The Ten Weirdest Weapons of All Time

Here is my list of the ten weirdest weapons of all time.

 #1 Project Pigeon

A pigeon-guided missile

During World War II, Project Pigeon (or Project Orcon, for “organic control”) was American behaviorist B. F. Skinner’s attempt to develop a pigeon-guided missile

The control system involved a lens at the front of the missile projecting an image of the target to a screen inside, while a pigeon trained (by operant conditioning) to recognize the target pecked at it. As long as the pecks remained in the center of the screen, the missile would fly straight, but pecks off-center would cause the screen to tilt, which would then, via a connection to the missile’s flight controls, cause the missile to change course. Three pigeons were to control the bomb’s direction by majority rule.

Although skeptical of the idea, the National Defense Research Committee nevertheless contributed $25,000 to the research. However, Skinner’s plans to use pigeons in Pelican missiles was apparently too radical for the military establishment; although he had some success with the training, he could not get his idea taken seriously. The program was cancelled on October 8, 1944, because the military believed that “further prosecution of this project would seriously delay others which in the minds of the Division have more immediate promise of combat application.”

Project Orcon was revived in 1948 by the Navy and was finally canceled in 1953.

 #2 Bat Bomb

Incendiary bombs attached to bats

Bat bombs were tiny incendiary bombs attached to bats, that were developed by the United States during World War II with the hope of attacking mainland Japan. Four biological factors gave promise to this plan. First, bats occur in large numbers (four caves in Texas are each occupied by several million bats). Second, bats can carry more than their own weight in flight (females carry their young — sometimes twins). Third, bats hibernate, and while dormant they do not require food or complicated maintenance. Fourth, bats fly in darkness, then find secretive places (such as flammable buildings) to hide during daylight.

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. Adams was recruited to research and obtain a suitable supply of bats.

#3 Tsar Tank

 Armored Vehicle

This a bizzare armored combat mobile device developed by an engineer Nikolai Lebedenko in Russia in the 1914-1915 biennium. In development also participated N. Zhukovskii and his nephews, B. and A. Stechkin Mikulin. Strictly speaking, the object was not a tank, but a wheel combat vehicles. King-tank - the largest land armored fighting vehicle ever built. The construction and testing of the tank were carried out in 1916. According to the results of the tests were concluded on the general unsuitability of the tank for use in a fight that led to the closure of the project. Constructed a copy was later dismantled for scrap metal. It's nickname "Bat" or "bat" tank was because his model to carry over the rear wheel resembling bat, sleeping upside down on the cave wall or a tree branch.

 #4 Hiller Flying Platform

Single Piloted Flying Platform

The Hiller Flying Platform was designed in 1955.
It was originally an ONR (Office of Naval Research) project to develop a platform capable of carrying one man for short hops.
The US Army also displayed interest in this unusual helicopter, steered by its soldier-pilot shifting his weight to guide the direction of travel.
The Flying Platform actually worked, lifting to a height of several feet, but never entered production.

#5 Schwerer Gustav and Dora

Railway Mounted Artillery

In 1934 the German Army High Command commissioned Krupp of Essen, Germany to design a gun to destroy the forts of the French Maginot Line which were then nearing completion. The gun's shells had to punch through seven meters of reinforced concrete or one full meter of steel armour plate, from beyond the range of French artillery. Krupp engineer Dr. Erich Müller calculated that the task would require a weapon with a calibre of around 80 cm, firing a projectile weighing 7 tonnes from a barrel 30 meters long. As such, the weapon would have a weight of over 1000 tonnes. The size and weight meant that to be at all movable it would need to be supported on twin sets of railway tracks. In common with smaller railway guns, the only barrel movement on the mount would be elevation, traverse being managed by moving the weapon along a curved section of railway line. Krupp prepared plans for calibres of 70 cm, 80 cm, 85 cm, and 1 m.

Nothing further happened until March 1936, when during a visit to Essen, Adolf Hitlerenquired as to the giant guns' feasibility. No definite commitment was given by Hitler, but design work began on an 80 cm model. The resulting plans were completed in early 1937 and approved. Fabrication of the first gun started in the summer of 1937.

Krupp built a test model in late 1939 and sent it to the Hillersleben firing range for testing. Penetration was tested on this occasion. Firing at high elevation, the 7.1 tonne shell was able to penetrate the specified seven meters of concrete and the one meter armour plate.  Alfried Krupp, after whose father the gun was named, personally hosted Hitler at the Rügenwald Proving Ground during the formal acceptance trials of the Gustav Gun in the spring of 1941. Hitler was so awe-struck, he commanded that the 11 tonne shell could only be used at his discretion. As he never gave permission, it was never deployed.

Two guns were ordered. In keeping with the tradition of the Krupp company, no charge was made for the first gun. However, they did charge seven million Reichsmark for the second gun Dora, named after the senior engineer's wife.In combat, the gun was mounted on a specially designed chassis, supported by eight bogies on two parallel sets of railway tracks. Each of the bogies had 5 axles, giving a total of 40 axles (80 wheels). Krupp christened the gun Schwerer Gustav (Heavy Gustav) after the senior director of the firm, Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach.

 #6 Soviet Doomsday Device

Nuclear Warheads

Fearing that a sneak attack by American submarine-launched missiles might take Moscow out in thirteen minutes, the Soviet leadership had authorized the construction of an automated communications network, reinforced to withstand a nuclear strike. At its heart was a computer system similar to the one in Dr Strangelove. Its codename was Perimetr. 
It went fully operational in January 1985. It is still in place. Its job is to monitor whether there have been nuclear detonations on Russian territory and to check whether communications channels with the Kremlin have been severed. If the answer to both questions is “yes” then the computer will conclude that the country is under attack and activate its nuclear arsenal. All that is then needed is final human approval from a command post buried deep underground. It would be a brave officer, adds Smith, who, having been cut off from his superiors in the Kremlin, could ignore the advice of such a supposedly foolproof system.

#7 The Puckle Gun 

First Rapid Fire Gun

In 1718, Puckle demonstrated his new invention, the Defence Gun—a tripod-mounted, single-barreled flintlock weapon fitted with a multishot revolving cylinder, designed for shipboard use to prevent boarding. The barrel was 3 feet (0.91 m) long with a bore of 1.25 inches (32 mm) and a pre-loaded "cylinder" which held 11 charges and could fire 63 shots in seven minutes—this at a time when the standard soldier's musket could at best be loaded and fired three times per minute.

Puckle demonstrated two versions of the basic design: one, intended for use against Christian enemies, fired conventional round bullets, while the second variant, designed to be used against the Muslim Turks, fired square bullets, which were considered to be more damaging and would, according to its patent, convince the Turks of the "benefits of Christian civilization."

The Puckle Gun drew few investors and never achieved mass production or sales to the British armed forces, mostly because British gunsmiths at the time could not easily make the weapon's many complicated components. One newspaper of the period sarcastically observed, following the business venture's failure, that the gun has "only wounded those who hold shares therein."

 #8 Active Denial System

Heat Ray

The Active Denial System (ADS) is a non-lethal, directed-energy weapon developed by the U.S. military.). Some ADS such as HPEM ADS are also used to disable vehicles. Informally, the weapon is also called It is a strong millimeter-wave transmitter primarily used for crowd control. The ADS was deployed in 2010 with the United States military in Afghanistan, but was withdrawn without seeing combat. The ADS works by firing a high-powered beam of electromagnetic radiation in the form of high-frequency millimeter waves. Similar to the same way that a microwave oven heats food, the millimeter waves excite the water and fat molecules in the body, instantly heating it and causing intense pain. Such is the nature of dielectric heating that the temperature of a target will continue to rise so long as the beam is applied, at a rate dictated by the target's material and distance, along with the beam's frequency and power level set by the operator. 

#9 The Goliath Tank Buster

Remote Controlled Explosive Device

The Goliath Tank Buster was a remote controlled tank-shaped vehicle designed during the war by German scientists. It was about four feet long, two feet wide and roughly a foot in height and was packed with 75 kg of high explosives, enough to blow up a tank or demolish a building. Once the unfortunate target was established, the vehicle was guided by an engineer, and once in the right position, for example under a tank, the explosives would be detonated and destroy the target.

They were used mostly by specialized Panzer and combat engineer units of the Wehrmacht and were seen on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day June 6th, 1944, although most were quickly rendered   inoperative due to damage from artillery blasts.

#10 Poisioned Dart Bomb

Bomb Armed With Poisoned Needles

Between 1941 and 1944, British scientists were working on a top secret project to developed a projectile bomb that released darts tipped with poison. A recently de-classified document entitled ‘Research Into Use of Anthrax and Other Poisons for Biological Warfare’ revealed that sewing machine needles would be used in the weapon and tipped with a lethal poison, which would probably be either anthrax or ricin.

According to a 1945 memo about the project, light darts could be used as the poison ensured slight penetration would be lethal and there was no need to hit vital organs. It also had the added advantage, according to the memo, of making it so that medical treatment would be unlikely to prevent the victim’s death.

The bombs could carry 30,600 needles and if they hit, you were likely to be dead within half an hour. However the chances of hitting someone varied and while they would have had great effect against troops out in the open, they were virtually useless when there was any type of cover. This made them unlikely to cause mass damage frequently and therefore uneconomical and as a result, they never made it passed the planning stage.

 Additional Links/Info

http://www.weirdworm.com/5-weird-weapons-of-world-war-ii-the-allies

http://thecontaminated.com/top-nine-insane-weapons-of-war/

http://weburbanist.com/2010/01/12/weird-military-innovations/

http://www.cracked.com/article_17366_7-wtf-military-weapons-you-wont-believe-they-actually-built.html