weird weapons

[VAE VICTUS]

found some pics in book of body armour used in ww1,and then another of a shield type device used in trench warfare of ww1,and then one of a german with 8 stick grenades tied together to take out fortifications.any other instanes of strange devices in war?

[Alexanderofmacedon]

I've heard some Gaulic troops carried rope to strangle enemies because of their advantage with power.

Maybe just a rumor...

[Kraxis]

The German 'visionslit bomb'. A circular flat bomb used to shove through the visionslits of tanks. Effective enough if used, but it was fairly limited since you had to get on top of the tank.

Japanese baloonbombs. Odd weapon supposedly meant to set the great American forests alight...

[Watchman]

The Chinese would sometimes strap a barrel of gunpowder to the rear of an oxen, set the thing on fire, and drive the terrified creature out of the fortress hopefully to detonate among besiegers and their siege engines.

They also shot some pretty weird stuff from their trebuchets; molten iron or poison bombs with such highly descriptive names as "human excretement bomb"...

Winches, pulleys and cranes were often used wherever the know-how was available both by and against medieval and ancient fortifications - to lift soldiers to the battlements, for example, or conversely grab rams and similar siege engines and hoist them up, rendering them useless.

Sometime in the 1500s or so the English tried to give pikemen some firepower by tying a longbow to the pike-shaft. As one writing on combination weapons has it, "in the history of combination weapon the sword-cane represents sanity and the pike-longbow raving psychosis."
Needless to say, the experiment was unsuccesful and quickly abandoned.

[Flavius Clemens]

Story I've heard more than once, but can't guarentee accuracy of, is that in early days of the eastern front the Russians trained dogs to run under tanks by hiding food there. They then attached bombs to the dogs, triggered by a pole that would be knocked down by the tank chassis. Unfortunately as they trained them using Russian tanks, and the dogs weren't too smart... the plan was soon discontinued.

[English assassin]

I think you would have to try pretty hard to beat the Panjandrum:http://johnfowles.org.uk/nevilshute/thesecretwar/

A sort of giant rocket powered cotton bobbin thing.

[Kraxis]

Story I've heard more than once, but can't guarentee accuracy of, is that in early days of the eastern front the Russians trained dogs to run under tanks by hiding food there. They then attached bombs to the dogs, triggered by a pole that would be knocked down by the tank chassis. Unfortunately as they trained them using Russian tanks, and the dogs weren't too smart... the plan was soon discontinued.

True enough... There are plenty of pictures of such dogs and enough accounts from German troops to verify it (they despised the practice a whole lot seeing dogs as noble animals). They were not too effective as the dogs were easily killed by machineguns (they had to be fairly big dogs and they aren't too nimble or hard to detect), and they would run towards any vehicle with tracks, friend or foe.

They were trained by being starved then having food placed under tracked tractors. Before use the dogs were starved for a few days (making them even worse as they were not deployable right away) to make them properly inclined to run through a noisy and scary battlefield.

[Watchman]

The German troops developed some odd jokes regarding that. "Remember that exploding dogs are a purely Russian phenomenom. When you are on leave back home, do not shoot every dog you see just to make sure. The people around you will not be happy."

[Kongamato]

A dam-busting "bouncing bomb" was used by the British in WWII on certain German dams. It was not used much.

http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/webproject...ing%20Bomb.htm

[Ja'chyra]

Didn't someone, us perhaps, try to make a floating airfield on an ice berg?

As an aside to the dog bombers, don't forget the dolphins and seals, the Germans also developed a gun that could fire round corners, having a curved barrel, designed to stop people hiding in a tanks blind spot next to the tracks.

[Kraxis]

Didn't someone, us perhaps, try to make a floating airfield on an ice berg?

That was actually the Brits and Commonwealth... An unsinkable carrier, that would have been rather nice.

The bellybow was a Greek weapon, and 'just' a primitive crossbow.

[The Wizard]

Well, back in the day, the first heliopoleis (siege towers) were pretty damn strange weaponry!

But, with hindsight: the exaggerated form of the Turkish kiliç (now commonly known, and shown -- read: in Hollywood -- as the scimitar) and the bigger two-handed weaponry from India are pretty strange weapons.

And, oh, the staff mace from China. And those dual swords with hooks at the ends with which you could disarm your opponnent (both showcased in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon).

[master of the puppets]

the kapesh was an odd looking weapon but turned out to be an extremely effective weapon against both chariots and armored infantry.