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Weird Weapons of War That Totally Failed
Weird Weapons of War That Totally Failed
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0:00
Bullets ricochet off of the wall. Explosions fill the streets. A soldier is pinned down by the
0:05
enemy; this could be the end for him. Luckily, he has his Krummlauf attachment allowing him
0:09
to fire around any corner. But the weapon jams. Next, he pulls out his heat ray to fry the enemy,
0:14
but with a little sunscreen, it is rendered ineffective. It is time to get the hell out of
0:18
dodge. The soldier hops in his Rotabuggy, hits the accelerator, and switches on the propeller
0:22
system to fly off into the sunset. But like all of the other weird weapons in his arsenal,
0:26
this one fails as well. It’s fair to say that he’s having a bad day.
0:30
These weapons sound like something out of a bad spy movie,
0:32
but each one was constructed and tested for combat. However, due to design flaws,
0:36
none of them are still in use. Let’s find out which weird weapon was the worst of the worst.
0:41
Since humans could walk there has been conflict. In the early days of war,
0:44
elephants were the tanks of the army. These massive creatures posed a huge
0:48
problem for generals that needed to be overcome, so, in the second century BCE,
0:53
the Romans came up with what they thought was an ingenious plan to stop enemy elephants in
0:57
their tracks. In order to do this, they did something really awful to a bunch of pigs.
1:01
The Romans knew that elephants didn’t like hogs. For whatever reason, the fast-moving,
1:06
squealing animals frightened the large elephants, causing them to rear up and throw their handlers
1:10
off of their backs. But the Romans wanted to take things up a notch. They would cover the pigs in
1:14
tar and light them on fire. The pigs would then become a primitive form of antitank missiles.
1:19
However, this biological flaming missile ended up being a terrible idea. The pig couldn’t be aimed
1:24
and it did not last very long before it died. This meant that when the pigs were released,
1:28
they ended up running away from the battle and dying in a smoldering heap without so
1:31
much as passing by the enemy. There were even cases where the flaming pigs backfired by
1:35
running through the ranks of Roman soldiers setting them on fire instead of the enemy.
1:39
All in all the flaming pig missiles were an epic fail.
1:42
The next weapon didn’t go up in smoke like the pigs but froze to death instead.
1:46
Project Habakkuk seemed like such a terrible idea it’s amazing how far it actually got.
1:52
The Habakkuk was conceived of by a British engineer named Geoffrey Pyke
1:56
during World War II. His idea was to build an entire aircraft carrier out of pykrete,
2:01
a mixture of ice and wood pulp. That’s right, Pyke wanted to construct a Naval ship out of ice.
2:06
It isn’t hard to guess what problems led to the failure of this vessel.
2:10
The Habakkuk was supposed to be a way to launch aircraft from the middle of the Atlantic Ocean to
2:14
combat German U-boats. One of the reasons aircraft carriers were rare during the war was because they
2:19
required a massive amount of resources. Steel and other metals were necessary to build tanks, guns,
2:24
and aircraft, so using them to build giant ships was not always cost-effective. Pyke
2:28
proposed making whole ships out of ice to combat the supply chain problem. The pykrete mixture
2:33
was around 86 percent water and 14 percent wood pulp, both of which were plentiful at the time.
2:39
However, constructing an entire aircraft carrier out of mostly ice had its problems.
2:43
A 1,000-ton model was constructed in Canada to show that the ice ship was a viable option,
2:48
but they ran into some issues. The most prominent was that the entire hull began to melt. The
2:53
pykrete needed to be kept around zero degrees Fahrenheit, which was much more easily said than
2:57
done. The air temperature rarely was that low, and the water temperature was never that cold. This
3:02
meant the engineers needed to develop a way to install air conditioning systems across the ship.
3:06
Clearly, this wouldn’t be cost-effective and also
3:08
led to hundreds of other problems. It became clear that an aircraft carrier made out of ice
3:13
would not be the future of the Royal Navy. The entire project was deemed a failure,
3:16
and the British continued to build steel ships the old-fashioned way.
3:19
But the Habakkuk was not the only embarrassing failed ship in military history.
3:23
Russia also created a strange-looking vessel that was a complete disaster.
3:27
The Novgorod was a circular ship that looked like a giant floating dinner plate.
3:32
The Russians thought it was a brilliant design, but they would soon come to find it was a big,
3:36
round mistake. The hull was just over a hundred feet in diameter and was mounted
3:40
with large guns that could be used to defend the ship or fire onto land.
