Great Innovations, Questionable Implementation
Times of international conflict usually stimulate the scientific field to innovate new ideas. Some of these ideas are better than others—and some are straight-up weird. We’ve found some of the stranger and less useful weapons and strategies that were used during WWII.
The Grand Panjandrum
The Panjandrum was constructed to fend off the German Führer’s Atlantic Wall coast defenses. It was designed by the British Admiralty’s Directorate of Miscellaneous Weapons Development. The name came from a nonsense poem published in the 18th century.
The Grand Panjandrum
The strange weapon was built using two rocket-propelled wheels and was 10 feet in diameter. A central cylinder connected the two wheels, and they filled it with explosive material. The design was a good one on paper, but in practice, it was a little different.
The Grand Panjandrum
This case use was launching it from a vehicle as it landed on the beach, allowing it to roll up the sand to explode on contact with any obstacles. Unfortunately, all the tests went disastrously, with the Panjandrum not even traveling in a straight line. They didn’t even use it in real battles.
The Krummlauf Attachment
The Krummlauf was a weapon designed to shoot around corners and was an attachment rather than a weapon on its own. It was designed to attach to the German Sturmgewehr 44 (StG 44) assault munition. In theory, it was a great addition to allow officers to fire from inopportune locations.
The Krummlauf Attachment
The curved barrel of the Krummlauf was under a lot of pressure from redirecting the fired rounds. Not only that, but the rounds couldn’t withstand being battered against the attachment. The fired rounds and the barrel attachment often broke and were really unreliable.
The Krummlauf Attachment
Despite the failures of the original Krummlauf, the initial research was still useful. Modern technologies were able to create a version of the invention. This time, they were more successful.
The Panzerkampfwagen
The Panzerkampfwagen “Maus” was a tank designed for the Führer, and was intended to be the peak example of his desire for an unbreakable super-tank. Unfortunately, German High Command had a hard time rationalizing the creation of a 200-ton vehicle.
The Panzerkampfwagen
They started trials in 1943. The attempts at creating the tank were plagued by mechanical issues. It was heavy and slow, and it required so much power that the tracks needed large electric motors. In the end, they only made two prototypes of the tank.
The A13 Mk III Covenanter
When WWII broke out, the British Army had only three tanks at their disposal. One of their faster, cruiser tanks was the A13 Mk III Covenanter. It was intended to exploit gaps in the opposition's defense. Unfortunately, it was rife with problems and wildly unreliable.
TOG—The Old Gang
The Ministry of Supply dredged up the tank’s WWI designs in 1939, hoping to find inspiration for modern tanks. Tanks referred to as “the Old Gang” are what brought about the creation of the TOG 1, a heavily armored tank that was long enough to cross trenches and cratered terrain.
TOG—The Old Gang
The only drawback of this design is that they weren’t adapted to work well for modern conflicts. It would’ve been great for WWI, rather than WWII. Many of the mechanics were too complicated and its improvements were cumbersome. Therefore, it was not brought into use during WWII.
The Maginot Line—An Inflexible Strategy
The French responded to Germany’s breach of the Treaty of Versailles by putting the Maginot Line in place. It was a complicated web of defense bunkers and fortresses, general obstacles, and artillery positions along France's eastern borders.
The Maginot Line—An Inflexible Strategy
Unfortunately, French officials made a mistake. The Maginot Line protected most of the routes Germany could take to invade, except Belgium. When German forces took Belgium and conflict began along the French-Belgian border, there were no defenses set up to aid French forces.
The Maginot Line—An Inflexible Strategy
The failure of the Maginot Line revealed France’s inability to adapt to defensive tactics. This mistake served to set France at a disadvantage as they scrambled to assemble forces to defend the Ardennes Forest. Six weeks later, France surrendered.
The Cultivator No 6
Sometimes accoutrements aren’t obvious in their use. The “White Rabbit” or “Nellie” is one such machine. Built by the Royal Navy, it was dubbed the Cultivator No 6 in official contexts. This was another WWI original carried forward to 1939 for WWII conflicts. And its purpose was surprising.
The Cultivator No 6
Nellie was a 130-ton plow meant to excavate long trenches toward the opposition’s forces. It combined a plow and cylindrical cutting tool, but it didn’t carry any munitions. Instead, officers were meant to follow behind the vehicle as it delved toward enemy lines.
The Vergeltungswaffe 3
Germany manufactured a supergun, called the Vergeltungswaffe 3, or Retaliation Weapon 3. They made it in a secret bunker 100 miles away from Mimoyecques near Calais in France. It was meant to use a multi-chamber principle, which would make the round accelerate along the barrel.
The Vergeltungswaffe 3
The 25-barrel batteries were huge; they were embedded into tunnels, and they were hidden by a huge slab of concrete. The Germans hoped it could bombard London with 600 shells in one hour, but the batteries were discovered and struck by the Allies. But it was fully out of action in 1944 after a raid.
Luftwaffe’s Heavy Bombers
After one of Germany’s main voices for strategic aerial attacks was removed, one of his pet plans was abandoned. The Luftwaffe heavy bombers were designed to go on large-scale missions, and they would support ground forces over broad conflict areas. And Germany wasn’t the only country to attempt this.
