The 6 Most Ill-Conceived Weapons Ever Built
Thousands of new weapons are designed every year, and chances are most of them are profoundly stupid. That's OK, though, because there are people whose entire job is to make sure the ridiculous weapons don't get built. However, every once in a while someone manages to sneak one past the reality checkers, and right onto the production line. Weapons such as ...
Back in World War II, New Zealand and Australia found themselves in an awkward position: They were technically part of the British Empire -- which meant they were at war with Japan. But they were also far enough away from England that the British couldn't afford to send them any tanks. With the Japanese advancing and conquering island after island across the Pacific, New Zealand decided to take matters into its own hands and build its own damn tanks. Thus, the Bob Semple tank was born.
Via Wikipedia Commons
We've seen more menacing Micro Machines.
Besides having the least-threatening name ever bestowed upon a tank, the Bob Semple barely qualified as one. It was little more than a farm tractor -- and due to several design flaws, it was about as useful as one in a war zone.
The designers based it on an American tractor tank, but the problem was that they had no blueprints, no building materials outside those found in a farm and no idea what the hell they were doing. They literally designed the Bob Semple by looking at a postcard of the original tank. By that logic, half of us should be able to reconstruct the Eiffel Tower.
Via National Library of New Zealand
Also, apparently some of the workers were under the impression that they were building a small house.
The tank was made by placing an armored box on top of a tractor -- and by "armored" we mean "made from roofing material." Supposedly, the corrugated surface would deflect bullets by virtue of its curviness. Since they also lacked artillery in any numbers, they outfitted the Bob Semple with as many machine guns as it could hold. Six to be exact.
Unfortunately, that last part meant having to cram at least six people into that piece of junk. One of the machine gunners had to lie on a mattress in the belly of the tank, right on top of the burning hot engine. The other five had to stand on the first one's back, presumably. And then they needed someone else to drive the damn thing. According to Wikipedia, the total crew consisted of eight people.
Via armor.kiev.ua
In other words, New Zealand had all the military acumen of Hobbiton.
The Bob Semple was also extremely top heavy and slow -- it couldn't even change gears without coming to a full stop. Also, the vibrations from the tractor rumbling down the grassy plain caused the machine guns to jam, and when someone managed to squeeze off some shots, they tended to be horribly inaccurate. Though it made up for all that by looking ridiculous.
The New Zealand Army rejected the Bob Semple tank for use in their forces, and the units that had already been built were dismantled ... but not before they were paraded in the streets of New Zealand as a way to boost morale.
Via armor.kiev.ua
The Japanese canceled the invasion when they realized that the island had already been taken by their oldest, and dearest ally: ridiculous robots.
This won't be our last stop in World War II on this list; that war may not have been a great time for a lot of people, but it was fantastic time for crazy weapons. With the Nazis breathing down Great Britain's neck, the British army faced a shortage of anti-tank guns. So, some creative improvisation was called for. One of the solutions for this problem was the Anti-Tank Hand Grenade #74, commonly known as "the sticky grenade."
AKA "Satan's Maraca."
While most insane weapons at least have a good idea behind them, the sticky grenade was crazy in both theory and practice. The most impressive thing about it was that it managed to get produced without anyone noticing how ridiculous it was.
The very idea of a sticky grenade sounds like something you'd find in a Wile E. Coyote cartoon: They called it "sticky" because it was literally covered in a powerful adhesive, and then encased in a metal ball that would fall apart after removing a pin. It also had a handle which, when released, would activate a five-second fuse. The way it worked is that a soldier had to sneak up on an enemy tank, stick the grenade to it, release the handle and run like hell before it exploded.
Mills Grenades
"OK, so, first you release the handle, THEN you-" -- the last words of several British soldiers
So basically, in order for it to work, the sticky grenade required a soldier to expose himself to enemy fire, run up to a tank while wielding a wad of explosive chewing gum and hope it sticks to the damn thing -- which it wouldn't if the tank was dusty or muddy. One thing it loved to stick to, however, was the soldier's uniforms. Like in this real story from British Home Guard member Bill Miles:
"It was while practicing that a Home Guard bomber got his sticky bomb stuck to his trouser leg and couldn't shift it. A quick thinking mate whipped the trousers off and got rid of them and the bomb. After the following explosion, the trousers were in a bit of a mess -- though I think they were a bit of a mess prior to the explosion."
Via Dad's Home Guard
"He pooped himself, is what I'm trying to say."
The sticky grenade was originally rejected for use by the Army, but personal intervention by Winston Churchill himself put them into production (because apparently he hated soldiers). They were mostly used by the Home Guard and the French Resistance, but they also found their way into the hands of British soldiers in North Africa, where they claimed a grand total of six German tanks and an undisclosed number of British trousers.
In 1718 Britain, a guy named James Puckle patented the world's first rapid fire weapon: the Defense Gun, also known as the Puckle Gun. Resembling a giant revolver on a tripod, this gun claimed to be able to fire 63 shots in seven minutes (which in modern mathematics is known as "nine shots a minute"). That may not seem like much, but when you consider that the most skilled musketeers at the time could only fire three shots a minute, it was a vast improvement.
"Kills three times as many Frenchmen!"
The official reason why the Puckle Gun never caught on with the British Army is that it had way too many cylinders -- like three or four. Clearly this was more cylinders than British gunsmiths could keep track of.
"We're soldiers, blast it, not wizards!"
And the reason why the Puckle Gun had so many cylinders, by the way, was its blatant racism. Wait, what?
You see, included in the patent for the gun was the concept of interchangeable cylinders: one shot regular musket balls meant for "civilized" people, and the other shot square bullets at Muslim Turks. Why? According to the patent, the square bullets hurt more and were meant to teach the Turks the "benefits of Christian civilization."
"A square hole in my chest! This completely changes my attitude on religion!"
There were several reasons why this was a bad idea: First of all, there's no way to test whether a square bullet hurts more than a round bullet without actually shooting one at a volunteer, and that would require finding someone who was willing to convert to Islam beforehand. Secondly, the unnecessary number of extra parts made the gun harder to manufacture, which is why it was never mass produced.
Also, this was pretty impractical for the shooters as well, since they had to make sure to change the cylinder depending on the religious convictions of the enemy in front of them -- lest they accidentally condemn a Christian to eternal damnation by killing him with a bullet meant for a Turk. The Puckle Gun was primarily intended for shipboard use -- but what if the ship should ran into a gang of multi-ethnic pirates? What then, Mr. Puckle?
Via National Portrait Gallery, London
Obviously you didn't think this through.
no McAdam shovel im dissapointed
ReplyIt seems like #1 would work if war was turned-based like Final Fantasy.
ReplyWW1 had such awesome mustaches.
Reply"Once you blew your load, how are you even supposed reload the thing without exposing yourself?"
ReplyCan anyone else think of another situation where this sentence would be relevant? ;-)
I suggest that the army takes their trousers, stick the sticky grenades on, then TOSS THEM at the enemy tanks
ReplyGood god, hire this man into the military.
My nerd mind is blown that stick grenades were actually conceived. Who knows, they may be refining the sticky grenade.
ReplyI thought they did that with semtex at some point.. might just be a fantasy i cooked up for myself though.
the Ross would be fine if an astronaut sniper used it
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesNo dirt in space!
mmm, because combustion works so well in a vacuum
The nice thing about gun powder is that it's self oxidizing.
You can fire a gun in space.
There's dirt in space
If you're an astronaut sniper, do you exclusive snipe astronauts or do you snipe dudes from space, or... you know what f**k it that sounds badass no matter what!
ReplyDude... holy shit. Exactly what I thought of when I first read that.
What about pornstar sniper? That could give astronaut sniper a run for its money.
I feel like that would result in a lot of unwanted pregnancies in the adult film community.
The Ross rifle seems to remind me in almost every way of a certain British weapon introduced in the mid-eighties...
ReplyWhile not "in every way", it does share many characteristics with a certain American weapon introduced in the early sixties and widely-accepted in the late sixties... and another American weapon introduced in the late fifties....
I really enjoyed this article. However, I am familiar with the gun shield from the Higgins (the second one pictured in this article) and it weighs 9 lbs 10 oz, less than a third of the 30 lb figure they gave. Also, it is not a muzzle loading weapon: it was an early experiment in breech loading technology, ultimately abandoned due to cost.
ReplyYet again people think it is possible to be racist against a religion
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesTurks aint a religion numbnuts.
No is it a race, but thanks for playing. So yes Dix your right.
Spelling error I meant - 'Nor' is it a race
It is an ethnicity, which is pretty much a race.
What's so bad about a sticky grenade? It f**ks up the covenant pretty well.
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesThe thing is, you can THROW those ones. And they work on anything. And Master Chief never accidentally activates one while it's on his belt.
I knew it. As soon as I saw "Sticky Grenade" on the list, I knew someone would use one from a video game as an argument. Awesome.
Well duh, video games popularized the sticky grenade.
you could throw the sticky bombs in COD too (Call of Duty 2)
You could probably write an article with 1,000 weapons and still have a bunch left over but you didn't mention one of my personal favorites: The Chauchat (pronounced show-sha). If you ever want to look it up and can't remember the name "terrible french wwI machine gun" typed into Google returns the relevant Wikipedia page as the top result. It was a French light machine gun issued to the American expeditionary force when they arrived in France in WWI.
ReplyIt had 3 large problems: First, aiming down the sights when firing tended to result in recoil that would break the users cheek so you couldn't really aim it. Second, the magazine was a half moon shape with no sides pretty much guaranteeing that the bullets would be caked with mud at all times constantly jamming the weapon. Third, the manufacturing standards were so poor that none of the parts were interchangeable. If you had two of them with one silly little break you couldn't take parts from one to repair the other because they wouldn't fit. You couldn't even get spare parts from the factory. Every gun was totally unique so unless you had a machine shop and a lot of raw material in your trench one tiny little problem with your gun meant it was trash.
The worst part of the whole deal is that the army had big stacks of perfectly good BARs (arguably the best single man portable machine gun in the word at the time) lying around all their arsenals but decided not to issue them. They were worried that the Germans would get a hold of some and reverse engineer the design and then they would have them too. So they made a kick ass weapon and then didn't use it because they were afraid someone would copy it. Kinda like a baker making the worlds most delicious cake and then not letting anyone eat it because they might steal the recipe. Kinda defeats the whole purpose of making it in the first place.
We're talking ill-conceived here, not irredeemably s**tty. Something like a torpedo that only detonates 35% of the time on contact doesn't qualify, but a torpedo that can move in reverse would be entirely ill-conceived.
In any case, there's about a hundred cases of soldiers being issued extremely bad weapons out of poor judgment.
Good point. There was NO upside to the chauchat. It didn't even use american ammunition, so there were supply problems.The BARs were pretty much perfect.Popping 30-06 slugs,having a decent weight to control recoil,being accurate, and durable as it gets (not to mention the belt-cup device that assisted the "walking fire" school of thought)
Is it just me, or does the Bob Semple "Tank"look one toilet plunger short of being a giant Dalek?
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesA Special Weapons Dalek, to be precise, although it also resembles W.O.T.A.N.'s War Machines.
Now when you say "special", . .
Daleks are a f**king stupid villain. They're only feared because of their transports! Arm an EMP and those f**kers will FRY.
No m16? Or Gustav gun?
Reply Hide All See All 11 Replieswow, very unexpected
Only a f**king retard would think the M16 was ill-conceived.
@demise4u Obviously you know absolutely nothing about weapons or the m16 which has a reputation for a very long time as one of the most horrific jokes on american (and allied) soldiers ever invented.
When your enemies weapon costs 10% as much, has a longer range, more firepower and will go Through things your toy gun bounces off of... assuming your toy gun doesnt just jam up (which was common) isnt usually a good idea.
But hey we're spending a trillion to fight a few thousand badly armed idiots and .. not losing too badly so the m4 (m16's grandchild) must be awesome eh..
creid, you're a f**king idiot.
die of aids spaz
Creid is dead on, the M16 was a nightmare to use in vietnam. demise is quite the fool.