3:44
A few years after its completion, the Novgorod was put to the test during the Russo-Turkish War
3:48
of 1877 and 1878. The Novgorod was sent down the Danube river to aid in battle. However,
3:55
when it unleashed its cannons, something embarrassing happened. The turrets on the
3:59
vessel were placed on turntables so that they could be adjusted to aim at different targets.
4:03
However, due to loose locks, when the cannons fired they spun around on their turntables
4:07
and the crew would need to wait for them to stop spinning before reorienting
4:11
and firing again. This would later be fixed by reinforcing the locking mechanism but it
4:16
was enough to create a persistent myth about how the entire ship would rotate whenever it fired.
4:20
Its circular shape also made the Novgorod bulky and extremely hard to maneuver. This
4:25
meant it needed to move slowly, and by the time it was positioned correctly,
4:28
the battle would already be over. The Russians got so fed up with the failings of the Novgorod
4:32
that they decided to tie it up at the dock and just leave it. The circular ship seemed
4:36
to be more amusing to watch than helpful during a fight. After the war, the Novgorod was retired.
4:41
One of the biggest fears for a soldier is being out in the open during combat.
4:44
This next failed military device literally put the soldier in the worst position of all.
4:49
The VZ-1 Pawnee was a flying platform that would carry a soldier up into the
4:53
sky using a helicopter-like propeller system. The idea seems pretty cool as
4:58
the soldier would be able to hover in mid-air. But when you think about it,
5:01
all the flying platform did was make the soldier an easy target.
5:04
The device was developed in the 1950s by Hiller Helicopters. It had two rotors contained within
5:10
the platform that allowed it to fly and hover while a soldier stood on top of the
5:13
contraption. There were no wings, and the rotor was fixed, meaning the only way for the soldier
5:17
to move the VZ-1 Pawnee was by shifting his body weight from side to side. This could put him in a
5:22
precarious position as he tried to return fire at the enemy while controlling the platform.
5:26
It also didn’t help that it would only take one or two direct hits from enemy bullets to damage
5:31
the device and send the soldier plummeting to his death. The VZ-1 Pawnee was cool to
5:35
look at and must have been fun in testing, but it just didn’t make any sense in combat.
5:39
This led to the whole thing being scrapped before anyone was sent flying into battle on them.
5:44
The VZ-1 was not the only failed flying contraption of the time, however. In fact,
5:48
during World War II, the British tried to make a flying car. But the whole thing ended in disaster.
5:53
There were no bad ideas when it came to machines that could defeat the Nazis. However,
5:58
the designers of the Hafner Rotabuggy may have taken this sentiment a little
6:02
too far. The Hafner Rotabuggy was supposed to be a flying Jeep, which allowed soldiers to
6:06
cross over rivers, minefields, and enemy positions with the flick of a switch.
6:10
The Jeep was equipped with a rotor and tail fins, giving it some maneuverability but
6:14
not much. The whole thing weighed a ton meaning the fuel tank would drain almost instantly,
6:18
resulting in the craft crashing to the ground. Also, a Jeep is not the most aerodynamic vehicle,
6:22
which made controlling it in flight rather tricky. The whole project was eventually scrapped,
6:26
and the British decided to use plane-towed gliders to deliver land vehicles instead.
6:31
Ready for a dad joke about weird failed weapons? The Active Denial System was
6:35
such a horrible idea the military is in denial that they ever tried it.
6:39
The Active Denial System was basically a heat gun used to give enemy soldiers and unruly crowds
6:44
intense burns. The weapon was built to look similar to a satellite dish and would focus
6:48
radiation towards someone as a deterrent. This would make them incredibly uncomfortable and could
6:52
cause entire crowds to disperse. The thought was that the high-frequency waves hitting the person
6:57
would make them feel like they are in a microwave, causing burns, nausea, and extreme discomfort.
7:01
The Active Denial System was built in 2010 and had a price tag of around $40 million. It lasted
7:06
about a month in the field and was quickly recalled—the reason why made the R and D team
7:10
shake their heads in shame. Instead of causing massive discomfort to whoever it was aimed at,
7:15
the heat gun just gave them a slight sunburn. This might have been beneficial for breaking up
7:19
crowds of people, but the heat gun would have very little effect if you shot it at an enemy
7:23
in battle. In fact, anyone wearing sunscreen would have barely noticed the heat gun at all,
7:27
as it would protect them from the high-frequency waves.
7:30
Just as a reminder, the Active Denial System was a weapon designed by the U.S. military,
7:34
meaning this failed weapon was your tax dollars at work. But this was nothing
7:38
compared to the next failed weapon. It could literally blow off the user's head.
