The second world war saw a massive advancement in weaponry of all kinds, and with numerous nations all trying to come out with the next best thing, every now and then someone invented something really silly with the hope of it being some kind of game changer. The following is a list of the weirdest and most useless weapons created during the 2nd world war.
1) Who Me
This was more of a weapon against moral than a danger to someones life, other than the person using it of course. Developed by the American office of strategic services, this small spray bottle contained a liquid that smelled of concentrated poop, with the idea being that a member of the French resistance would sneak up behind a German officer and spray him with it, causing him to smell of a sewer that would in turn demoralise his men.
Sneaking up to an armed officer that’s normally surrounded by guards, and getting within a couple of feet to spray poop liquid all over him wasn’t exactly a good idea. The project only lasted for 2 weeks until someone realised just how useless it was.
2) The Bat bomb
This idea for an incendiary device looked good on paper, but during the first test it was a little too successful and burnt down a number of civilian homes and businesses. The plan was to take a load of bats and attached small napalm charges to them which would in turn, be attached to a platform. The bats would be put in a space cold enough for them to fall asleep, then the charges would be attached and they would be put onto platforms inside a larger bomb case.
When the “bomb” was dropped the outer shell would fall away and the platforms, which were attached to each other by string, would sail down to earth. During the descent the bats would wake up and fly away, which would pull a string connected to the charge and start a timer.
Whenever you let a bat out during the day, it will immediately seek the nearest dark place, but when this happens when they have napalm charges on them, that results in everywhere they land being burned down. The bomb was supposed to be dropped over Japanese civilian areas, with the intention of the bats hiding in the mostly wooden houses and raising whole settlements to the ground.
It was tested out in the desert on a mock Japanese village the army built, but because the bats woke up at such a high altitude, they ended up flying into civilian areas and caused a huge amount of damage. The project looked like it was close to being used for real, but due to developments in the atomic bomb, dropping a load of fire bats didn’t seem quite as good.
3) The German anti-aircraft air cannon
Yes its as stupid as it sounds, a cannon that fires air with the intent of knocking planes out the sky. This project was one of many by the Germans to develop the next best weapon in anti-air combat, but since it fired nothing but air, it wasn’t exactly effective.
The cannon was apparently capable of breaking a 25mm thick board of wood at a distance of 200m, which if try would be very effective against the American wooden gliders they used to drop troops. The problem was that this test was fired across the ground in windless conditions, and when you’re shooting bursts of air into the sky it becomes much less effective. It was also powerless to do anything against any aircraft not made of wood, even at very close ranges and after a single air cannon was deployed on a bridge as a test, the project was abandoned after it turned out the cannon was simply useless in a combat situation.
4) The Liberator FP-45 pistol
After the French resistance and other anti-Nazi fighting groups started to show how useful they were in the fight against the Germans, various projects were started to help them in their efforts, and one of the things they needed the most were weapons.
An order was sent for someone to develop a weapon that could be manufactured as quickly as possible for as little cost as possible, and the result was the FP-45. At a production cost of $2.10 a piece, this Handgun made mostly of stamped steel is by far the worst mass produced handgun of the entire war.
They made around 1 million of these things over an 11 week period and it wasn’t until after they had finished them all that someone finally realised how bad it was, to the point were the vast majority of them were scrapped before they even left the factory.
The gun was so bad that you would get 1 shot every 20 seconds with a maximum effective range of 20 feet. The barrel was un-rifled and it didn’t even have a magazine, just a small compartment at the base of the handle were you could stuff a few bullets in. The reason it was so bad was not only its poor accuracy, but after shooting it the awkward reloading procedure meant the user had to poke a stick or pencil down the barrel to remove the previously fired shell.
They were almost never used as trying to fire a single round with terrible accuracy at very close range before having to spend the next 20 seconds messing around with your reloading stick wasn’t the most effective way to kill the enemy.
5) The Panjandrum
This 2 wheeled self propelling bomb was a good idea in theory, but in tests couldnt have been more useless. The wheels had a 10 ft diameter and held an explosive charge around its axis. There were a number of rockets attached to each wheel which were supposed to propel if forward when activated, the device would then charge along a beach and blow up any defenses it ran into.
In practice the rockets were the problem, as igniting them all at exactly the same time and getting them all of equal power seemed impossible. The contraption went in every direction except a straight line and because of this the project never saw combat use and was abandoned.
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