The M16 wasn't ill conceived, it's actually a very good gun. The issue is that during the Vietnam War the guy in charge of military acquisitions decided to order them with raw steel receivers and bolts, instead of the more costly chrome plated ones, he also decided to order ammunition loaded with ball type powder, which burns less cleanly than the more expensive and powerful stick type. Also the AK-47 has only 2/3 the effective range of the M16, oh and there is a reason the 5.56 has been known as The Meat Axe.
Sounds like somebody needs to get to an actual range and try out the guns instead of just reading stuff from Google.
Hey, guess what? I have, the AK wasn't that great on accuracy, it did have plenty of power though. And, truthfully, i prefer the AK, the M16 just doesn't feel like a gun, it feels too light and plastic-ey. Which i guess lightness is good if you're carrying it and a bunch of supplies and ammo up a mountain in the middle of the desert.
That is why the M4 has pretty much replaced the M16 as the standard issue assault rifle for American troops.
Just because a gun works in Call of Duty doesn't mean it does in real life.
True. the m-16s were (and I still think are ) a poor replacement for the trusty old M14s. I mean, come on,The m14 is more reliable,durable,powerful,accurate, and more range. The only thing the m16 has going for it is weight (a few pounds less) automatic fire,and more ammunition (2 or 3 has the effect of 1 7.62 nato round) for auto fire an unnecessary waste except in smgs and squad automatics/machine guns
#4 would have changed the American Revolution. "Redcoats coming! Remember, as soon as they start aiming, put on your turban!"
Reply Hide All See All 6 RepliesThis comment is hilariously inaccurate. Muslims do not wear turbans; you are confusing them with Sikhs. Congratulations, your ignorance has amused me.
turks wore turbans dumbass
What he *should* have said is puffy trousers.
Turks wore turbans.
But there are numerous kind of turbans wore by various ethnic from Africa to India.
Google images of Sultans and other Muslim-country rulers.... those fancy hats are turbans.
So who wears the Fez hats?
Best line: "The idea behind it was that a resistance fighter could use it to sneak up on an unsuspecting Nazi, shoot him at close range and then steal a weapon that didn't completely suck."
ReplyWeren't the sticky bombs originally modeled after improvised weapons used in urban warfare in some of the ghettos (Jewish ghettos in WW2 Europe)? The problem seems to be the timing of adhesive application-guerilla warfare tactics meant that the adhesive was applied usually within minutes of use and the weapon was carried afterwards, rather than carrying around sticky weapons in your pack and pants.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesYeah, I think you have to really reach to make the sticky bomb sound like a bad weapon. It kills tanks. There is a risk involved, but no more risky than a fkn tank
Gunshields are awesome. Maybe not that old ass one, but the modern variants are a pretty specific customization.
It does pale in comparison to the Finnish weapon used to kill Russian tanks - The Molotov Cocktail. Seriously, a glass bottle, sand, petrol and a rag . . . .
To writers in the colonies or whatever they're called now. There's been no such independent country known as 'Great Britain' for several centuries. It's either the UK or Britain.
Reply Hide All See All 7 RepliesGreat Britain is the name of the island your empire fell apart on
good for them for dropping the Great. I guess its about time....ironic country names all but died out a long time ago.
even worse, you try subscribing to anything online and you have to spend ages hunting high and low for the name of your own country, Which is it today? England? Great britain? United Kingdom? Britain? who knows
So it's Puny Britain now, eh?
Its actually the United Kingdom of Great Britain.
It'a actually the United Kingdom of f**king Awesome that is great Britain (f**k Yeah).
My passport says "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" - which kinda suggests that "Great Britain" is the island of England, Scotland and Wales.
Shouldn't Sadaam Hussein's 10-story gun that was built to lob big bullets onto his neighbors be in here somewhere? At least an honorable mention???
ReplySince that actually works and is actually meant to be a more cost effective way to launch satelites into low earth orbit it's been mentioned before in various articles.