Strange weapons wanted!

Can someone post images of VERY STRANGE weapons used in WWII?

 

Google is your friend.

 

Some random ones, depends how strange...

Unusual German Small Arms and Infantry Weapons of World War II

 

Thanks alot

 

Always "loved" the STG-44 with Krummlauf....

 

I think the strangest one would be the STG-44 with the bent barrel for use in Elefants. That, or the dog mines the Russians had.

 

My own favorites are "Panjandrum", known also as "The Great Panjandrum" (google it up for a laugh), which was that bizarre rocket powered wheel that was supposed to be used on the invasion beaches on D-Day. I watched a short video of this thing once where it ended up chasing the officers observing one of it trial runs, and another where it went after a poor pooch that happened to be in the area.

Too weird.

This laugher was produced by the Directorate of Miscellaneous Weapons Development of Great Britain. Might be worth looking into their collection to find others. The Habbakuk was also a bit on the strange side, at least it was never produced beyond a "prototype" model made in Canada.

See:

Habbakuk

If needed, the giant carrier actually might have been a workble idea, but it wasn't needed by the time it could have been produced.

 

Fliegerfaust- Unguided Anti-Air missile launcher...ridiculous

 

Here is a History Channel documentary on strange weapons of the axis

YouTube - Weird Weapons Of WW2-The Axis part 2

YouTube - Weird Weapons Of WW2-The Axis part 1

YouTube - Weird Weapons Of WW2-The Axis part 3

...and the allies

YouTube - Weird Weapons Of WW2-Allies part 1

YouTube - Weird Weapons Of WW2-Allies part 2

YouTube - Weird Weapons Of WW2-Allies part 3

YouTube - Weird Weapons Of WW2-Allies part 4

YouTube - Weird Weapons Of WW2-Allies part 5

 

Haha, as I scrolled down this thread I was praying that no one had all ready taken this One crazy weapon that has no picture sadly, is the balloon bomb invented by Japan. It looked good on paper, but failed miserably. It was supposed to be carried by wind currents and somehow drop bombs from a balloon on hapless American folks. They totally failed and were inflated by Japanese propaganda saying that they caused mass hysteria and killed "tens of thousands" of people.

 

Those Fugo balloon bombs were a pretty much total failure, one Fugo bomb did kill a Methodist minister’s wife and five (or six?) kids who were on a church sponsered picnic in the woods, and another one of them did hit and cut the power lines to the Hanford Plant (plutonium). The silver lining to that was the "integrated" self shut-down process proved to work without flaw, and the system was up and working again within a week or two.

But none of the Fugo hydrogen balloon bombs did much of any import. The fear on the US side was that they might sent the buggers over loaded with "plague" infected lice (something they had done in China). So after the first one was understood to be a Japanese weapon, the shipments of DDT, Sulfonamide (penicillin doesn't work against bubonic plague), and arsenic based rodent poison was diverted to and stockpiled in all the major west coast cities as a counter measure.

This cut down the stockpiles for the troops in the PTO, but never really interupted their "in the pipeline" supplies. Those Fugo bombs landed as far north as Alaska and the Yukon Territories, and as far south as Mexico. I believe a few even made it as far east as Wisconsin, but they never did anything in reality other than alert the American government to the existence of the Jet Stream (something largely unknown by the US), and that our "ocean barriers" were far from perfect defenses.

Their original plan was to start massive forest fires on the American west coast, thus diverting attention to the home-front, and costing America some of its vast natural resources. As far as setting fires in the Pacific Northwest, the Japanese had their timing all wrong. Here in the Pacific Northwest (Washington state, Oregon, Idaho, western Montana) America tends to have wet periods lasting three or four months out of the year, and then three very dry months in the late summer (July ~ September). During the dry months the risk of forest fires is pretty high. But the rest of the year, it's pretty hard to set a forest fire - heck, it's hard to get any kind of a fire going using best efforts and lots of matches.

As a counter to the possibility of forest fires, the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion (a black unit), was diverted from their training and moved to the northwest where they became the prototype "Smokejumpers", although smoke jumping had been pioneered earlier, these guys were the first large and concentrated force used for this purpose. They were not welcomed wholeheartedly by the people of the region, the Northwest was very racially biased at the time, it still isn’t the most tolerant section north of the old Mason-Dixon line.

Here is link to an interesting article concerning just how American geologists figured out where these balloon bombs were being launched from.

Goto:

Japanese Vengenance Balloon Bombs of World War II - J. David Rogers

This has both drawing and photos of the balloon systems, as well as the landing sites of many of them. It is rumored there may still be a few undiscovered balloon bomb payloads scattered around in remote areas, and even after all these years could still be quite dangerous if found.

 

I do remember the minister being killed, but thanks for all the extra information, I only had an article in a book for it.

 

Strange animal weapons, including the Rat Bomb, the Cat Bomb and the Bat Bomb of WWII.

 

I've heard of the bat bomb!

 

I also find the Panjandrum interesting!

 

here u go the p.1000 ratte.

 

I always thought the PIAT was rather strange. A modern effective shaped charged head powered by a spring !! The Brits were very inventive in many areas but a spring driven anti-tank weapon was seemingly rather primative, what?

They show up in two movies if my memory serves me, " A Bridge Too Far" and "The Longest Day":

 

Japanese hook charges for (suicidal) anti-tank use.


One Japanese division has advocated the use of a similar, although simpler, device designed primarily to damage the guns on a tank being attacked by ground troops. It consists of a heavy demolition charge of explosive blocks to which a short stick has been wired. One end of this stick then is inserted in the hollow end of a bamboo pole, thus forming an easily removable handle. Two heavy wires, bent like fishhooks, are fastened to the other end of the charge. A short length of fuze rigged with a pull-type fuze lighter is installed in a demolition block near the handle, and a cord or rope about as long as the handle is tied to the fuze lighter. When attacking a tank with this pole charge, presumably from ambush, the Japanese soldier is supposed to pull the cord and ignite the fuze as he approaches his target. On reaching the tank, he is supposed to hook the wire hooks of the charge over the tank cannon or machine gun. As he retreats he pulls the bamboo pole loose from the charge, and the demolition hangs freely in position on the gun until the charge explodes.

New Weapons for Jap Tank Hunters (U.S. WWII Intelligence Bulletin, March 1945)

 

Thanks guys! I find all of this very interesting

 

Speaking of the Fliegerfaust, some keen eyed individual noticed one laying in front of the Adlon Hotel in Berlin in some old photos: