>With his poncho spread on top, he probably would have protection from the effects of a small nuclear weapon, if he were not too close to the blast.
I feel like this was developed at around the same time as
https://i.imgur.com/gRdUUOC.jpg
The Davy Crockett portable nuke, .01-.02 kiloton yield.
>only armed with rockets
Even today’s jets almost all have guns, why did they think it was a good idea to remove them from a jet that they actually thought would get into dogfights? It’s a lot of rockets too, but the least amount of rockets fired at one time was 42 for the first barrage. Why not be able to just fire off a few manually? The early Cold War came up with some of the weirdest designs.
This. Why be the only loser in the air without an atom bomb up their sleeve once the genie is out of the bottle? You're probably aiming it at nuclear bomber formations anyways.
>Air to air rockets. One of the most moronic and short lived concepts in military aviation history. Was just discussing about it.
The german R4M 50 mm rocket worked fine, probably because the germans used to aim them by firing autocannon shells with similar ballistics first, so that once the tracers were on target, they unloaded their entire load of R4Ms. I once saw a guncam video of a Focke-Wulf 190 unloading R4Ms on a B-17, it got ripped apart by multiple explosions. When USAF took over this concept they deleted the guns and made the air 2 air rockets considerably larger.
A barrel bomb with wheels full of rockets attached. Think this was to destroy that German dam. The idea was to drop in the water, the rockets fire and it rolls into the target. It just wasn’t stable and would tumble and crash. They did eventually just remove the wheels and have airplanes fly fast enough to launch them horizontally into the dam.
They also had a hydraulic motor on the aircraft to impart spin to the bomb so it would skip along the surface, then sink when it reached the dam as the backspin would make it "crawl" down the face of the dam faster than gravity would sink it in the water. There was a cool documentary about it on pbs maybe 20 years ago.
They also had a hydraulic motor on the aircraft to impart spin to the bomb so it would skip along the surface, then sink when it reached the dam as the backspin would make it "crawl" down the face of the dam faster than gravity would sink it in the water. There was a cool documentary about it on pbs maybe 20 years ago.
that's an entirely different thing.
the panjandrum was to roll up on a landing beach and delete bunkers.and fortifications.
it didn't work
Isn't it better to shell the area meant to be dug into ahead of the infantry taking positions there? It would shift the logistics of hauling rocket shovels to the artillery.
No, no you don't give anything to the artillery crews except to lift heavy things and put them down again. They understand that, no what we're missing here is the use and abuse of the Rocket Shovel in the hands of grunts who will creatively use them to do things they where never really intended to do. The fact you can dig holes with them is secondary to the hilarity of health and safety frick ups and war crimes
my theory is that these things were actually designed against Soviet human wave attacks to scatter them so the allied lines weren't all hit at once by infantry.
at the time these hit the drawing board, Hitler hadn't invaded Russia. the USSR had seized a good chunk of Poland, and as far as a lot of people were concerned the only difference between Germany and the Soviets was one was national socialism and the other was international socialism.
by the time prototypes were made the Soviets were fighting with the allies, and Soviet tactics involved a lot more tanks than originally anticipated, especially with the lend lease agreement. by the time it was clear that the USSR would be a rival in the near future the concept was obsolete.
By that metric most military vehicles (trucks, utility vehicles and wheeled equipment) would be for peacetime use. The idea everything with tracks should be a tank is why APCs were always a terrible idea, but for moving on snow and permafrost those were excellent vehicles.
Its a shame really. They are still useful imo for bringing in troops quietly or by bringing in vehicles.
Not a shame, you just like them and know little about them. They're delicate, defenseless and due to requiring ideal LZs easily and frequently destroyed in any operation including unopposed. They have large radar signatures and cannot maneuver. They're not remotely cost-effective and basically single use delivery systems.
Every one needs a separate airlifter to tow it making that vulnerable too while diverting it from other airlift operations.
>military balloons >short lived
They've been around longer than the aircraft and they're still in use >b-b-b-b-but I meant on ships
The highlighted article states they've been used around 75 years for recon purposes until they were replaced by aircraft and longer is you count barrage balloons
an old boy at my local pub was the reason why the RAF shelved manned balloons. his balloon went off course, he dropped a drag line (which he admits he shouldn't have done) which caught on telegraph lines cutting off an entire town (near Luton iirc), then the basket swung and the ballast came loose shooting him up to several hundred feet. he was drifting for a few days before the RAF caught the drag line and held him in place as he let air out of the balloon. he landed on someone's house, who was very upset as it was custom for balloonists to carry a bottle of champagne as compensation for that exact situation, but Brian had drank it.
despite there being three old men who attest to it, I've never found any old news articles about the situation.
For keks -- and an insight to how poorly air-to-air rockets would perform -- read up on the Battle of Palmdale
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Palmdale > jets w/ rockets > vs F6F WW II era drone > jets win by TKO > drone ran out of fuel > but the drone went the distance, brother
>steam powered submarines
You could argue that nuke-u-lar subs are steam powered. > nuke-u-lar re-ACK-tor heats pipe > pipe contains water > water gets hot, turns to steam > steam drives gears and stuff that spin the spinny thing
Yes, nuclear submarines are literally steam powered. Anon means steam powered submarines where the steam was provided by air breathing fired boilers instead of the quiet heat of a nuclear reaction.
This has to be one of the only cases I can think of where a major military rolled out a new service rifle to everybody and then immediately went "holy frick what were we thinking we're so sorry"
The M14 is just an improved M1 Garand. The major problem with the M14 is that it was outdated the moment it was issued as a general service rifle.
US did it with the Krag, too.
Krag was actually not bad. Just wasn't as good as the Mausers being seen in Cuba
The Krag was a fantastic gun that outperformed even the Mauser based on US military standards. The gun received raging hatred from the American military industrial complex because of its foreign origin and fell victim to political frickery.
The M14 was the Army being to stubborn accept a weapon designed by Euros or that the USAF might know what they're talk about.
The army did the same thing with the M9
>USAF asks congress for money for their .38 special revolvers in the mid 70s >Congress asks why the USAF is using a different pistol to everyone else >Turns out in 1964 the Airforce just decided they didn't like the 1911 and adopted revolvers and no one questioned it. >Congress also discovers there is 22 different pistols in service >The Airforce is tasked with the job of selecting on universal pistol for everyone to use >Airforce runs trials and selects the M9. The trail also showed that the Airforce's revolvers outperformed the 1911 >The Army refuses to accept its results, runs its own trial, determines the 1911 to be the best an no you cant see the testing data. >Congress says stop being silly do the test properly >Army runs the test again M9 wins >Army says those results don't count and runs the test for a 4th time. M9 wins >Army finally relents and adopts the M9
Colt sure seems to have a lot of money for brib... I mean lobbying, for being on the verge of bankruptcy and being subsidized. All dem govt bailouts, I guess.
Many things from the 1800's ironclad era. Rams, using your coal as protection, barbette mounts, the list goes on. Ships being obsolete by the time they're launched. Truly a kino time.
Roman Corvus boarding bridges in the first Punic War.
As far as anyone can tell this was the definitive factor in the Romans winning that war. It transformed them from being entirely non-competitive in the naval sphere of the war to winning the biggest naval battle in history (by number of men present).
But then, before the war was even over they phased them out. It would be like the US winning the Pacific war by developing Nukes but then phasing them all out by the start of the Korean war.
They still managed to bring hundreds of boats to the battle of Cape Ecnomus apparently without major losses on the way. Even if it's true it's still surprising; they were inexperienced and employed a tool that gave them a huge advantage - but then gave up that advantage as they became more experienced. If anything they would have been better able to sail their boats with the corvus as they built experience.
It's like America suddenly realizing that catapult launching from a nuclear powered aircraft carrier is complicated, so now that they've gained more experience they're going to step down to diesel powered ski jump carriers because they're easier to managed.
To be fair, once they broke the punic navy, there was not another major threat to their sea power. Rome either controlled directly or had very strong relationships with the rest of the potential sea powers in the area. Just needed something to deal with pirates.
>this was the definitive factor in the Romans winning that war
the definitive factor appears to have been good ol Roman mass production, but of war galleys this time
we don't know jack about Carthaginian shipbuilding but they seem to have been unable to match Roman build rates, whether because of resource constraints or slow workmanship
Because it stopped working, dude. They didn't stop magically deploying a superweapon. It was a trick that worked for one major battle, not uncommon in the ancient world.
Once the Carthaginians knew about them they prepared countermeasures for the rush/boarding spam because they knew they couldn't face Roman infantry. So it went right back to Carthage having naval superiority
Kitakami and Ooi were converted into torpedo cruisers in August 1941.
Both ships were subsequently converted into fast transport cruisers in August 1942.
As silly as it sounds the idea of a balloon carrier isn't quite as ridiculous in modern times >Modern plastics etc mean you can make balloons/blimps that can be deflated fully and take up a tiny amount of volume compared to inflated >Nuclear aircraft carriers could power a Hydrogen generator to produce lifting gas on station as needed instead of needing huge explosive tanks onboard
Of course there's still the issue of "balloons are silly" but I think you could find a few uses for lighter than air craft. Off the top of my head >Slap some solar panels on balloon until it's neutrally buoyant >Can fly literally forever, if slowly and likely being bullied by wind >use your big silly balloon as a flying battery bank for local drones or observation >The whole "hydrogen is a bomb" thing isn't as big a deal for an unmanned drone >if/when they do get shot down it's basically just some cheap solar panels, plastic skin, batteries, and electric motors and essentially "free" hydrogen if made with a nuclear reactor's surplus power >And deploy them via carrier because they'd probably be absurdly slow unless towed by a flying tugboat drone until they reach their AO
I wonder if that's an economical way for a spiteful assailant to perform indiscriminate saturation attacks, using advances in climate/weather simulation to determine favorable wind patterns for launch. Just 1m^3 of gas and 600g of elastic polymer can deploy two 200g mines, or simply bundle 5 party balloons to deploy a 75g butterfly mine. Aloft they create radar clutter and concealment for higher-value munitions to hide in. Sure, shooting one down is easy but that just creates an EOD hazard to deal with, nevermind the time and effort expended to engage thousands of these menaces lest the swarm deflate over a population center.
Japan done it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fu-Go_balloon_bomb >Between November 1944 and April 1945, the Imperial Japanese Army launched about 9,300 balloons from sites on coastal Honshu, of which about 300 were found or observed in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. The bombs were ineffective as fire starters due to damp seasonal conditions, with no forest fires being attributed to the offensive. A U.S. media censorship campaign prevented the Imperial Army from learning of the offensive's results. >On May 5, 1945, six civilians were killed by one of the bombs near Bly, Oregon, becoming the war's only fatalities in the continental U.S. The Fu-Go balloon bomb was the first weapon system with intercontinental range, predating the intercontinental ballistic missile.
I always dislike how many claim those six are the only deaths. Numerous sailors lost their lives right off the coast still within sovereign water. A ship was sunk by a uboat within eyesight at Jacksonville that had 19 killed. Sure it is on the water but if you are close enough to swim to shore it I fail to see why it doesn't counts.
I grew up in a small town in west Michigan that was “bombed” by one of those things. It never actually exploded so we keep it in our tiny little town museum. It’s the furthest inland the Japs ever attacked.
>Fixed fricking guns so you have to aim the entire ship and the range is like 1 mile lmao
I never knew about that piece of shit until I watched the video about shit ships from Oceanliner Designs. What a fricking meme boat.
Speaking of bad places to be, the Soviet's stuck a 305mm recoiless gun on some poor old fricking Orfey destroyer for testing in about 1934, because inter-war years and no one knew what they were doing.
walking fire was practiced as late as the 20s, though amended to mean only one BAR gunner would fire from the hip at a time, with the rest firing from the shoulder and preferably while kneeling
marching fire also survived to WW2, though with the soldiers aiming their guns at the shoulder the whole time rather than just hipfiring everywhere
and with tanks, the machine gun could fire on the move unlike the main gun by watching the tracers
>the aircraft involved were using impact-fuzed FFARs (cheaper for training or some shit, probably)
iirc they were on a training flight and vectored to intercept
You forget that was the same time where people would bully you for wearing earpro when shooting or doing anything loud. Glasses was definitely called a pussy when he showed up
>The actual service variant that would've been used in combat >the russians are coming >hold on we need to replace the 104 shitrockets with the 104 vt rockets real quick >which the pilots aren't trained with >not that the computer would fire them anyways >no gunsight lmao
I'm glad no such gross incompetence would ve tolerared in today's mic
>re-booting
Too strong a word. Ukies are testing if the tech is there, vs a dude with an atv and straps, and probably sharing the data with relevant US DoD brains.
>Oi bruv why don't we make a fighta wiff no forward guns >Ol Jerry wont know whatah make ofem >God I luv me King and shepards pie, simple as
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boulton_Paul_Defiant
>shepherd's pie is based, homosexual
When did I ever say it was bad? I just chose something sterotypically Bri'ish to put in the greentext. Calm your shit lol
The defined didn't actually perform that badly
Defiant*
Ah yes it performed so good as a day fighter the Bongs moved it to a night fighter after a couple of weeks because of how woefully bad it was in dogfights and used it as a poor mans Schräge Musik.
The Defiant was built at a time when aircraft were obsolete right off the drawing board, and in fact wouldn't have been produced even in the limited numbers it was if not for the rush for rearmament. One makes do with what one has, initially.
"A closer look in BSP: 35-50 shows there is actually an answer to the original question about a turretless Defiant! The prototype Defiant (K8310) was flown without the turret in August 1940 as a performance demonstrator for the Boulton Paul P.94 emergency fighter. This would use the existing Defiant production line to mass produce a general purpose fighter for the hard pressed post Battle of Britian RAF. The P.94 was basically a Defiant without the turret and a Merlin XX and could fly at 360 mph and had a rate of climb of 3,235 ft/min.
Compared to a Spitfire VB the P.94 is slightly slower at maximum speed (360 vs 378 mph) but has a faster rate of climb (3,235 vs 2,665 ft/min) at sea level. It is however faster than the Hurricane IIC (360 vs 340 mph) and also a faster climber (3,235 vs 2,780 ft/sec).
However the P.94 would be armed with 12 forward firing Browning .303 MGs for an increase in fire power of 50% over both the Spitfire and Hurricane. The 12 Brownings could be replaced with four Hispano 20mm cannons and four Browning .303 MGs. The MGs could also be depressed up to 17 degrees below the horizon to enable level flight strafing. The P.94 could also carry auxiliary tanks for long range fighter duties.
The production of conventional fighters at the Defiant line was rejected by the air ministry in mid-late September 1940. A heavily armed gun fighter/strafer that could actually fly in squadron service in 1941 would have provided much of the Typhoon capability three years earlier."
>The production of conventional fighters at the Defiant line was rejected by the air ministry in mid-late September 1940. A heavily armed gun fighter/strafer that could actually fly in squadron service in 1941 would have provided much of the Typhoon capability three years earlier."
there could be other performance factors not shown here, or they wanted to consolidate production lines.
Kiev in 3 Days
Fpbp. Hope it's not a samegay (I can't be added to check the IP count)
fpbp seconded, see also:
>Riga, Vilnius, Tallinn, Warsaw and Bucharest in two days
>Kyiv in two weeks
>Kyiv in two decades
The poor bastard was dumb enough to believe his own propaganda. Never get high on your own supply.
It's Kyiv
it's Govnyiv
>With his poncho spread on top, he probably would have protection from the effects of a small nuclear weapon, if he were not too close to the blast.
I feel like this was developed at around the same time as
Truly, they lived in simpler times.
I think they meant protection against the heat from a nuclear blast.
It’s Kyyyiv, every year russia doesn’t invade it, they add another y to spite them
>every year russia doesn’t invade it, they add another y to spite them
I will now write and pronounce it witha Y.
Please suck dick elsewhere
kyiv yourself
Air to air rockets. One of the most moronic and short lived concepts in military aviation history. Was just discussing about it.
Made perfect sense in the specific context of attacking massed bomber formations in WWII, though.
Just give them nuclear warheads. Unguided, of course.
>Just give them nuclear warheads. Unguided, of course.
>only armed with rockets
Even today’s jets almost all have guns, why did they think it was a good idea to remove them from a jet that they actually thought would get into dogfights? It’s a lot of rockets too, but the least amount of rockets fired at one time was 42 for the first barrage. Why not be able to just fire off a few manually? The early Cold War came up with some of the weirdest designs.
>pic doesn’t mention they were UNGUIDED air-to-air nuclear missiles
That one word makes it many times more hilarious.
The AIR-2 Genie was in service with the USAF from 1958 to 1985, 27 years. That's not a bad run, not quite short lived.
The original one does. Someone edited that to remove it, unless I'm mistaken. Feel free to check the MD5s against archives.
Step one, make rocket, make the blast radius really big
It does, recheck last line "unguided Genie rocket"
This was the only time we were equipped with something to defend ourselves against the ayy’s. Air to air nukes sound perfect for them.
The Genie was peak early cold war. "So we're just gonna shoot a nuclear weapon off in the general direction of some planes."
they thought nukes would be flying around left and right so a few extra wouldn't make much of a differences
This. Why be the only loser in the air without an atom bomb up their sleeve once the genie is out of the bottle? You're probably aiming it at nuclear bomber formations anyways.
>the genie
>short lived concepts
They were around for about 40 years
>Air to air rockets. One of the most moronic and short lived concepts in military aviation history. Was just discussing about it.
The german R4M 50 mm rocket worked fine, probably because the germans used to aim them by firing autocannon shells with similar ballistics first, so that once the tracers were on target, they unloaded their entire load of R4Ms. I once saw a guncam video of a Focke-Wulf 190 unloading R4Ms on a B-17, it got ripped apart by multiple explosions. When USAF took over this concept they deleted the guns and made the air 2 air rockets considerably larger.
M8, an A4 Skyhawk shot down a Mig using unguided rockets.
Still stupid
you STUPID motherfricker
that weird aircraft >carrier made out of ice and sawdust
the only reason they bothered to look into Habakkuk was to validate the concept that bigger really is better for aircraft carriers
The Panjandrum has to be up there, they actually made it and tested it a few times but realized it was moronic before combat.
Wtf are they?
you ever seen those huge weird indian fireworks that spin and then fly up in the air? yeah like that but vertically into enemy positions instead
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/J5230hAGv2Y
Google has a lot more it you are interested.
A barrel bomb with wheels full of rockets attached. Think this was to destroy that German dam. The idea was to drop in the water, the rockets fire and it rolls into the target. It just wasn’t stable and would tumble and crash. They did eventually just remove the wheels and have airplanes fly fast enough to launch them horizontally into the dam.
They also had a hydraulic motor on the aircraft to impart spin to the bomb so it would skip along the surface, then sink when it reached the dam as the backspin would make it "crawl" down the face of the dam faster than gravity would sink it in the water. There was a cool documentary about it on pbs maybe 20 years ago.
that's an entirely different thing.
the panjandrum was to roll up on a landing beach and delete bunkers.and fortifications.
it didn't work
Oh, cool. That looks like something from an old C&C game. Maximum tardation.
>Think this was to destroy that German dam.
No it was not.
You're confusing two different weapons.
The bouncing bombs worked.
You are a fricking low iq moron that couldnt be more wrong.
calm your breasts butthole, they could have been way, way more off the mark than they were
I think you need an internet break.
Yes they were really an amazingly bad idea that somehow got funded enough to terrorise an English beach and entertain someone's sheep dog for a day.
I'm still sad we never got into the Rocket Shovel era we all deserved to serve alongside
>I would have blown up so many mud walls
Isn't it better to shell the area meant to be dug into ahead of the infantry taking positions there? It would shift the logistics of hauling rocket shovels to the artillery.
No, no you don't give anything to the artillery crews except to lift heavy things and put them down again. They understand that, no what we're missing here is the use and abuse of the Rocket Shovel in the hands of grunts who will creatively use them to do things they where never really intended to do. The fact you can dig holes with them is secondary to the hilarity of health and safety frick ups and war crimes
just add a bayonet and throw them at the enemy postion or bunker like a javelin or pilum
>>I would have blown up so many mud walls
Instant mousehole generator for urban warfare with the bonus of clearing the opposite room.
my theory is that these things were actually designed against Soviet human wave attacks to scatter them so the allied lines weren't all hit at once by infantry.
at the time these hit the drawing board, Hitler hadn't invaded Russia. the USSR had seized a good chunk of Poland, and as far as a lot of people were concerned the only difference between Germany and the Soviets was one was national socialism and the other was international socialism.
by the time prototypes were made the Soviets were fighting with the allies, and Soviet tactics involved a lot more tanks than originally anticipated, especially with the lend lease agreement. by the time it was clear that the USSR would be a rival in the near future the concept was obsolete.
Swingfire missile and vehicle. Basically the concept of smokeless rocket fuel was alien to the designers.
Just looked it up. Fricking kek
Swingfire is not only still used by multiple countries, it's still being produced.
you're moronic, it was one of the best missiles of its time
kamikaze dogs
Good one, fire pigs are another with similar issues.
i dont know about short lived but articulated tanks sure was a moronic idea
nuh uh
These are so poorly armored that any artillery burst nearby will kill the crew. A vehicle for peacetime use only.
I don't know about the Finnish knock-offs, but the Swedes make armoured versions.
They're also made to tredge through forested wetlands, marshes and swamps
It's pretty good for that niche
It also has the ability to swim.
The reverse speed is horrible though.
Meh, no vehicle is perfect
An armored train that doesn't need rails. Truly, genius. Add some AA and self loading artillery cars too.
The point is extremely low ground pressure and light weight. Note the track width.
By that metric most military vehicles (trucks, utility vehicles and wheeled equipment) would be for peacetime use. The idea everything with tracks should be a tank is why APCs were always a terrible idea, but for moving on snow and permafrost those were excellent vehicles.
Not a shame, you just like them and know little about them. They're delicate, defenseless and due to requiring ideal LZs easily and frequently destroyed in any operation including unopposed. They have large radar signatures and cannot maneuver. They're not remotely cost-effective and basically single use delivery systems.
Every one needs a separate airlifter to tow it making that vulnerable too while diverting it from other airlift operations.
From what I re all the Russian One was Crazy in terms of protection.
German vertical envelopement doctrine circa Q1 of WW2.
>military balloons
>short lived
They've been around longer than the aircraft and they're still in use
>b-b-b-b-but I meant on ships
The highlighted article states they've been used around 75 years for recon purposes until they were replaced by aircraft and longer is you count barrage balloons
> military balloon carriers
> only two made ever
> only one saw action and confirmed it being worthless
Much long, very lived
They used barrage balloons at Normandy
Were those China spy balloons launched from ground? Or ship?
an old boy at my local pub was the reason why the RAF shelved manned balloons. his balloon went off course, he dropped a drag line (which he admits he shouldn't have done) which caught on telegraph lines cutting off an entire town (near Luton iirc), then the basket swung and the ballast came loose shooting him up to several hundred feet. he was drifting for a few days before the RAF caught the drag line and held him in place as he let air out of the balloon. he landed on someone's house, who was very upset as it was custom for balloonists to carry a bottle of champagne as compensation for that exact situation, but Brian had drank it.
despite there being three old men who attest to it, I've never found any old news articles about the situation.
Unguided air-to-air rockets.
For keks -- and an insight to how poorly air-to-air rockets would perform -- read up on the Battle of Palmdale
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Palmdale
> jets w/ rockets
> vs F6F WW II era drone
> jets win by TKO
> drone ran out of fuel
> but the drone went the distance, brother
My first thought was steam powered submarines. Only a few one offs and the British K-class did it. Using boilers underwater. Sounds fun.
>The F-89D was capable of firing all 104 of its rockets at once, all leaving their tubes in only 0.4 s
Holy frickola
>steam powered submarines
You could argue that nuke-u-lar subs are steam powered.
> nuke-u-lar re-ACK-tor heats pipe
> pipe contains water
> water gets hot, turns to steam
> steam drives gears and stuff that spin the spinny thing
Yes, nuclear submarines are literally steam powered. Anon means steam powered submarines where the steam was provided by air breathing fired boilers instead of the quiet heat of a nuclear reaction.
But does it has vt fuze?
WW2 brought out some wacky ideas from the axis. Two of my favorites:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_PX
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landkreuzer_P._1000_Ratte
Gliders
Its a shame really. They are still useful imo for bringing in troops quietly or by bringing in vehicles.
This has to be one of the only cases I can think of where a major military rolled out a new service rifle to everybody and then immediately went "holy frick what were we thinking we're so sorry"
US did it with the Krag, too.
Krag was actually not bad. Just wasn't as good as the Mausers being seen in Cuba
The M14 is just an improved M1 Garand. The major problem with the M14 is that it was outdated the moment it was issued as a general service rifle.
The Krag was a fantastic gun that outperformed even the Mauser based on US military standards. The gun received raging hatred from the American military industrial complex because of its foreign origin and fell victim to political frickery.
The M14 was the Army being to stubborn accept a weapon designed by Euros or that the USAF might know what they're talk about.
The army did the same thing with the M9
>USAF asks congress for money for their .38 special revolvers in the mid 70s
>Congress asks why the USAF is using a different pistol to everyone else
>Turns out in 1964 the Airforce just decided they didn't like the 1911 and adopted revolvers and no one questioned it.
>Congress also discovers there is 22 different pistols in service
>The Airforce is tasked with the job of selecting on universal pistol for everyone to use
>Airforce runs trials and selects the M9. The trail also showed that the Airforce's revolvers outperformed the 1911
>The Army refuses to accept its results, runs its own trial, determines the 1911 to be the best an no you cant see the testing data.
>Congress says stop being silly do the test properly
>Army runs the test again M9 wins
>Army says those results don't count and runs the test for a 4th time. M9 wins
>Army finally relents and adopts the M9
Colt sure seems to have a lot of money for brib... I mean lobbying, for being on the verge of bankruptcy and being subsidized. All dem govt bailouts, I guess.
Many things from the 1800's ironclad era. Rams, using your coal as protection, barbette mounts, the list goes on. Ships being obsolete by the time they're launched. Truly a kino time.
Probably bomber carriers
Peace.
truest one here
Edgy and profound
The US Navys Littoral Combat Ship program has t be number one in terms of money spent (wasted)..
Roman Corvus boarding bridges in the first Punic War.
As far as anyone can tell this was the definitive factor in the Romans winning that war. It transformed them from being entirely non-competitive in the naval sphere of the war to winning the biggest naval battle in history (by number of men present).
But then, before the war was even over they phased them out. It would be like the US winning the Pacific war by developing Nukes but then phasing them all out by the start of the Korean war.
My understanding is they made the ships very unwieldy and risky to operate in anything other than extremely smooth seas
They still managed to bring hundreds of boats to the battle of Cape Ecnomus apparently without major losses on the way. Even if it's true it's still surprising; they were inexperienced and employed a tool that gave them a huge advantage - but then gave up that advantage as they became more experienced. If anything they would have been better able to sail their boats with the corvus as they built experience.
It's like America suddenly realizing that catapult launching from a nuclear powered aircraft carrier is complicated, so now that they've gained more experience they're going to step down to diesel powered ski jump carriers because they're easier to managed.
