Most useless weapon of the 20th Century

Going slightly off topic, the French also willingly gave the Americans some nice little Nieuport Fighter aircraft. Nice, nimble fighters. Their only little vice was a willingness to shed its upper wing if you looked at it funny - even more so than most of the WW1 biplanes.

 

No insult of the French intended here, the Shoho is the only piece of junk that they gave us (that I'm aware of). They also gave us/sold us Renault light tanks that were state-of-the-art. In fact, these were the only tanks we had until the late 1930's. If we hadn't been so pitifully unprepared for war in 1917, we wouldn't have had the need for the Shosho's in the first place.

 

But they didn't give them to the spanish Republicans for love to the cause. They were as overpriced as everithing sold to republican forces.

 

Wow, expensive AND useless! I see a prize looming here.

 

What about the British 2-in anti-aircraft rocket ? It had a wire attached to it which was intended to foul the propeller of a low-flying enemy aircraft.

 

There was a plan for a German weapon that was to ultimately end the Allied bombing raids over Germany: bombs that were carried by balloons, unrolling a string that would then hang at the cruising altitude of the bombers. The idea was that the bombers would get ensnared in such a string and then, by flying on, draw the bomb into themselves or getting stuck in its wire and crashing. Of course the plan was completely unrealistic as it required masses of balloon-bombs to matter, and the bombers were likely to just snap the wires when flying through them.

 

as above.

we (the Brits) also had a device on these lines, an old friend of mine(now passed on , not many of us left!) was a R.N. Petty officer in D.E.M.S.
(Defenceably Equipped Merchant Ships) basically an ancient gun with RN crew.He told me of a device similar,shot up some how trailing miles of piano wire.Un fortunately just prior to DDay ,in harbour ,it was fired by accident and smothered all the ships in harbour with the wire!
Also at same time lost a barrage balloon that had not been attached correctly!

 

The Dragon antitank missile formerly used by the US military certainly qualify as useless. They were unreliable, short ranged, and didn't have the punch to kill a tank except under ideal conditions.

 

Total AK-47 production is over 50 million pieces, total AK family production is about 110 million pieces.

Btw, the sten is produced till the present day and it numbers far more then 3,7 million. (half the afghan mudjahidin was armed with pakistani made stens and so the pakistani and indian ''home/national guard'')

 

Ah! You beat me to it! But anyways, 50 million is right, that is why you can find them for less than $50 in most places.

Yes, the Renaults were even used to evict the "Bonus Army" from Capital Hill, quite ironic.

My choice for the most useless weapon is the A & H bombs. We never used them (except WWII) but the Russians and Americans kept building them and kept throwing threats to use them, effectively scaring the shit out of people on more than a couple of occasions.

 

Well, Zhukov, nobody liked (or likes) nukes, not even those in the military who were in charge of them. I know I didn't and don't, and my shipmates felt the same way.

 

Must agree with you there. They are one of the worst things invented, but now we have them you must keep them (in limited numbers) until something better comes along. (Disposing of them in an uncontrolled manner could lead to castastropic consequences).

 

Definitely. You don't muck about with nukes under any circumstances. Unless, of course, you've grown tired of breathing...

 

Unfortunately this probably has happened with former soviet union. I dread to think what has happened to their nuclear material.

 

Yeah, I try not to think about that too much. <shudder>

 

It is probably a toss up between that horrific ChauChaut MG and one of those WWII Germany wonder weapons (pick any). But my vote probably goes to the Marginot line, it is considered a defensive weapon, right?

 

3 different useless weapons:

1: German super artillery piece- some type of multibarreled super long range weapon that was supposed to attack London. Germans couldnt get it to work, but still kept pouring resources in.

2: Japanese pistol that officers recieved, had one little flaw- if you pushed too hard on one side, it would fire!

3: Japanse light machine gun with a 2 foot bayonet on it.

 

Little correction there - the two-foot bayonet is called a sword.

These weapons sound more dangerous than useless actually...

 

Why is a bayonet on a machine gun useless?

 

1. The light machine gun is a support weapon, not supposed to be used for close assault; if it is used as such, which is unlikely due to the weight of it, its main weapon is fire and not the possibility to stab the enemy. But most of the time you couldn't use the bayonet because you'd be prone and firing in support.

2. Bayonets reduce a weapon's accuracy; on the light machine gun, already struggling to be kept on target, this would only make things worse.

3. We're not talking a regular bayonet here but a two-foot short sword; it would be a liability in any combat, not just on light machine guns, because it's far too long to be useful.