Ridiculous Weapons that Were Scrapped for Obvious Reasons
Since the dawn of conflict, mankind has sought to improve its chances of winning by simply improving his tools for the job. Weaponry has been around since the cavemen beat each other senseless with rocks and sticks but has evolved with a more sophisticated yet deadly purpose in mind. While there was a point where the most savage and brutal weapons almost definitely ensured victory, since the Geneva Convention we have luckily taken a hold on weapons development to stop them from being too cruel.
At the end of the day, though, it is still up to the men and women who work for weapons companies to come up with the next step in their progress. These fifteen examples we have collected, however, seem to suggest that the opposite is happening. They are weapons that were specifically designed for warfare but leave us wondering how anyone could’ve possibly thought they would work. These are fifteen weapons that were scrapped for obvious reasons.
The Cat Bomb
Oh boy are we starting off with a bang. This is perhaps one of the Navy’s most ridiculous ideas to ever leave the drawing board. Unfortunately, this weapon actually was built and tested, showing that sometimes, lapses in human judgement can occur, even to weapons developers. The weapon is as simple as the name, they tied a bomb to a cat. The concept was that, because cats hate water, they will try to climb aboard the nearest vessel. If that cat were set up with an explosive and dropped in enemy waters, then you have an instant recipe for sinking vessels.
Reality stopped this from ever happening though. First, the cats that were tested on died from impact with the water. Then, when dropped from a lower altitude, the drowned because (as previously stated) they were tied to actual, heavy, bombs. Then, when given lighter bombs, the cats were unable to climb aboard the ship and drowned.
It is truly a shame that so many felines had to be needlessly sacrificed for an idea that a toddler could’ve told you wouldn’t have worked. It is also a shame that this was neither the first time simple animals were weaponized, nor would it be the last time.
Krummlauf
From a new take on an explosive to a spin on the rifle, one of the common themes you will see in the world of ridiculous weapons designs is the taking of a design that works well and adding a gimmick that ruins what worked. The weapon pictured is of German invention and is known as the Krummlauf. (German word meaning Curved Barrel)
This didn’t start out as a bad idea in all honestly. In the 1940’s German tank crews were encouraged to carry machine guns and use their tanks for cover when in combat. The only problem with this system, however, came with the fact that the soldiers were only able to either shoot or keep cover. That was when someone got the idea to design a gun that could shoot while its holder was safe behind the tank.
It was a good idea, until the men and women tasked with the project realized there was no feasible way to carry it out. When their deadline came, they rushed out the model shown in the picture in order to show their superiors. Needless to say, tests were less than pleasing. Bullets shot out the middle of the barrel instead of following the curve all the way to the end. Some models even exploded in soldiers’ hands. Despite its curved barrel, this design went straight to the trash.
The Davey Crockett
Well, I honestly have no justification for the logic behind this one. This is the Davey Crockett, an American designed mortar with a deadly amount of firepower.
It literally uses small nuclear bombs as its ammunition. You know . . . those highly dangerous and destructive explosives that wiped out entire cities . . . the ones that had to be dropped from high altitudes to stop the pilots from getting caught in the blast. I’m sure we could launch some of those only about a mile or two at the most and be perfectly fine. This was the most obvious reason the Davey Crockett was canceled and never used practically, but it was still tested like there was a chance it could be successful.
The result was the predictable one. The mortar they detonated remotely was completely destroyed and harmful radiation spilled into the air. If there had actually been a mortar crew operating it, they certainly would have perished. In all fairness, this was before the warheads were developed to launch nukes over large distances, so I can kind of see what they were going for. But that still doesn’t change the fact that this was possibly the absolute worst and most irresponsible idea for a weapon that has ever come to pass, and that is saying something as you have already read about the ingenious cat bombs.
The Anti-Tank Dog
It seems there is a common desire among weapons manufacturers to sacrifice domestic animals for the common good. This idea is another gem of the Second World War and runs off the theme of David and Goliath. While the blitzkrieg had found its way to the Eastern Front and Russia was fiercely battling the Germans, it was decided that something had to be done about German tanks. So, Soviet ingenuity came up with the idea to raise dogs that were able to deal with the tanks for them.
