reising submachine-gun....marines on Guadalcanal dumped whole consignments into the Lunga River.

I have mentioned the Bolton Paul Defiant elswhere, but was shouted down by others pointing to it's good use (apparently) as an early nightfighter.

The Soviet Beriev KOR-1 seaplane converted to landplane but with skids still attached....Used in the early days of Barbarossa, mainly on the Black Sea front, this floatplane was so ungainly and ugly that Rumanian pilots simply stared in amazement!

The Short "Stirling" four engined bomber. Most of the 1,630 of these aircraft produced in 4 types ended up towing targets or gliders. Operationally it was a spectacular failure, used only for the lack of anything better....

The russian "Dog Mine" was withdrawn on day two of Soviet involvement in WW2. The dogs had been trained to associate the underside of tanks with food, and it was hoped they would hungrily throw themselves at the advancing panzers....unfortunately, they associated only Russian tanks with food, and caused an entire Soviet brigade to retreat.....

The British had an invasion weapon called the "Giant Panjandrum", a rocket assisted wheel with an explosive base. Launched from a landing craft, the Panjandrum invariably headed off in any direction it chose, heading straight for the observers and cameras recording the tests!

The French developed the "Richelieu Gun"....captured in 1940, the Germans put it to the test, but took so long to evaluate that it was mid-1944 before the dossier on it's performance was tendered....and by that time all the available ammunition had been used in testing!

Mention should be made of the approximately 300 spies sent to England, ALL of whom were captured and either "turned" or executed in the largest espionage "Double-Cross" in the history of warfare. The implications of "Double Cross" were immense, and far reaching, and all indications are that the Abwehr did not suspect a thing!...It's furtive chief, Admiral Kanaris, was later executed for his involvement in the anti-Hitler conspiracy.....

 

It makes me wonder how much Canaris knew or suspected about Double Cross given his opposition to the Nazis even before the invasion of France and his attempts to sabotage the war effort. He was known to feed Hitler with misinformation--maybe the Abwehr's shoddy counter-intelligence work was intentional negligence?

 

The Short Stirling was used operationally by Bomber Command from February 1941 until September 1944, its two main faults were a lower operational ceiling than the later heavies and its inability to carry the larger bombs favoured by Bomber Command later in the war in its bomb bay. Otherwise the Stirling was an excellent aircraft well liked by its crews. After its retirement from Bomber Command surviving aircraft were used as transport and glider aircraft. It was such a success in these roles that a further 610 were built of the Mk IV and V transport versions, production of which ended in November 1945

 

Nice comment about Kanaris and "Double X". Pity the executioner did not spare him, he would have been very handy for historians trying to figure exactly what happened to German intelligence in WW2. One wonders, if they had any inkling that their security had been so badly compromised would they have negotiated the same course through ww2, or even made seperate peace?

I keep my comments about the "Stirling", though. If it was such a success it would not have needed replacing and would have been produced in far larger numbers. Failure is it's own demonstration with airframes.....

 

It might not have been as successful as the HP Halifax or the Avro Lancaster, but it certainly wasn't the 'spectacular failure' you claim it is.

 

Granted...

Bomber Command was in a definate transition period between Charles Portal and Arthur Harris...

My comments on the "Stirling" reflect the great sense of dissappointment that Bomber Command felt about their new generation of aircraft. Maybe this aircraft should have been given to Coastal Command instead?....But Harris was LOATH to divert any of his hard won airframes from Reich airspace to almost anywhere else in the war effort. "Bomber" Harris seemed to feel that his command could win the war on their own. Whether this is true or not, Speer certainly felt that "Six more raids like Hamburg would have finished the war...", a comment that would, I'm sure have warmed Arthur's heart. A pragmatic man, Arthur Harris......He reminds me of W.T. Sherman, and is the modern model for all Air Force Generals from Curtis Lemay onward. They all suffer from the same doctrinaire thinking, that airpower alone can do the job......

 

The Stirling was not considered by anyone in England a failure. It was made to fit in the hangars at the time and that was why the wings were shorter need to be. It was very agile and was in service before the Lancaster and Halifax. It was in service earlier than the other 2 heavys which both started out as twin engine planes.

 

The dumbest weapon I can think of was the Schwere Gustav railroad gun (mostly due to the fact that it was a HUGE waste of rescources and manpower: it had a major-general for a gun capitan).

 

I don't know if either of these actually qualify as "stupid", but they surely are interesting.

The correct name for the Liberator Pistol is the "Flare Projector" Caliber .45 (FP-45). During 1942 over a six month period one million pistols were produced. Actual production of the pistol was about 11 weeks. Using that figure, 300 people produced a pistol with 23 parts every 6.6 seconds, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 11 weeks. This is probably the only pistol that could be made faster than it could be loaded. Loading takes about 10 seconds.

See:

Liberator Pistol

The OSS however claims that the "Liberator" was made for the US Army and "presented" to the OSS for distribution. That site holds some information on that.

And another oddity was the OSS "glove pistol" which was triggered by punching someone with a clenched fist, which would activate the pistol which was attached to the back of the glove. This fired a .38 Special round (or 380 Super, I’ve heard both calibers) directly into the victim with the body muffling the report. I cannot imagine that the weapon would remain attached to the glove for a second shot even if it could have been reloaded with any rapidity. Here are pics of both.

 

Panjandrum can be seen doing it's rather spectacular thing here at 1:59:
YouTube - British Secret Wartime Follies
Rather tamer (limp) reconstruction:
YouTube - Grand Panjandrum

I seem to recall Dick Strawbridge's recreation for the series 'Crafty tricks of war' was better, but I can't find a video of it on a quick Google.

~A

 

if you think the Schwere Gustav was worthless, look up the Landkreuzer P 1500 Monster, it was never built, but to even try to design something so ridiculously massive...

 

Here's a page with a few more insane ideas from WW 2 and beyond:

9 Absolutely Insane Weapons of War - Oddee.com