10. The T-95 Super Tank Russia has a long history of designing some
pretty bizarre prototype weapons. Normally, these prototypes never actually reach the construction
phase. But the T-95 super tank, at the end of the Cold War, was indeed built as a tank to end
all tanks. The T95, had development continued, possibly would have been the scariest tank in the
world. But the technology was eventually abandoned in favor of the less interesting, T-14 Armata.
The tank was part of the Object 195 project. Designing started in 1988,
with the idea to make a heavy tank that would outclass all NATO armor. This meant the crew
members were stuffed into an interior compartment with the turret being unmanned. The tank was
also fitted with explosive reactive armor and composite armor, along with softkill systems
whose capabilities are still unknown to this day. It was also given a 152mm 2A83 smoothbore gun,
which boasts an amazing muzzle velocity of around 6000 feet (1829 m) per second.
The tank also had 152mm (6 inches) howitzers for firing all manner of artillery rounds.
But alas, they actually only ever built one single prototype.
The T-95 tank was simply too big and too bad for this day and age. They went with the T-14,
which comes equipped with more technological features like jamming capabilities.
9. The Rolling Rocket Bomb The rolling rocket bomb was
one of the worst ideas in military history. It was designed to kill Nazis but instead,
it killed somebody's dog! Aw! The rolling rocket bomb is actually known as the Panjandrum, and it's
arguably one of the biggest flops in military history. The British concocted this bizarre
device to break through the German defenses when storming the beaches of Normandy. Here's how it
worked. The engineers attached rockets onto two giant wheels joined together by a drum axle. The
axle was lined with deadly explosives. The rockets were supposed to propel the wheel up the beach
and then the bombs would blow the Germans up. In theory, this sounded great. But the technology
totally bombed, pun intended. When they tested it out, the Panjandrum flew up the beach, the
rockets dislodged, and the whole thing exploded. An army officer’s dog chased one of the rocket’s
down the beach and was killed in the attempt. Immediately after, the technology was abandoned.
8. The Failed Nazi Rocket The V2 was an utter failure
of Nazi technology. Each V2 rocket was about 46 feet (14 m) high and carried a ton of explosives,
literally. In the autumn of 1944, the Germans used their newly developed rocket technology to
attack London. The very first V2 rocket plunged down on the city, gouging out a
32-foot (9.7 m) crater and killing three people. These were a massive upgrade from the V1 flying
bombs, but not quite revolutionary enough for Hitler to win the war. It was a kind of last-ditch
effort to defeat the British, but it didn't work. They fired over 1300 of these missiles at England,
Belgium, and France. Perhaps 2700 people in Britain were killed, according to the BBC.
But it could have been up to 20,000, including those who died constructing the V2 rockets.
One of the biggest deals about the V2 rocket was that it used an automatic guidance system.
It was one of the first rockets programmable to hit a particular spot while being operated by a
controller on the ground. In that way, it wasn't really a failed technology – just a failed attempt
at victory for the Germans. When the Germans lost the war, the Americans and Soviets scrambled to
get their hands on the tech first. It would be the Russians who captured the V2 factory and
their test range, then reverse engineered the technology to use it for themselves.
7. The Wind Cannon The wind cannon was
developed by the Germans as a weapon that could create an artificial tornado.
The whole idea was that the Germans could fire their wind cannon at enemy aircraft,
creating a literal tornado that could destroy entire squadrons of planes.
Weirdly enough, the Germans actually did a pretty good job. They created a vortex cannon that could
create a tornado of up to 900 feet (274 m) tall. The issue is that they couldn't get them tall
enough to actually destroy any aircraft. The only thing they managed to destroy were wooden sheds.
This weapon was called the Windkanone. It worked by filling a large pipe with combustible gas,
then sending the gas into a combustion chamber to spin a turbine. The rotating nozzle then released
the gas into the atmosphere, drawing air into the rotation to create a vortex. It was a perfectly
sound science, but it was honestly way ahead of its time. The wind cannon was abandoned. And as
far as we know, nobody has tried to build one since. But seeing as it's been almost a century,
our advancement in technology probably means that somewhere out there, somebody's military
knows how to make artificial tornadoes. How do you feel knowing there very well
could be a machine out there capable of creating a massive tornado? Let us know in the comments
below and if you’re liking this video, be sure to hit the thumbs up and subscribe buttons if
you haven’t already! :) 6. Curving Bullets
The Krummlauf was another of Germany’s failed secret weapons. It was a curved
barrel clamped onto the end of a gun so that soldiers would fire bullets around obstacles.
The original idea came in 1943, with the Germans thinking they could use a curved barrel to
redirect bullets. One was made with a 30-degree bend and the other had a 90-degree bend. These
would be mounted onto armored vehicles with an MP 44-caliber rifle sitting in a vertical position.