Luftwaffe’s Heavy Bombers
Britain and the Soviet Union made attempts, and Germany would even design another version of it that might fly as far as New York. Unfortunately, they focused so heavily on small-scale crafts for easy maneuverability that the long-range planes were never constructed.
A Komet—A Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet
Small-scale planes were popular, and the small Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet was the only rocket-powered craft in the world. It was meant to impede American planes flying over German land. They were fast and capable, using a mixture of two volatile liquid propellants.
A Komet—A Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet
The planes could reach a speed of 550 mph and climb as high as 39,000 feet in less than four minutes. But for all that the plane had in its favor, it lost a lot of points in maneuverability. Sometimes, it was so fast that it couldn’t effectively combat slower crafts, and they often crashed.
Schwerer Gustav’s Monumental Armament
This munition is something out of fiction. It’s an immense gun mounted on a railway that was used initially in WWI, called the Schwerer Gustav. The design was brought back in 1936 when the Führer wanted a machine that could take on the Maginot Line.
Schwerer Gustav’s Monumental Armament
The equipment weighed 1,350 tons and fired a 7-ton shell almost 30 miles. But building it took far too long, and it wasn’t completed in time to be used during Germany’s initial engagement with France. The unit it was eventually assigned to nicknamed the machine “Dora”.
Schwerer Gustav’s Monumental Armament
The munition fired 47 total shells against Sevastopol, which wore down the barrel quickly. They created a second Schwerer Gustav, but it wasn’t put into action. Eventually, they placed the equipment in storage as the modern conflict techniques outdated it.
A Batty Idea
A US dental surgeon came up with a shocking and dangerous idea to use against Japan. He suggested attaching explosive armaments to bats and releasing the creatures from an aircraft. The bats would spread out over the area where they were released and hit a wider area than a single firearm.
A Batty Idea
The US Army and Navy put millions of dollars toward the project and even trapped thousands of bats for the execution. But it was cancelled after two years of attempts, despite the fact that the former dental surgeon’s guarantees that it would be incredibly destructive.
.jpg){kind=link}
The Wonder Wind Artillery
In response to the US Air Force uniting with Britain to target German cities, factories, warehouses and transport hubs, the Führer and his Propaganda Minister declared a project called the Wunderwaffen, “wonder weapons”. It was intended to instill fear into the Allies and included V-1 and V-2 rockets. But that wasn’t all.
The Wonder Wind Artillery
The “wonder” armaments also included a weirder creation: a wind cannon. This was intended to fire a blast of compressed nitrogen and hydrogen into the air to knock down an aircraft. Unfortunately, this plan was more dream than reality, as it couldn’t achieve the force necessary to do as it was intended.
Project Habakkuk
The UK designed “Project Habakkuk” to be a resource and launch site in the Mid-Atlantic gap. The plan was to create a mile-long, 2.2 million-ton aircraft carrier with a hull impenetrable to torpedoes and an interior immense enough to stockpile other planes and ships. All this was to be built out of ice mixed with wood pulp.
.jpg){kind=link}
Project Habakkuk
A scale model was constructed for testing on an Albertan lake in Canada, but it took too long to finalize the designs. By the time it was finished, long-range planes had rendered the ice-block carrier useless.
Explosive Rodents
Sometimes, real-life ideas inspire fictional stories. An idea that would later inspire James Bond gadgets was explosives disguised as something else. In WWII, the objective was to disguise incendiary devices as lifeless rats, which were acquired by the British Special Operations Executive.
Explosive Rodents
After the expired rats were implanted with the equipment, they were sent to the front line in France. They were supposed to be planted in unsuspecting places where they could be picked up by German officers and disposed of in a way that would cause them to explode.
Explosive Rodents
Unfortunately, the shipment of incendiary rats was intercepted and sent to a German conflict school to teach students to keep an eye out for incendiary rodents. In response, Britain spread false information about the rats to make the unsuccessful mission seem like less of a failure.
War Balloons Take To The Skies
The US defended itself from aerial bombardments with ease, which meant that its assailants had to get creative. Japan created unmanned combat balloons to try to bypass US defenses. Incendiary and highly volatile devices were fastened to the balloon and they flew from Japan on a high-altitude westerly air current.
War Balloons Take To The Skies
Around 9,000 explosives were released over the US and Canada. But only around 300 reached land according to American authorities. There wasn’t enough damage to make a difference, and the balloons were more likely to cause wildfires than they were to damage important resources.
Mighty Leichte Ladungsträger
German inventors created a dispensable vehicle called the Leichte Ladungsträger, or “Goliath”. Ironically, it was a very small, remote-controlled tank-like device. It was designed to deliver explosives across a distance. There were two versions created to deliver varying sizes of charges.
Mighty Leichte Ladungsträger
The little Goliath was used to target buildings, bunkers, enemy officers, and in some situations, other vehicles. Sometimes, the small vehicles were used to intentionally set off minefields. But the Goliath ran into one detrimental design flaw.
Mighty Leichte Ladungsträger
The control wires had to trail behind the Goliath for it to function. This left it vulnerable to sabotage, as the wires were easily cut. The vehicle was also slow and easily thwarted by obstacles in the terrain. Despite their minimal efficacy, 2,650 were constructed in two years.
You May Also Like:
Military History's Most Bizarre Weapons
Amazing Things Invented In WWII