This is one of the few examples on this list that actually made it past testing and was used in battle. More or less, the Soviet Army raised dogs under tanks and trained them that beneath a tank was their home. All that was left was to take them from the tanks that were their homes, strap time bombs to them, and point them in the direction of new tanks to call their homes.
Of course, with the unpredictability of canines, something was bound to go wrong with this plan. Most dogs were scared by the fighting and tried to return to the Russian lines. Then their bombs would detonate. Only two battles were reported to have featured the bomber dogs until people realized they were uselessly killing off dogs which could be cared for and still serve the military in other ways.
The Railway Gun
The absolute largest artillery piece mankind ever produced at the time, this is the legendary railway gun. The power of German engineering exemplified. As WWII was in its final stages, the German army needed weapons that were able to stop the encroaching Allied Forces and be able to continue their retreat at the time. Thus, the idea came to assemble this gargantuan canon. More or less, Germany was a highly industrialized nation, with much of its transportation routes relying on railway travel. Thus, being able to mount an artillery piece upon the rails would mean excellent transportability for this weapon throughout most of Europe.
The gun was built to be able to rain down massive payloads from a safe distance and was set to be the pride of the German Army. Unfortunately, its design was what truly hampered it on the battlefield. The barrel of the can was unable to rotate, so adjusting it was nearly impossible. You just kind of had to line it up on the tracks and pray the shells would reach the enemy.
Then there was the fact that it took a very long time to actually get the engine started and moving in case of a hasty retreat. Finally, the canon had a very low rate of fire because of how heavy its shells were. While railway guns did see combat, they were scrapped because of just how impractical they were.
Progvev-T
Unfortunately, despite how cool and futuristic this tank may appear, it’s just another bust. As you will have no doubt surmised from the image alone, this tank is made unique thanks to the impressive looking addition that dons its top. The Progvev-T as this peculiarity is called, is simply a repurposed Russian tank. Its true uniqueness comes from the way it was repurposed, of course. The massive device affixed to it is actually part of a turbine to a jet airliner. The idea was that if they used the attachment properly, this vehicle could be used to clear a path through troublesome mine fields.
The principle was a rather sensible one, by using the massive amounts of exhaust that were generated by the modern jet airliner, they could send powerful gusts down upon the ground, detonating any mines buried there. Ideally, the Russian army could deploy these mechanical beasts to clear a path for an army through a mine field.
Unfortunately, the turbines actually pushed the tanks backwards because of the intense wind force. When that issue was fixed, it was discovered that the air flow didn’t destroy every mine, so the ones that slipped by detonated, destroying the tanks. Needless to say, the Progvev-T wasn’t in circulation for very long before being shipped out to the junkyards.
The Aerial Aircraft Carrier
While hearing the phrase “Aerial Aircraft Carrier” may cause visions of futuristic hovering runways laden with bombers to come to your minds, I am sad to say the closest we have come to this idea yet was quite a disappointment. Both Americans and Russians tried their hands at such a technology due to the relative inefficiency of war planes at the time, air forces were looking for ways to help them travel greater distances. How to accomplish this goal? Putting a bunch of planes on the back of a giant one of course.
The idea was that if the actual flying planes spent less time flying into battle, they would be able to stay up in the air during the battle for a longer time. This logic does indeed make sense on simply a conceptual level, but the implementation could’ve done with some serious alterations. Because of their heavy loads, the aerial aircraft carriers were too heavy to keep flying for extended periods of time, so the same problem was prevalent as before.
Also, because of their large sizes and slow speeds, they were sitting ducks for experienced enemy pilots. Many were shot down before they even had the chance to deploy the planes they bore. So they were quickly recalled and left to obscurity.
