Weird Weapons

[leftcider]

Pick your one, or two, or twenty favorite "weird weapons", conceived or realized, and post them in this thread.

A couple of my favorites:
The Bat Bomb

Quote by: wiki "In the United States, there was a World War II proposal to drop bats carrying tiny incendiary bombs over Japan, hence creating bat bombs... The plan was to release bomb-laden bats at night over Japanese industrial targets. The flying bats would disperse widely, then at dawn they would hide in buildings and shortly thereafter built-in timers would ignite the bombs, causing widespread fires and chaos. The bat bomb idea was conceived by dental surgeon Lytle S. Adams, who submitted it to the White House in January, 1942, where it was subsequently approved by President Roosevelt.

$2 million got spent on the project, but it was called off due to taking too long.

And of course, as has been discussed on this forum before, the famous
Gay Bomb

Quote by: wiki In 1994 the Wright Laboratory in Ohio produced a three-page proposal of a variety of possible nonlethal chemical weapons... In one sentence of the document it was suggested that a strong aphrodisiac could be dropped on enemy troops, ideally one which would also cause "homosexual behaviour". The aphrodisiac weapon was described as "distasteful but completely non-lethal". In its "New Discoveries Needed" section, the document implicitly acknowledges that no such chemicals are actually known. It is not known whether this chemical has been developed further. The document also included many other off-beat ideas, such as spraying enemy troops with bee pheromones and then hiding numerous beehives in the combat area.

[Jack]

One of my favorites;

The Ultimate System to Shoot Around Corners The CORNER SHOT is the ultimate solution for dealing with the deadly threats that lurk "around the corner" in a variety of tactical situations encountered by military and law enforcement personnel, anti-terror units and SWAT teams operating in open or built-up areas, inside buildings, rooms and enclosed spaces, and especially in forced entry situations. The CORNER SHOT has already been acquired by police and special forces units around the world. The key to CORNER SHOT is the swing-hinge front section of the system, a state-of-the-art device that houses the handgun and a compact detachable color video camera. The unique lateral (both left and right) swinging mechanism enables the user to safely sweep, search or engage targets ‘around the corner’ with the camera transmitting what it sees directly to a video monitor. Both the video monitor and the remote trigger control for firing the pistol, together with all system operating switches, are fitted to the frame held by the user.

Source

[Osborn F Enready]

The corner shot idea is old and far outdated.

The nazis had it, as did others, and its use is so limited it is not worth talking about.

More money being flushed with a loud swirl.

[gallo]

Although technically not a weapon, one of my favorite weapons devices was the FADAC. My Department of the Army civilian instructor assured me that FADAC did not mean "Fat Assed Department of the Army Civilian." In fact, it meant Field Artillery Digital Automatic Computer. WAAAAY back when I used this thing, it was a marvel. The FADAC was fed by radar units whose positions were known. These radars detected enemy mortar and artillery rounds within seconds of firing. The FADAC calculated the coordinates of the mortars/guns before the rounds hit. These were translated into gun settings (i.e., artillery azimuth, elevation, and charge) and return fire could be on the way in less than a minute. The FADAC was one of the reasons that the Cong used to preposition mortar bases. Occasionally they would creep in to those positions, mount the mortars, dial in predetermined settings, pop off three quick rounds, grab the mortar (leaving the base), and run like hell. What came next was about 12 rounds of quick and delay.

[Chris]

Osborne, the corner shot is being implemented in Israel. I saw it on an episode of "Futureweapons" on the DSC.

[Osborn F Enready]

Good thing none of the U.S. taxpayers money goes to Israel eh? Oh...

No, really, I didn't know that.

I have been educated today, thank you.

I still think its a waste of money and valuable weight that could be used to carry more ammo or a better vest and ballistic shield.

[Nathan Struth]

My favorite weird weapon was hitlers technique drpping british money lowering its value

[Chris]

heh LOL about the US taxpayers money to Israel comment, (plenty of room for debate on that issue in other threads - you know my stance on that )

[westcoastdog]

1964 - Army begins using BZ gas in Vietnam

BZ Bombs Away
During the early 1960s Edgewood Arsenal, headquarters of the US Army Chemical Corps, received an average of four hundred chemical "rejects" every month from the major American pharmaceutical firms. Rejects were drugs found to be commercially useless because of their undesirable side effects. Of course, undesirable side effects were precisely what the army was looking for.