7:42
Albert Bacon Pratt received patent number 1183492 for a miniature cannon that was
7:48
mounted onto a helmet. This seemed like a great idea to Pratt, and he even managed to
7:52
get others on board. But in hindsight, the idea of mounting a gun to someone's head
7:56
is full of problems. The firing mechanism was ingenious and weird at the same time.
8:00
In order for the wearer to fire the weapon, all they needed to do was blow into a tube.
8:04
The reason Pratt was so gung ho about the idea was it allowed the wearer to
8:07
subconsciously aim at their target just by looking at them. All the soldier needed to
8:11
do was turn his head and blow. The really strange thing was that Pratt saw multiple
8:15
applications for his helmet gun. He claimed it could also be used in the kitchen. The
8:19
whole contraption doubled as a cooking pot with the barrel of the gun being used as a handle.
8:23
Regardless of how many uses Pratt’s helmet gun had, there were too many drawbacks to
8:27
make the gun a feasible option. Pratt claimed the strong spring that loaded
8:30
the next round into the barrel counteracted the recoil of the bullet being fired. However,
8:34
this might have been over-exaggerated as some claim the recoil was strong enough to snap
8:38
the head of its wearer. Also, there was the problem of jamming. The only way to fix this
8:43
problem was by taking the entire helmet off the head and taking it apart. And heaven forbid the
8:48
round exploded in the chamber; this scenario would have quickly ended the user’s life.
8:52
During World War II, the Allies would try anything they thought might help defeat Hitler,
8:56
even if it was as crazy as strapping rockets to the wheels of a giant bomb delivery system.
9:00
As the Allies prepared to launch an offensive on the coast of France to reclaim mainland Europe
9:05
from the Axis powers, the scientists at Britain’s Directorate of Miscellaneous Weapon Development
9:10
came up with a crazy idea. They would break down Hitler’s walls and defenses by ramming 4,000
9:14
pounds of explosives connected to two 10-foot-tall metal wheels. This weapon would be called the
9:19
Great Panjandrum. The wildest part about the whole thing is how the wheels would move.
9:24
In order to get the 4,000 pounds of explosives moving fast enough to ensure it would reach the
9:28
wall before being intercepted, the British scientists attached rockets to the wheels.
9:32
These rockets would allow the Great Panjandrum to move at 60 miles per
9:35
hour. The main problem with this weapon was that if just one of the rockets failed,
9:39
the Great Panjandrum would start spinning in circles or go wildly off course.
9:43
As the test runs continued, the engineers believed they could solve the accuracy problem
9:47
by adding more rockets to compensate for any that failed. Unfortunately,
9:51
the rockets started ripping themselves off the wheels and shooting across the testing field.
9:54
This happened multiple times, almost killing the observers of the tests. It was decided the Great
9:58
Panjandrum would be too much of a liability in the field of battle and was discarded.
10:02
Throughout the history of warfare, there have been a series of delivery methods
10:06
for dropping bombs. However, there are a few that you probably never knew existed.
10:10
In World War II, a surgeon named Lytle Adams came up with the odd
10:14
idea of attaching bombs to animals. His plan was to fasten little bombs to bats
10:18
and have them infiltrate enemy bases. The bats would then roost in the buildings,
10:22
and the timed bomb would go off, bringing the structure’s roof crumbling down.
10:26
Bats seemed like the perfect delivery method since
10:28
they can carry more than their body weight in cargo, they’re plentiful,
10:31
and they can be relatively cheap to breed if more are needed. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt
10:36
was so intrigued by the idea that he gave it the go-ahead, and the bat bombs were tested.
10:40
The military collected hundreds of Mexican free-tailed bats and recruited Louis Fieser—the
10:44
inventor of napalm—to design the detonation packs that would be secured to the creatures.
10:48
As the war progressed United States Command realized that the bat bombs would work
10:52
exceptionally well in Japanese cities where many of the structures were made out of wood,
10:56
cloth, and paper. This meant that once the bat bomb detonated, it would not just destroy the
11:00
structure itself but could cause a fire to sweep through an entire neighborhood.
11:04
Luckily for the bats, this project never was implemented. During a test in Carlsbad, New
11:09
Mexico, one of the bat bombs got loose and sought shelter under a fuel tank at the military base.
11:14
Later that day, the bomb went off, blowing up the bat and everything else in the vicinity
11:18
of the fuel tanker. After several failed training exercises and the deployment of the
11:22
atomic bombs in Japan, the bats were retired from military service as they were no longer needed.
11:27
The Japanese had their own bomb deployment system that was as big a failure as Adams’ bat bombs.
11:32
However, it did lead to the only deaths in the continental U.S. as a result of an enemy weapon.
11:37
In 1944 the Japanese deployed 9,000 Fu-Gos or “fire balloons” over the Pacific Ocean. Attached
11:43
to each balloon were a 35-pound high-explosive and 8 firebombs. The Japanese military planned
11:48
for the balloons to float along the jet stream until they reached the coast of
11:52
the United States where they would descend and detonate. The ideal situation for the Japanese
11:56
would have been the Fu-Gos creating massive wildfires sending the West Coast into chaos.
12:01
The crazy thing is that around 389 balloons made it to the United States,
12:05
which is a small number compared to the amount launched, but still not insignificant. When the
12:09
balloons landed, almost all of them failed to detonate or cause any damage. In fact,
12:13
two of the Fu-Gos actually floated back to Japan and fell on their own island.
12:17
Sadly, one Fu-Gos did find its way to Oregon, where it fell to the forest floor. Five kids and
12:22
a pregnant Sunday-school teacher came across the Japanese bombs right as they went off. Everyone in
12:26
the group was killed, making it the “only place on the American continent where death resulted from
12:31
enemy action in World War II.” However, killing five kids, a Sunday-school teacher, and her unborn
12:35
baby was not the outcome that the Japanese had hoped for with their 9,000 fire balloons. They
12:40
were quickly retired as failed weapons, and a year later, Japan surrendered, ending World War II.
12:45
The weird Nazi weapon called a Windkanal literally blew so bad that it was deemed an utter failure.
12:51
WindKanone translates to wind canon in English and wasn’t one of the Nazi’s brightest ideas.
12:58
The way the cannon was supposed to work was rather simple. The 35-foot long metal tube
13:02
would be filled with a mixture of hydrogen and ammonium and ignited. This would build up immense
13:07
pressure inside of the tube that, when released, would send a shockwave of air up into the sky.
13:12
The hope for the Nazis was that the shockwave would hit Allied planes
13:15
overhead and knock them out of the sky. In trials, the WindKanone seemed promising
13:20
as it could snap wooden planks from 650 feet away. However, when aimed at airplanes moving
13:25
hundreds of miles per hour in the sky, the wind cannon quickly became less effective.
13:29
Even though on bombing runs, planes dipped as low as 500 feet,
13:33
the wind cannons shockwave would barely register as more than slight turbulence to the pilots. The
13:37
compressed air didn’t seem to bother the metal airplanes that were built to withstand different
13:41
pressures and choppy air while flying. Because of this failure, the Nazis decided to repurpose the
13:46
WindKanone and use it on the ground to push away ground forces. But this too ended in disaster.
13:51
The weapon was so large that it was easily spotted from the air. This made it a perfect
13:55
target for bombing runs or artillery strikes which would have devastating consequences.
13:59
The WindKanone was such a failure that the Allies didn’t even know what the contraption
14:03
was supposed to be used for until they stumbled across one at a Nazi training facility in 1945.
14:09
It was there that Allied intelligence got a closer look at the WindKanone
14:12
and finally realized what the purpose of the failed weapon.
14:16
The Germans also developed a weapon with an easily identifiable purpose.
14:20
The Krummlauf was a machine gun with a slight twist. That twist just happened to be in the
14:24
barrel. The Krummlauf was a barrel attachment to the Sturmgewehr 44 machine gun. It was supposed to
14:30
allow a soldier to shoot around corners without exposing himself to enemy fire. The Krummlauf
14:34
was also designed to be used by soldiers in tanks. They could stick their Krummlauf
14:38
out of small holes and fire their gun to fend off enemies placing mines in their path
14:42
or armed with anti-tank weapons. This may have seemed like a good idea,
14:45
but the weapon came with all sorts of problems.
14:47
It should come as no surprise that the barrel did not last long as every time the gun was shot,
14:52
it had to take the full force of a bullet and change its trajectory. This put enormous
14:56
amounts of strain on the Krummlauf and even caused bullets to shatter on their way out of the muzzle.
15:00
The shattered bullet would send tiny shards of shrapnel in all directions making the
15:04
gun inaccurate and dangerous to friendly soldiers standing nearby. The Krummlauf
15:08
did not see much combat and was melted down to be repurposed into more useful weapons.
