Allied WW2 experimental weapons.

[Worgen]

I was thinking that you see a lot of German, Japanese and even Soviet experimental weapons in games, but you don't really see any allied ones. Does anyone know of any allied experimental weapons that were neat but not really mass produced? Also nukes don't count.

 

[Chimpzy]

Eh, off the top of my head ...

Bouncing bomb - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Unrotated Projectile - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Worgen]

Eh, off the top of my head ...

Bouncing bomb - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Unrotated Projectile - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Hmm, not quite what I was looking for. I was mainly thinking aircraft, tank or gun or something like that. Like we tend to see the StG 44 in a ton of ww2 games but it only showed up late in the war and wasn't that common. Its also common to see giant ass german tanks in games despite them just being stupid.

 

[Chimpzy]

How about these then?

Vultee XP-54 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Douglas XB-42 Mixmaster - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Mister Mumbler]

T32 heavy tank - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Some early Allied jet fighters;

Gloster E.28/39 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Bell P-59 Airacomet - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

As far as infantry weapons go, I would check out Forgotten Weapons on YT.

 

[Breakdown]

The British started developing a giant aircraft carrier out of ice, but surprisingly it turned out to be not such a good idea.

Project Habakkuk - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[09philj]

The Blue Peacock nuclear mine.
How do you kill Soviets? With a nuclear bomb.
How do you get the Soviets into the blast area? By hiding it underground.
How do you keep the bomb function at low underground temperatures? By putting a FUCKING LIVE CHICKEN IN IT.

Blue Peacock - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Chimpzy]

The Blue Peacock nuclear mine.
How do you kill Soviets? With a nuclear bomb.
How do you get the Soviets into the blast area? By hiding it underground.
How do you keep the bomb function at low underground temperatures? By putting a FUCKING LIVE CHICKEN IN IT.

Blue Peacock - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Outrageously stupid ... until you consider that if one blew up, that chicken would for a very brief fraction of a second become the hottest wings in the world.

 

[Worgen]

As far as infantry weapons go, I would check out Forgotten Weapons on YT.

Oh right, I forgot about that channel.

The British started developing a giant aircraft carrier out of ice, but surprisingly it turned out to be not such a good idea.

I thought that was a canadian thing? Oh well, I do remember Myth Busters doing an episode on it.

The Blue Peacock nuclear mine.
How do you kill Soviets? With a nuclear bomb.
How do you get the Soviets into the blast area? By hiding it underground.
How do you keep the bomb function at low underground temperatures? By putting a FUCKING LIVE CHICKEN IN IT.

They did love to try and do all sorts of wacky things with nukes in the 50s.

Davy Crockett (nuclear device) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Agema]

Hmm, not quite what I was looking for. I was mainly thinking aircraft, tank or gun or something like that. Like we tend to see the StG 44 in a ton of ww2 games but it only showed up late in the war and wasn't that common. Its also common to see giant ass german tanks in games despite them just being stupid.

Maybe part of the problem was that the Allies were, bluntly, more pragmatic.

Part of the misleading hagiography of German technology is to realise a lot of their inventions were... kind of shit. The Tiger, for instance, was in ways a great tank: great gun, great armour, decent manoeuverablity. However, it was ultimately a failure: catastrophically expensive to make, difficult and expensive to maintain, and highly unreliable. Given industrial warfare is actually about pumping out huge quantities of robust, adequate equipment, you'd be considerably better off with three times as many Panzer IVs. By the time you get to the Maus, it's 200 tons of sheerest stupidity that the morons in at the top couldn't even understand would be useless.

But that's part of the appeal, really: the fantastical overambition and obsession with size and grandiosity. By and large, the allies also thought about some creatively stupid stuff, but it was usually a lot more "niche" or buried much earlier.

 

[Worgen]

Maybe part of the problem was that the Allies were, bluntly, more pragmatic.

Part of the misleading hagiography of German technology is to realise a lot of their inventions were... kind of shit. The Tiger, for instance, was in ways a great tank: great gun, great armour, decent manoeuverablity. However, it was ultimately a failure: catastrophically expensive to make, difficult and expensive to maintain, and highly unreliable. Given industrial warfare is actually about pumping out huge quantities of robust, adequate equipment, you'd be considerably better off with three times as many Panzer IVs. By the time you get to the Maus, it's 200 tons of sheerest stupidity that the morons in at the top couldn't even understand would be useless.

