After I got into a quick discussion on Tanks in another topic, I thought it would be fun to start a thread that looked at some of the crazy weapons that were either put into production or deemed as too stupid to continue. I thought I would try to throw a new topic up every couple of days for debate and to give a little history on it. If you guys are interested in this being an ongoing thing please let me know.
The P-1000 Ratte
Hitler was the evil genius of Superweapons long before George Lucas said, lets make a super laser that destroyed planets. In 1942 while Gernany was still pretty much owning the upper hand in the war Hitler attended a conference where he spoke of his dream of a 1000 ton tank that would literally be a cruiser on land. This Behemoth would literally act as the center piece of armored task forces surrounded by standard tanks. With a heavy 14 inch Steel armor, 2 massive 280 mm basically naval battle ship guns along with a smaller but deadly 128 mm anti armor gun and 10 other machine guns, this beast would be able to barrage targets from an extreme range with devastating fire power while also engaging tank targets in any direction from its massive rotating turret.
Powered by two massive 24 cylinder marine engines that were also used in Submarines the P-1000 would have a respectable speed of about 25 miles an hour.
In terms of concept This thing was a nastier version of
As far as addons, this tank would be equipt with a vehicle bay to hold two motorcycles, multiple storage rooms to supply troops, a fully stocked infirmary and a crew capability of up to 41.
As far as problems with this monster, there were quite a few, it would be fuel hungry devouring massive amounts of diesel to travel under 200 kms. on top of that it wasn't very road worthy and it wouldn't be able to cross rivers using bridges or road ways. To counter this, with its sheer size the German's designed a snorkeling system for the engines, and with its extreme size it would be able to crawl across any river in Europe, and probably lob rounds from France to England.
While the design was on the insane side of things, there was some logic to Hitler's madness in demanding this design. First and foremost it was an indestructible armor combine from hell, designed to crawl across Europe destroying any defenses and act as a siege weapons, at that point in the war there were no weapons capable of pushing through over a foot of steel plated armor. Hitler also had a vision of the P-1000 as a defensive weapon where it could slide into a bunker line and replace destroyed concrete bunkers with a monstrous steel bunker. Of course when he said this his generals probably slapped their forehead, muttered that the Fuhrer knew nothing about mobility war and went back to sipping their coffee angrily.
Fortunately or unfortunately this tank never got off of the drawing board, it was deemed to be nearly impossible to build and if it was would take as long to build as a modern battletank. It was also a over complicated design that couldn't easily be field repaired as most tank crews have to be able to replace treads, fix engines and everything else while under fire.
Sadly the only time we got to see this design in action was in the excellent Red Alert 2 game and by that time it was a Soviet design
Next up the Canon Scooter
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I was joking a little bit on that part. It would basically have a up to 20 mile range. which is about a mile below the shortist distance across the english channel.
The second supergun, "Big Babylon", of which a pair were planned (one to be mounted horizontally, at least for test purposes), was much larger. The barrel was to be 156 metres (512 feet) long, with a bore of 1 metre (3.3 feet).[3]
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This one, by the americans, actually worked too well. It involved strapping bombs to bats, putting them in cold induced hibernation and then dropping them out of a plane as a bomb. The bats would wake up, fly out of the bomb, climb into attics and rafters and the incindierary device would explode causing thousands of fires everywhere.
In it's one test, some of the bats escaped, flew into the rafters of the hanger and burnt it down. Great stuff.
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F’d: How the U.S. and Its Allies Got Stuck with the World’s Worst New Warplane
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The price tag —currently an estimated $1 trillion to design, build and operate 2,400 copies—is steadily going down. Production of dozens of the planes a year for the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps is getting easier. Daily flight tests increasingly are hitting all the right marks.
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Owing to heavy design compromises foisted on the plane mostly by the Marine Corps, the F-35 is an inferior combatant, seriously outclassed by even older Russian and Chinese jets that can fly faster and farther and maneuver better. In a fast-moving aerial battle, the JSF “is a dog … overweight and underpowered,” according to Winslow Wheeler, director of the Straus Military Reform Project at the Project on Government Oversight in Washington, D.C.
Da Vinci, as brilliant as he was, had some hairbrained ideas of armored fighting vehicles. Luckily they weren't built since they looked liked a giant conical Chinese hat that probably wouldn't have withstood too much canon fire
Spoiler!
The other one I really like and was way ahead of it's time is the Horton Ho 229. Dubbed Hitler's secret stealth bomber, the jet plane is a forefather to the unified flying wing design that the B-2 has become. It astounds me to this day how far ahead technologically the Nazis were compared to the rest of the world. Definitely a good thing that Nazi Germany never ended up having enough resources to build this thing source
The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), also known as Star Wars.
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First initiated on March 23, 1983 under President Ronald Reagan. The intent of this program was to develop a sophisticated anti-ballistic missile system in order to prevent missile attacks from other countries, specifically the Soviet Union. With the tension of the Cold War looming overhead, the Strategic Defense Initiative was the United States’ response to possible nuclear attacks from afar. Although the program seemed to have no negative consequences, there were concerns brought up about the program “contravening” the anti-ballistic missile (ABM) of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks years before. For this reason, in conjunction with budgetary constraints, the Strategic Defense Initiative was ultimately set aside.
The nickname “Star Wars” may have been attached to the program for some of its abstract and far-fetched ideas, many of which included lasers. Furthermore, the previously released science fiction movie titled “Star Wars,” caused the public to easily associate this program with new and creative technologies. “The weapons required included space- and ground-based nuclear X-ray lasers, subatomic particle beams, and computer-guided projectiles fired by electromagnetic rail guns—all under the central control of a supercomputer system.” By using these systems, the United States planned to intercept intercontinental ballistic missiles while they still flew high above the Earth, minimizing their effects. However, there was a large power requirement for these types of weapons — power requirements so vast that nuclear power was the method of choice. Thus, as the reality of creating numerous nuclear plants diminished, so did the ambitious designs. By the end of SDI, the primary focus of the weapons design group was focused on “land based kinetic energy weapons.” These weapons were essentially guided missile projectiles. At the end of the Strategic Defense Initiative, thirty billion dollars had been invested in the program and no laser and mirror system was ever used, not on land, not in space.
Welcome to part two. This week I present a true what the hell were they thinking design. At this point I rub my hands together and introduce you to the Vespa 150 TAP.
That's right now we can all drive around town impressing the ladies with a powerful cannon between our legs.
This concept created in 1959 was actually deployed in impressive numbers for use during the Algerian War.
Built around a 75 mm Heat firing antitank gun, this sexy little beast was designed with active paratrooper in mind. Capable of carrying 6 rounds, this beast had a top speed of 40 mph on smooth terrain.
While Urban Legends err people swore that this could be fired on the fly, there would be several problems with that, first of all aiming it would be impossible on the move, second of all the action of firing a round down a barrel quickly heats up the barrel which means that every time you fired it you'd cook off the Riders sensitive part.
The real secret to why this beauty actual went into production and was deployed that it was a very clever yet wacky design. It could carry a Paratrooper with a radio, a fairly heavy load of ammunition, a anti tank gun and a mounting tripod. The gun could be deployed, fired and broken down and stored very quickly on a surprisingly fuel efficient Vehicle.
the only design flaw, that you couldn't drive this bike at 100 mph up a jump and then shout some clever catch phrase at a tank commander as you fired in mid air.
but other then that its this kind of clever out of the box thinking that made the Vespa the bike to have for every male that wanted to brag about his enormous gun and protect his virginity until marriage.
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Wacky weapons and weapons concepts