Aerosol Aphrodisiac
Every time I think we have found the most absolutely outlandish idea that has ever been put into a weapon, I am dearly surprised. Next on the chopping block, we have the one, the only, the aerosol aphrodisiac. For those of our readers who are unfamiliar with the term, an aphrodisiac is a substance that stimulates sex drive in organisms when it comes into contact with them. Scientists in the 1960’s observed the effects of aphrodisiacs and discovered a way to make them more potent and able to effect humans just by being introduced into the air around them. With no real purpose for such a breakthrough, they began to experiment with using it in some of the less sensible ways. This, of course, included weaponizing it.
The idea that these ladies and gentlemen pitched to the military was that if they could load up military planes with the equipment like those of a run-of-the-mill crop duster, they could equip the plane with the aerosol and have it spray the enemy with the chemical compound. They suggested that this would put their opponents into a blind and lustful state that would put them so far out of their minds that they could be captured and the battle could be won.
Needless to say, the human desire to stay alive overtook their secondary emotions and allowed them to still fight just fine, even with the chemical contact. This weapon was tested only once to realize just how useless it was.
The Puckle Gun
Have you ever though to yourself, “Gee, I sure wish that bullets came in all shapes and sizes. These round ones are alright and are scientifically the best design for a projectile, but sometimes I want to shake it up?” Well, if you are one of the two people in human history to actually have that line of thinking, you have a weapon to satisfy your strange cravings. This peculiar device called the Puckle Gun was one that was invented for a rather uncivil reason.
You see, in the late 1800’s there were scattered conflicts throughout the Middle East and northern Africa that involved Europe. Since firearms were already established but still improving in leaps at this time, many inventors tried their hands at creating the true perfect model of a gun. This weapon created by a man named Puckle and his assistant uses multiple bullet chambers so that it can shoot differently shaped bullets for different situations.
As Puckle said, “Regular bullets for fighting Europeans and square bullets to put down heathens and savages.” He believed it wouldn’t be fit for “lesser peoples” to be killed with the same bullets as his fellow Europeans. The Puckle Gun would only be built as a prototype model because no militaries wanted themselves affiliated with it or its creator.
The Blazing Camels
Blazing camels. No, that’s not the name of a new Grunge band. That’s our next entry. This one is by far the oldest weapon in our repertoire being used about six-hundred years ago. Back in an age where warfare was a rather fluid field due to the rapid development of new and creative weapons to oust their opponents. In the Asian Continent, one of the most desirable implementations of warfare was the enormous elephants that inhabited the land. When Mahmud Khan invaded the land of Mongolia, he deployed more than a hundred fully armored elephants to break the lines of his opponents.
Knowing that conventional means would be unable to bring down the massive mammals, the Mongolian Chieftain Timur devised a stratagem that would help his forces defeat the beasts. They took every camel in their army, soaked them in oil, and set them on fire. Afterwards, he let these burning camels stampede toward the elephants, which were so frightened, they rampaged their own army, leaving few alive.
Timur and his men crushed one of the most powerful armies at the time without losing a single man. He even captured the elephants and used them to conquer Khan’s land in retaliation. Despite the ridiculous lunacy of the plan, it was a perfect success.
The Flying Tank
From a gallant success to a crippling mistake, let’s discuss the flying tank. Yet another name that suggest one of the coolest ideas of all time, but has its execution turn out to be an utter letdown. During WWII, with all nations trying to come up with the one idea that would win the war. The Russians decided that an opportunity they were hugely missing out on was the ability to get tanks into combat efficiently. So they began toying with the notion of fixing up a tank so that it could actually glide into battle after being airdropped.
To test the concept, a pair of glider wings was fixed to a simple light tank, as seen in the photograph. The name of Antonin-V was given to the model. The first problem designers ran into was the fact that it would be nearly impossible to actually find a motor that could fit on the tank and actually generate enough lift to keep it airborne long enough to glide.
There was also the issue that with the enormous wingspan, nobody was able to actually fit it in any plane. Because it would require the design and construction of a series of aircraft that this thing could actually fit in, the Russians decided to just drop the concept altogether.