To be fair, once they broke the punic navy, there was not another major threat to their sea power. Rome either controlled directly or had very strong relationships with the rest of the potential sea powers in the area. Just needed something to deal with pirates.
>this was the definitive factor in the Romans winning that war
the definitive factor appears to have been good ol Roman mass production, but of war galleys this time
we don't know jack about Carthaginian shipbuilding but they seem to have been unable to match Roman build rates, whether because of resource constraints or slow workmanship
Because it stopped working, dude. They didn't stop magically deploying a superweapon. It was a trick that worked for one major battle, not uncommon in the ancient world.
Once the Carthaginians knew about them they prepared countermeasures for the rush/boarding spam because they knew they couldn't face Roman infantry. So it went right back to Carthage having naval superiority
The Davy Crockett portable nuke, .01-.02 kiloton yield.
https://armyhistory.org/the-m28m29-davy-crockett-nuclear-weapon-system/
>women in combat roles
never worked and it still doesnt
>shortest lived
>done for the entirety of human history
moron
>combat
found the homosexual!
>Shortest lived military idea
A 3 day Russian Invasion of Ukraine
Women in combat units
Did someone say balloon carrier?
Sad that all but a couple of Sparrowhawks are down with her and Akron's wrecks.
Kitakami and Ooi were converted into torpedo cruisers in August 1941.
Both ships were subsequently converted into fast transport cruisers in August 1942.
As silly as it sounds the idea of a balloon carrier isn't quite as ridiculous in modern times
>Modern plastics etc mean you can make balloons/blimps that can be deflated fully and take up a tiny amount of volume compared to inflated
>Nuclear aircraft carriers could power a Hydrogen generator to produce lifting gas on station as needed instead of needing huge explosive tanks onboard
Of course there's still the issue of "balloons are silly" but I think you could find a few uses for lighter than air craft. Off the top of my head
>Slap some solar panels on balloon until it's neutrally buoyant
>Can fly literally forever, if slowly and likely being bullied by wind
>use your big silly balloon as a flying battery bank for local drones or observation
>The whole "hydrogen is a bomb" thing isn't as big a deal for an unmanned drone
>if/when they do get shot down it's basically just some cheap solar panels, plastic skin, batteries, and electric motors and essentially "free" hydrogen if made with a nuclear reactor's surplus power
>And deploy them via carrier because they'd probably be absurdly slow unless towed by a flying tugboat drone until they reach their AO
I wonder if that's an economical way for a spiteful assailant to perform indiscriminate saturation attacks, using advances in climate/weather simulation to determine favorable wind patterns for launch. Just 1m^3 of gas and 600g of elastic polymer can deploy two 200g mines, or simply bundle 5 party balloons to deploy a 75g butterfly mine. Aloft they create radar clutter and concealment for higher-value munitions to hide in. Sure, shooting one down is easy but that just creates an EOD hazard to deal with, nevermind the time and effort expended to engage thousands of these menaces lest the swarm deflate over a population center.
Japan done it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fu-Go_balloon_bomb
>Between November 1944 and April 1945, the Imperial Japanese Army launched about 9,300 balloons from sites on coastal Honshu, of which about 300 were found or observed in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. The bombs were ineffective as fire starters due to damp seasonal conditions, with no forest fires being attributed to the offensive. A U.S. media censorship campaign prevented the Imperial Army from learning of the offensive's results.
>On May 5, 1945, six civilians were killed by one of the bombs near Bly, Oregon, becoming the war's only fatalities in the continental U.S. The Fu-Go balloon bomb was the first weapon system with intercontinental range, predating the intercontinental ballistic missile.
I always dislike how many claim those six are the only deaths. Numerous sailors lost their lives right off the coast still within sovereign water. A ship was sunk by a uboat within eyesight at Jacksonville that had 19 killed. Sure it is on the water but if you are close enough to swim to shore it I fail to see why it doesn't counts.
I grew up in a small town in west Michigan that was “bombed” by one of those things. It never actually exploded so we keep it in our tiny little town museum. It’s the furthest inland the Japs ever attacked.
Dynamite gun ships
>Fixed fricking guns so you have to aim the entire ship and the range is like 1 mile lmao
I never knew about that piece of shit until I watched the video about shit ships from Oceanliner Designs. What a fricking meme boat.
Yeah, it just sounds not a good place to be
Speaking of bad places to be, the Soviet's stuck a 305mm recoiless gun on some poor old fricking Orfey destroyer for testing in about 1934, because inter-war years and no one knew what they were doing.