It was from Hoffmann-La Roche in Nutley, New Jersey, that Edgewood Arsenal obtained its first sample of a drug called quinuclidinyl benzilate, or BZ for short. The army learned that BZ inhibits the production of a chemical substance that facilitates the transfer of messages along the nerve endings, thereby disrupting normal perceptual patterns. The effects generally lasted about three days, although symptoms--headaches, giddiness, disorientation, auditory and visual hallucinations, and maniacal behavior--could persist for as long as six weeks. "During the period of acute effects," noted an army doctor, "the person is completely out of touch with his environment."

Dr. Van Sim, who served as chief of the Clinical Research Division at Edgewood, made it a practice to try all new chemicals himself before testing them on volunteers. Sim said he sampled LSD "on several occasions." Did he enjoy getting high, or were his acid trips simply a patriotic duty? "It's not a matter of compulsiveness or wanting to be the first to try a material," Sim stated. "With my experience I am often able to change the design of future experiments.... This allows more comprehensive tests to be conducted later, with maximum effective usefulness of inexperienced volunteers. I'm trying to defeat the compound, and if I can, we don't have to drag out the tests at the expense of a lot of time and money." With BZ, Dr. Sim seems to have met his match. "It zonked me for three days. I kept falling down and the people at the lab assigned someone to follow me around with a mattress. I woke up from it after three days without a bruise." For his efforts Sim received the Decoration for Exceptional Civilian Service and was cited for exposing himself to dangerous drugs "at the risk of grave personal injury."

According to Dr. Solomon Snyder, a leading psychopharmacologist at Johns Hopkins University, which conducted drug research for the Chemical Corps, "The army's testing of LSD was just a sideshow compared to its use of BZ." Clinical studies with EA-2277 (the code number for BZ) were initiated at Edgewood Arsenal in 1959 and continued until 1975. During this period an estimated twenty-eight hundred soldiers were exposed to the super hallucinogen. A number of military personnel have since come forward claiming that they were never the same after their encounter with BZ. Robert Bowen, a former air force enlisted man, felt disoriented for several weeks after his exposure. Bowen said the drug produced a temporary feeling of insanity but that he reacted less severely than other test subjects. One paratrooper lost all muscle control for a time and later seemed totally divorced from reality "The last time I saw him," said Bowen, "he was taking a shower in his uniform and smoking a cigar." During the early 1960s the CIA and the military began to phase out their in-house acid tests in favor of more powerful chemicals such as BZ, which became the army's standard incapacitating agent. By this time the super hallucinogen was ready for deployment in a grenade, a 750-pound cluster bomb, and at least one other large-scale bomb. In addition the army tested a number of other advanced BZ munitions, including mortar, artillery, and missile warheads. The super hallucinogen was later employed by American troops as a counterinsurgency weapon in Vietnam, and according to CIA documents there may be contingency plans to use the drug in the event of a major civilian insurrection. As Major General William Creasy warned shortly after he retired from the Army Chemical Corps, "We will use these things as we very well see fit, when we think it is in the best interest of the US and their allies."

Acid Dreams: The CIA-FDA Connection

Addendum: Some soldiers who took BZ had permanent highs and were considered permanent disabled and were awarded Veterans Administration compensation; while emmployed at the VA I saw one vet's file. While in Viet Nam I heard that BZ was discontinued because the Viet Cong, although disoriented, went berserk and fought even harder.

[5010]

Here's one:

The chicken-powered nuclear bomb

The body heat given off by the chickens would, it seems, have been sufficient to keep all the relevant components at a working temperature.

Don't worry about the tax money spent on this, unless you are British.

[jose]

that reminds me of the time LSD was tested on troops (take a pee before watching)
Troops on LSD » SpikedHumor.com

[Nathan Struth]

My favorite weird weapons for its time was the V-1 Rocket by the Germans. Or the all-wooden reconnaissence plane by the british

[tivodan1116]

What about the Habbakuk project?
This is one of the weirdest - During WWII, the British were looking for a ship that could withstand German U-boat fire. They came up with an idea to build a ship out of ice, held together with tar, and with refridgeration on board (take a hit? - simply scoop some water out of the ocean, throw it on the hole, and it freezes in place - no more hole).
Even more strange - they contracted with pacifist Mennonites to build a prototype.

Eventually, it was obvious that the project wouldn't work.