15:13
And speaking of dangerous projectiles,
15:15
one United States company manufactured a rifle called the Gyrojet that fired mini-missiles.
15:20
In 1960 a company called MBAssociates developed the Gyrojet to help soldiers
15:25
hit targets from long distances. The plan was to use projectiles equipped with tiny rockets
15:29
and a gyroscope to help them maintain their trajectory and course. Once fired, the miniature
15:33
missile’s microjets would kick on, allowing it to accelerate and adjust for wind and gravity.
15:38
This seemed like a great idea that would make snipers’ lives much easier, but the weapon ran
15:42
into all sorts of problems. Since the projectile’s rockets only kicked in once it left the gun,
15:46
the Gyrojet was pretty useless at close range—unless it was used as a club.
15:50
The intricacies that allowed the gun to fire without blowing up required a lot
15:54
of moving parts that jammed frequently. This meant the Gyrojet was incredibly unreliable,
15:59
which is not what a soldier wants in their weapons.
16:01
In the 1950s, the U.S. military thought they were onto something special when they developed a plane
16:06
that took off straight up into the air like a helicopter. The Tailsitter would be a failure
16:10
but would pave the way for other successful aircraft like the Harrier jet in the future.
16:14
The Tailsitter was designed in the 1950s by the Navy to fix the problem of airplanes taking off
16:19
and landing without much runway to work with. They did the best they could with the technology
16:24
available to them. The Tailsitter was a tiny plane with a complex propeller on the front,
16:28
which allowed it to take off and land vertically, thus eliminating the need for a runway.
16:32
However, these planes ran into all sorts of problems. Even the most skilled pilots found
16:36
landing incredibly difficult. Taking off and then moving the aircraft into a horizontal position
16:41
wasn’t quite as bad. But when it came time to put the Tailsitter back down on the landing platform,
16:46
the plane would often tip over. Other times the pilot would not be able to slow down fast enough,
16:50
and the back of the aircraft became damaged as it impacted the ground.
16:53
The military eventually gave up on the Tailsitter, and it was deemed a failure. To be fair,
16:57
the idea for vertical take-off never totally disappeared, and although the Tailsitter never
17:02
made it to the front lines, many other aircraft based on the same premise have.
17:06
One Cold War weapon was not only a bad idea but had a terrible name as well.
17:11
The United States military came up with a satellite that would shoot enemy missiles
17:15
out of the sky by launching bowling ball-sized pieces of tungsten at them. The unfortunate
17:19
name given to this weapon was Brilliant Pebbles. It seems like the Strategic Defense
17:24
Initiative could have come up with something slightly better or a little more ominous than
17:27
Brilliant Pebbles for their space-based weapon, but that is what they went with.
17:31
Brilliant Pebbles was supposed to work by launching a series of satellites into space
17:35
with several projectiles aboard each. These projectiles could then be shot
17:38
out of the satellite to intercept enemy missiles flying through the atmosphere.
17:42
It is unclear what made the researchers think this was a good idea, or that it would even work,
17:47
but they continued to roll with it. In order for Brilliant Pebbles to have any
17:50
chance of succeeding, there needed to be at least 4,000 of them in orbit.
17:54
This would cost astronomical amounts of money for weapons that would most likely miss their
17:58
targets almost every time. After a good long look at the program, the U.S. military scrapped
18:02
the idea. It is hard to tell if they were more embarrassed by the weapon’s failure or its name.
18:07
A more recent failed weapon was a type of laser. But this was not just any laser;
18:11
it was planned to be used while flying through the sky like an X-Wing.
18:15
The Flying Laser Canon, also known as the YAL-1 Airborne Laser,
18:19
was mounted on the nose of a plane. It made the aircraft look a little like a dolphin,
18:23
but that wasn’t the worst part about this failed weapon. Its primary purpose was to shoot
18:27
a high-powered beam out of its laser cannon to destroy any missiles or aircraft in its vicinity.
18:31
The main problem with the laser was that it required a massive amount of energy to work.
18:36
All of this power needed to be produced by chemical oxygen-iodine laser modules,
18:40
which are incredibly heavy. The power supply weighed down the entire plane,
18:44
causing its fuel efficiency and top speed to plummet. In the end, the flying laser cannon
18:48
was more trouble than it was worth, and the military decided to retire the weapon before
18:51
it could ever be used for its intended purpose of blowing things out of the sky.
18:55
Now watch “Weirdest Military Weapons They Actually Used in WW1.”
Weird Weapons of War That Totally Failed - Video học tiếng Anh
