What are your favorite dumb/weird war weapons and why?

[Karevka]

Wars have produced some of the most influential weapons of all time: the Maxim machine gun, the Me 262 jet fighter and the Turtle submersible among others. But others, some that never even left the blueprint stage, were too outlandish, poorly designed or just plain dumb. One of my personal favorites is the P.1000 Landkreuzer of WW2 fame:



The concept sounds great right? A 1000 tonne tank with twin 280mm guns, impervious to any damage and protected by host of AA guns that can destroy anything in its way. Let's ignore that it couldn't cross bridges, would crush roads, is slower than a snail, requires extraordinary amounts of materials, fuel, manpower and ammo and most importantly a big fat target for Allied aircraft.

What are your favorites, denizens of NSG?

[The Chuck]

M-29 Davy Crockett

Because nothing says "Cold" War like a portable piece of nuclear artillery.

[The New California Republic]

The OP is a bit broader this time around, which is good.

Objekt 279 is one of my favorite weird weapons:

[The New California Republic]

M-29 Davy Crockett

(Image)

Because nothing says "Cold" War like a portable piece of nuclear artillery.

Jeez Louise, please spoiler that gigantic image...

[The Chuck]

M-29 Davy Crockett

(Image)

Because nothing says "Cold" War like a portable piece of nuclear artillery.

Jeez Louise, please spoiler that gigantic image...

My bad brother Fixed.

[Lands End Satellite Command]

M-29 Davy Crockett

(Image)

Because nothing says "Cold" War like a portable piece of nuclear artillery.

The Air launched version is the best

[Crookfur]

Pretty much the entire early cold War british guided weapons program, particularly the stuff involving Barnes Wallace.

How do you top the bouncing bombs and guided tallboy?

Well you come up with the momentum bomb/typhon.

Basically you fly in directly at an enemy warship, staying low to evade his aa fire and then you suddenly make a Sharpe 90 degree turn so that you aft is directly facing the warship. Now you release the bomb that flies a ballistic flight path up and over to fly back to the target

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

Every single weapon presented in the Final Fantasy game franchise. Cloud's sword? Anyone? Come on.

[The Galactic Liberal Democracy]

The OP is a bit broader this time around, which is good.

Objekt 279 is one of my favorite weird weapons:

(Image)

OBJECT 279 IS BETTER THAN MAUS AND THREE TIMES MORE!!!”

But I know a few good ones from WW2. There was two linked wheels propelled by rockets, pigeon guided missiles, bat firebombs, and more dumb stuff, all by the Allies, mostly experimental. They had some obsession with explosives and animals or something.

[North Atlantropa]

The OP is a bit broader this time around, which is good.

Objekt 279 is one of my favorite weird weapons:

(Image)

OBJECT 279 IS BETTER THAN MAUS AND THREE TIMES MORE!!!”

I heard you were telling everyone you were better. because we don't like your kind round these parts

[The Galactic Liberal Democracy]

(Image)
I heard you were telling everyone you were better. because we don't like your kind round these parts

Object 279 is much faster and more numerous. They have similar armor and power, but numbers and speed beat size alone.

[Memeosan]

Although not my favourites, I'd like to mention some unique vehicles that can be considered strange/weird.

1. 1944 Bachem Ba 349

2. Yokosuka MXY Ohka

3. Fieseler Fi 103R Reichenberg

4. Antonov A-40

5. Archer TD

6. Lun (Ekranoplan) “The Caspian Sea Monster”

7. Avro Canada VZ-9 Avrocar

8. Lockheed XFV-1 “Pogo”

9. X-13 Vertijet

10. SNECMA Coléoptère

11. Leduc 010

12. Swept-wing Leduc 022

13. Chrysler TV8 Tank

14. Piasecki VZ-8 Airgeep

15. Corkscrew Tank

16. Russian Hover Tank

(This image is a mockup of the tank)

17. Vespa 150 TAP

18. Hafner Rotabuggy

(I'll probably add more later.)

[Ifreann]

4. Antonov A-40

(Image)

Holy shit, it's the AeroGavin.

[Kaystein]

This because of it I get to look at funny cat videos and memes.

[Novus America]

The W23 16 inch shell. Because you really need a battleship with 16 inch nuclear shells
Totally badass, but I am not sure what practical purpose it was supposed to serve.

[Sicaris]

Oh, let me tell you.

Number 1:

The Blue Peacock Nuclear Plutonium-warhead Landmine:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Peacock

It’s pretty easy to deduce why this was so stupid. It’s a fucking plutonium landmine.

Number 2:

The Great Panjandrum:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panjandrum

So the British decided, “we need something that can get through the Atlantic Wall”. Of course, the only logical solution was to make a giant rocket-powered explosive cart.

It was designed to, in theory, go up to 60 mph. Except...the rockets weren’t well designed. Any one of them could fail to launch, explode early, not work at all and do the reverse of what it was supposed to, AND IT WAS UNIGUIDED.

So, you’re basically throwing a giant bomb with rockets and wheels strapped to it, hoping that nothing goes wrong and blows up this one long ton bomb on wheels before it gets to it’s destination while not being guided.

Number 3:

The Russian monitor Novgorod:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_monitor_Novgorod

So basically, the Russians make an ironclad. Except it’s not a regular ironclad. They decide to make this one “immune to ramming” by making it circular. So the thing was basically a floating soup bowl of death. However, whenever it fired it’s guns, the Novgorod spun in the direction of the gun’s recoil uncontrollably. So whenever you shoot, which is what the ship is designed to do, you become a ballerina soup bowl ship.

Needless to say, it wasn’t used much and saw little combat experience.

[Sicaris]

The OP is a bit broader this time around, which is good.

Objekt 279 is one of my favorite weird weapons:

(Image)

279 isn’t all that weird nor stupid. Tank design at the time was just different.

[Bezkoshtovnya]

The OP is a bit broader this time around, which is good.

Objekt 279 is one of my favorite weird weapons:

(Image)

I wouldn't call the 279 all that weird, hell I would even say design elements in the context of the time actually make a decent amount of sense.

I've always found the Davey Crockett to be one of the dumbest weapon designs. Even more dumb is that Western strategy in a hypothetical USSR invasion relied heavily on them to succeed for several years when they went into service.

[Washington Resistance Army]

Super and ultraheavy tank designs. They're the future but nobody except me is willing to accept that yet.

[Deutschess Kaiserreich]

M-29 Davy Crockett

(Image)

Because nothing says "Cold" War like a portable piece of nuclear artillery.

Reminds me of the fatman launcher from fallout

[Deutschess Kaiserreich]

I thought this was a landmine made out of chickens or a chicken made out of landmines.

I am disappointed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Peacock

[Bezkoshtovnya]

I'd also like to add in the Russian Novgorod monitor which is without doubt the ugliest ship ever made, and the Mark 14 torpedo. There isnt anything silly or outlandish in its design, but the fact that it was the primary torpedo for the USN in the beginning of WWII, and it had a success rate on average of about 30%, is just ridiculous.

[Castelia]

Say hello to the moose cavalry.

Now, now, the intentions here were good. Sweden doesn't have a lot of horses for their cavalry, but they do have a lot of moose. So, why not try these things out?
Well, according to this lovely entry from TV Tropes: "It turned out that 1: Moose can't just subsist on hay like horses can, 2: Once the moose are in rut, they'll attack everybody, even their handlers, 3: Moose are terribly vulnerable to a wide variety of livestock diseases, and 4: Moose are smart enough to figure out that guns and pikes are bad for their health, and once they do, they refuse to go anywhere near them. The unit was dissolved without ever fighting a single battle."

It's my favorite because the thought of cavalry charging into battle on moose is just so damn hilarious to me!

[Hansdeltania]

I'm gonna catch flak for this (excuse the pun), but the F-35 Lightning II.

Yes, it's nice having a single-seat multirole that can fly up its own asshole, but I'm all for having dedicated aircraft for dedicated roles. Sure, that means more airframes and more money, but a dozen jobs for one aircraft is not my cup of tea.

Especially when the F-35 was designed with air to air missions taking a higher priority than air to ground. Whoever thought 180 rounds of 25-millimeter ammunition can replace 1,100 rounds of thirty-millimeter depleted uranium goodness is a bigger << DUMBASS >> than Trigger.

[RubbaDucky]

Here are two of my favourites:
- The ducks foot pistol (because it's DUCKING WEIRD)

- The Sizaire-Berwick Wind Wagon (because someone said "let's create an armored car, with a propeller, and without armour in the engine, that will work excellently in a desert)