Walking fire had a lot of investment put into it, being the thesis behind the BAR, even. But didn't outlive the war it was invented in.
walking fire was practiced as late as the 20s, though amended to mean only one BAR gunner would fire from the hip at a time, with the rest firing from the shoulder and preferably while kneeling
marching fire also survived to WW2, though with the soldiers aiming their guns at the shoulder the whole time rather than just hipfiring everywhere
and with tanks, the machine gun could fire on the move unlike the main gun by watching the tracers
>the aircraft involved were using impact-fuzed FFARs (cheaper for training or some shit, probably)
iirc they were on a training flight and vectored to intercept
>not only are they at Ground Zero of a nuclear airburst
>only one idiot brought sunglasses
truly the 50s were a different time
You forget that was the same time where people would bully you for wearing earpro when shooting or doing anything loud. Glasses was definitely called a pussy when he showed up
>The actual service variant that would've been used in combat
>the russians are coming
>hold on we need to replace the 104 shitrockets with the 104 vt rockets real quick
>which the pilots aren't trained with
>not that the computer would fire them anyways
>no gunsight lmao
I'm glad no such gross incompetence would ve tolerared in today's mic
I can't believe nobody posted Battle Sleds
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_sled
aren't they re-booting something similar to this but with drones so they can get guys out of no-man's land?
>re-booting
Too strong a word. Ukies are testing if the tech is there, vs a dude with an atv and straps, and probably sharing the data with relevant US DoD brains.
AG-2 air to air grenades
>Oi bruv why don't we make a fighta wiff no forward guns
>Ol Jerry wont know whatah make ofem
>God I luv me King and shepards pie, simple as
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boulton_Paul_Defiant
shepherd's pie is based, homosexual
>shepherd's pie is based, homosexual
When did I ever say it was bad? I just chose something sterotypically Bri'ish to put in the greentext. Calm your shit lol
Ah yes it performed so good as a day fighter the Bongs moved it to a night fighter after a couple of weeks because of how woefully bad it was in dogfights and used it as a poor mans Schräge Musik.
The Defiant was built at a time when aircraft were obsolete right off the drawing board, and in fact wouldn't have been produced even in the limited numbers it was if not for the rush for rearmament. One makes do with what one has, initially.
Too bad they didn't skip the turret. Check the climb rate!
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/boulton-paul-defiant.8329/#:~:text=of%20Britian%20RAF.-,The%20P.,%2Fmin)%20at%20sea%20level.
"A closer look in BSP: 35-50 shows there is actually an answer to the original question about a turretless Defiant! The prototype Defiant (K8310) was flown without the turret in August 1940 as a performance demonstrator for the Boulton Paul P.94 emergency fighter. This would use the existing Defiant production line to mass produce a general purpose fighter for the hard pressed post Battle of Britian RAF. The P.94 was basically a Defiant without the turret and a Merlin XX and could fly at 360 mph and had a rate of climb of 3,235 ft/min.
Compared to a Spitfire VB the P.94 is slightly slower at maximum speed (360 vs 378 mph) but has a faster rate of climb (3,235 vs 2,665 ft/min) at sea level. It is however faster than the Hurricane IIC (360 vs 340 mph) and also a faster climber (3,235 vs 2,780 ft/sec).
However the P.94 would be armed with 12 forward firing Browning .303 MGs for an increase in fire power of 50% over both the Spitfire and Hurricane. The 12 Brownings could be replaced with four Hispano 20mm cannons and four Browning .303 MGs. The MGs could also be depressed up to 17 degrees below the horizon to enable level flight strafing. The P.94 could also carry auxiliary tanks for long range fighter duties.
The production of conventional fighters at the Defiant line was rejected by the air ministry in mid-late September 1940. A heavily armed gun fighter/strafer that could actually fly in squadron service in 1941 would have provided much of the Typhoon capability three years earlier."
>The production of conventional fighters at the Defiant line was rejected by the air ministry in mid-late September 1940. A heavily armed gun fighter/strafer that could actually fly in squadron service in 1941 would have provided much of the Typhoon capability three years earlier."
there could be other performance factors not shown here, or they wanted to consolidate production lines.
The defined didn't actually perform that badly
Defiant*
This Russian mega tank design.
Over 12yards high tank.
Lasted a few meters of ride till it dug itself into the ground and they never managed to unstuck it.
submarine cruiser?
The Abrams
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floating_battery
Dumb idea but very kino
>Ironclad floating battery of the Dévastation class, spending the winter of 1855–1856 in the Crimea.
Artistsl's interpretation? Or was Crimea colder back then? I mean, the world generally colder, but not ice-crushing-ships-in-black-Sea cold
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age
Blitzkrieg Functionally, I mean.
I had an idea when I opened the thread, but I forgot what it was