But that's part of the appeal, really: the fantastical overambition and obsession with size and grandiosity. By and large, the allies also thought about some creatively stupid stuff, but it was usually a lot more "niche" or buried much earlier.

Not to mention the Tiger was almost too heavy for the roads it was going on so it had a tendency to get stuck.

Yeah, I suppose that is true. Plus a lot of the allied secret weapons that were good were made and used, like the proximity AA shells and the atomic bomb.

 

[stroopwafel]

Maybe part of the problem was that the Allies were, bluntly, more pragmatic.

Part of the misleading hagiography of German technology is to realise a lot of their inventions were... kind of shit. The Tiger, for instance, was in ways a great tank: great gun, great armour, decent manoeuverablity. However, it was ultimately a failure: catastrophically expensive to make, difficult and expensive to maintain, and highly unreliable. Given industrial warfare is actually about pumping out huge quantities of robust, adequate equipment, you'd be considerably better off with three times as many Panzer IVs. By the time you get to the Maus, it's 200 tons of sheerest stupidity that the morons in at the top couldn't even understand would be useless.

But that's part of the appeal, really: the fantastical overambition and obsession with size and grandiosity. By and large, the allies also thought about some creatively stupid stuff, but it was usually a lot more "niche" or buried much earlier.

Wasn't the third reich particularly notorious for 'blitzkrieg' ie lightning quick bombing raids by messerschmidt planes in a time aerial combat was still a novelty? I think only messerschmidt and later the V2 rocket really stood out as German ingenuity. V2 in particular by the genius Werner von Braun would have turned the tide of the war if the Germans were the first to split the atom. The allied forces didn't have any kind of mid to long range ballistic missiles. As history turned out Von Braun became pretty much the founding father of NASA.

 

[09philj]

It's 1943. The Allies need to convince the Germans that their Mediterranean offensive will be launched in Greece and Sardinia. Fortunately, they have a secret weapon: Operation Mincemeat. Operation Mincemeat is a dead homeless Welshman, dressed as an army officer with false intelligence planted on him, and thrown into the sea near Spain. A Spanish fisherman retrieves the body, and the fascist Spanish authorities pass the intelligence on to the Germans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mincemeat

It's 1944. Operation Overlord. D Day. Thousands of Allied paratroopers drop into France. Very dangerous work. How do you give your paratroopers better odds? By distorting their position. How do you do that? With fake paratrooper dummies called Rupert and Oscar.

Paradummy - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Agema]

Wasn't the third reich particularly notorious for 'blitzkrieg' ie lightning quick bombing raids by messerschmidt planes in a time aerial combat was still a novelty?

Blitzkrieg was more about technology of tactics rather than equipment.

Everyone had dive bombers. It's just only the Germans could use them effectively in the early war because dive bombers depended on air superiority. And the famous dive bomber was the Junkers 87 ("Stuka"); Messerschmidts were the classic fighter planes.

The allied forces didn't have any kind of mid to long range ballistic missiles. As history turned out Von Braun became pretty much the founding father of NASA.

Yeah, but they were useless. Sure, one might occasionally land on a target as big as London, but it's just going to kill a few civilians and they really should have learnt after trying to flatten the UK with aircraft bombs that they were not onto a winner that way.

I mean, the UK achieved more than whole German armies by inventing a computer. Or vastly superior radar. These things might not seem so flashy, but they were a damn sight more useful than the expensive, inaccurate, glorified fireworks Werner von Braun came up with.

 

[Worgen]

Wasn't the third reich particularly notorious for 'blitzkrieg' ie lightning quick bombing raids by messerschmidt planes in a time aerial combat was still a novelty? I think only messerschmidt and later the V2 rocket really stood out as German ingenuity. V2 in particular by the genius Werner von Braun would have turned the tide of the war if the Germans were the first to split the atom. The allied forces didn't have any kind of mid to long range ballistic missiles. As history turned out Von Braun became pretty much the founding father of NASA.

The bliztkrieg was really a tactic of last resort since Germany knew it didn't have the resources for another WW1. It just turned out that Frances allies weren't as ready for it as they were with the Maginot line, which also wasn't long enough. The V2 was pretty impressive but as I understand the rocket tech actually came from an American inventor who was really bad at selling himself and Germany was the only country that would listen. But they were kinda useless. Their accuracy was garbage so they were really only good for hitting a city with a few bombs worth of explosives, they made decent terror weapons but terror tactics are notoriously useless to try and humble a population of a country unless you do it for a very very long time. Even if they somehow managed to split the atom first and make a few bombs they didn't have a good delivery method. The V2 didn't have the load capacity needed and they never really had a good heavy bomber, we had the B29 and even that plane needed to be modified to be able to carry the bombs. Not to mention them losing air superiority pretty hard.

 

[stroopwafel]

Blitzkrieg was more about technology of tactics rather than equipment.

Everyone had dive bombers. It's just only the Germans could use them effectively in the early war because dive bombers depended on air superiority. And the famous dive bomber was the Junkers 87 ("Stuka"); Messerschmidts were the classic fighter planes.

Those bombers were Stukas yeah you're right. My grandpa actually saw one crash when the town where he lived got carpet bombed during the war. When he looked for it he saw stray dogs munching on the pilot's guts. Somehow never got tired of telling that story lmao.

 

[stroopwafel]

The bliztkrieg was really a tactic of last resort since Germany knew it didn't have the resources for another WW1. It just turned out that Frances allies weren't as ready for it as they were with the Maginot line, which also wasn't long enough. The V2 was pretty impressive but as I understand the rocket tech actually came from an American inventor who was really bad at selling himself and Germany was the only country that would listen. But they were kinda useless. Their accuracy was garbage so they were really only good for hitting a city with a few bombs worth of explosives, they made decent terror weapons but terror tactics are notoriously useless to try and humble a population of a country unless you do it for a very very long time. Even if they somehow managed to split the atom first and make a few bombs they didn't have a good delivery method. The V2 didn't have the load capacity needed and they never really had a good heavy bomber, we had the B29 and even that plane needed to be modified to be able to carry the bombs. Not to mention them losing air superiority pretty hard.

True, rocket technology was all very rudimentary ofcourse and late in the war but if Von Braun have had more time to work on it then the accuracy would have improved. Arguably without his designs there wouldn't have been an Apollo mission so quickly.

 

[Terminal Blue]

But that's part of the appeal, really: the fantastical overambition and obsession with size and grandiosity. By and large, the allies also thought about some creatively stupid stuff, but it was usually a lot more "niche" or buried much earlier.

I think there's something in this.

There are a lot of allied experimental weapons, but a lot of it is just stuff that worked and was adopted. Things like the British funny tanks, which seem like a weird and out there idea but actually worked really well and whose legacy can still be seen in modern military engineering vehicles. When we talk about experimental weapons, we're generally thinking about things which turned out to be over-ambitious or which ultimately failed.

There are allied examples of these kinds of overly ambitious failed experiments. Both the Americans and British tried building superheavy tanks, for example, both of which turned out to be unnecessary flops. But the things we think of as "experimental" are the things that never left the experimental stage because they were failures.

 

[Worgen]

True, rocket technology was all very rudimentary ofcourse and late in the war but if Von Braun have had more time to work on it then the accuracy would have improved. Arguably without his designs there wouldn't have been an Apollo mission so quickly.

Maybe, but it would take a long time for the tech to become good enough to carry anything big and a long time for nukes to become small enough to be carried into orbit.

There are allied examples of these kinds of overly ambitious failed experiments. Both the Americans and British tried building superheavy tanks, for example, both of which turned out to be unnecessary flops. But the things we think of as "experimental" are the things that never left the experimental stage because they were failures.

I think something that prevented more experimentation with super tanks was just having to ship them overseas. Shermans were great to load into ships and send over, a hypothetical super heavy tank, not so much.

I think the weirdest plan the allies had that got rather far into planning was putting incendiaries on bats and releasing them over Japanese cities so when they roosted in things like overhangs and such they would burst into flame and set fires.

 

[Meximagician]

How has no one mentioned the Bat Bomb yet?
Incendiaries delivered via bats, deployment was only halted due to the completion of the atomic bomb.

I imagine that would make for one hell of a killstreak reward. A colony of bats, all on fire, descending upon your enemies like tiny, angry, enemy-tracking molotovs.