The Suicide Plane
Kamikaze warfare was a dangerous and terrifying tool that the Japanese utilized well in the Second World War. Having an army of followers who were willing to completely give up their lives in exchange for a heavenly reward made their tactics fierce and brutal throughout the war in the Pacific. It was really no surprise when the Japanese Air Force began to draw up plans that would maximize the damage that their fervent kamikaze pilots could do. Enter the suicide plane, one of the most deplorable inventions of the time. The name really says it all. This plane would open once to let a pilot in, and then be sealed permanently with its operator inside.
The design was very small and light so that it could fly quickly and evasively, but they were still packed with explosive devises in order to maximize the destruction a single unit could do. These planes went on to sink multiple small American Naval ships, but it is reported that no large ones were destroyed. Most kamikaze victories relied on using the larger normal planes of the Japanese Armed Forces.
When the war ended, luckily it was decided that the suicide bombing method used was cruel and permanently discontinued by Japan. As such, these wretched planes were discontinued and existing ones were sold to museums and private collectors after having the explosives removed, of course.
The Double Barreled Canon
Throughout history, mankind has believed in the simple principle that more is usually better. As such, it was only a matter of time before we created the canon with multiple barrels. While there were some quite successful designs where canons would have upwards of three different barrels that rotated like a revolver in order to shoot with a better rate of fire, there was a desire to continue improvements. The massive sizes of the previously mentioned revolver-canons made them mostly practical to be used aboard ships. So engineers during the American Civil War decided to up efficiency by putting two different canons on the same rig.
There is a small slit cut between both barrels for the following purpose. The intended ammunition to launch out of the device was actually two cannonballs that were connected by a thin chain. The idea behind this was that the chain would cause the shot to spin lethally, like a helicopter’s propeller. This was supposed to help one shot harm massive amounts of enemy infantry, but as you might have surmised, it did not go as planned.
The canon was unable to fire with enough force to get the desired spinning motion to its shot. More often than not, the cannonballs would merely disconnect from the chains and going flying in strange directions. Needless to say, the double-barreled canon didn’t make it past primary testing and very few can be found to this day.
The Corkscrew Tank
You don’t have to be a physics major to spot the immediate problem with this ridiculous design, but let’s get in a little bit of background information before diving into the nitty gritty. Thanks to the absolutely treacherous nature of the terrain in the northern part of Russia, sometimes engineers have to get a little creative when coming up with vehicles to traverse it. This particular design was crafted by the Soviet Union during the conflict known as the Cold War as a means to fight effectively in their own borders if the conflict escalated to that.
The corkscrew devices that were implemented on the bottom instead of tread or wheels was supposed to be used to effectively move the tank through massive snow heaps without sinking like the mass of metal it is. With the sharp and constantly digging design, it was hoped that this vehicle could move forward and sideways with little inhibition.
This was stopped, however, because of how dense the snow in the Russian mountains can actually get. More often than not, in testing sessions, the snow would get caught in the mechanisms and axels of the screws, completely halting it. The Russian Military halted funding for this project when it was unable to fix this problem and instead decided to just focus on making their existing tanks more efficient in the snow.
The Duck’s Foot
To wrap things up, we have a pistol that is as strange in name as it is in design. The Duck’s Foot or Duckfoot Pistol, as it is called, was invented during the 18th century when arms manufacturers were getting a little bit too ambitious with their improvements to firearms. Although the original designer and their origins are unknown, it is believed Germany was where they began to pop up.
The function of the pistols is to shoot many bullets with one shot. The multiple barrels were designed to each hold a small bullet that would be paced against the gunpowder and firing mechanism of the gun. Once the trigger was pulled and the hammer fell, it would ignite the powder, expelling all four bullets.
The people buying such kooky weapons were mostly guards who worked with valuables. The idea was that thieves who were after such valuables never really worked alone, so the one shot pistols of the time would be inefficient against a group. If they could shoot many criminals at once, then that would greatly help them with security. In practice, most duck’s foot pistols were highly unreliable. The most common complaint was that firing mechanisms would fail at a moment’s notice, something no guard wants in a weapon. When they did work, they lacked accuracy and power, so they were abandoned quickly.