The curved barrel was pointed through a port and attached to a swivel. The crew inside the
tank could fire at the enemy all day long without ever being shot themselves or hit with explosives.
But of course, it didn't really work. Bullets almost always broke in half as they traveled
through the device or the device itself would break. At best, the gun would fire maybe 100
rounds before completely falling apart. 5. The Ice Ship
An inventor working for the British Combined Operations Headquarters, one of the departments
of the War Office, thought it would be a good idea to create an unsinkable island ship made
completely of ice. This ice ship would be the best way for the Allies to prevent German U-boats from
destroying all their vessels. The idea actually led to a small prototype being built in secret,
approved by Winston Churchill himself. And when I say a small prototype, I mean a giant floating
piece of ice that weighed 1000 tons (907,185 kg). Geoffrey Pyke was the inventor of this bizarre
contraption. Pyke envisioned a gigantic ship made from ice instead of steel. But in reality,
the ship would be built from ice and a pykrete mixture of wood pulp and frozen water, with the
wood acting as reinforcement. The prototype was commissioned in 1943, to be constructed in Canada.
The model, just 30 by 60 feet (9-18 m), was built on a lake in Alberta and kept frozen through the
summer by using just one motor. It was actually quite successful, and a real ship was ordered to
be built out of 300,000 tons of wood pulp, 25,000 tons (25,000,000 kg)of insulation,
10,000 tons (9,071,847 kg) of steel, and 35,000 tons (31,751,466 kg) of timber. The issue here was
that it ended up costing way too much money. The ship would have been a mile in length and
weighed over 2.2 million tons. The project was scrapped because of financial issues and
the technology has been abandoned ever since. The prototype can still be seen today at the
bottom of Patricia Lake in Jasper National Park, Canada. It’s still there, totally abandoned.
4. Forgotten Sea Forts The Maunsell Army Sea Forts were
used by the British during World War II to defend the shoreline. The forts were built as part of the
Thames Estuary defense network, anti-aircraft towers that doubled as forts built in 1942.
Each fort was a cluster of stilted buildings branching out from a central command post.
No aircraft could get past these forts without the British knowing. They were
pivotal in keeping the Germans out of England. But after the war, they lost all relevance.
There are only two left standing today out of the original three,
the Redsands Fort and the Shivering Sands Fort. They were originally decommissioned in the 1950s,
the Nore Army Fort was damaged by a storm and then struck by a boat and dismantled.
The remaining forts were occupied by a pirate radio station in the 1970s. As recently as 2005,
an artist named Stephen Turner squatted in one for 36 days and then wrote a book about isolation.
As you can see, the abandoned forts have had quite the history. You can still see them for yourself
on a clear day when standing on Shoeburyness East Beach. But nobody is actually allowed to go there,
as they’re considered extremely dangerous and are going to fall into the ocean at any time.
3. Cultivator No. 6 The Cultivator No. 6,
also known as the White Rabbit Number Six, was a machine designed by the British Royal Navy
for digging trenches at the start of World War Two. The machine was lightly armored,
it carried no weapons, and its purpose was to allow soldiers to advance on the enemy position
while burrowing underground. The machine would dig a trench as the soldiers advanced behind it,
thereby giving them a constant trench to hide in. Then when the machine reached the enemy, it turned
into a ramp that the soldiers could climb up. This sounded like a really good idea. But the
problem was that it weighed 130 tons (260,000 lbs). It was an absolute beast, and Britain was
only able to manufacture a small number of the machines. In the end, none of them were
even used in combat. It just wasn't effective at actually breaking through enemy lines like Winston
Churchill had hoped. He'd wanted this machine to turn the tide of trench warfare, but it did
no such thing. All the machines were abandoned, about 33 of them, and never used for anything.
2. Antonov An-24 The Antonov An-24 comes to us from
the Cold War era, a twin-turboprop aircraft that is actually still in operation today.
The Russian Air Force is still using the Antonov right now, though their numbers have dropped
significantly and they’ve needed to be modernized. The first Antonov prototype was back in October of
1959, with production ending in 1979. There were around 1300 of these transport aircraft made,
with only 100 still in active duty as of 2020. China even made their own copy of the plane,
called the Y-7. There are also a lot of different variations of the Antonov. The An-24 was designed
strictly for battlefield conditions as military transport. This included anything from VIP
passengers to general cargo. The truth is that these awesome planes weren’t a failure at all,
the technology simply got outdated and hundreds of them were abandoned across the world.
The only people who actually still use them are Russia, North Korea, Afghanistan, Cuba,
and Bangladesh – just to name a few. 1. The Hypersonic Nuke Missile
Reports have been coming in lately that China is currently developing a hypersonic nuclear missile
engine based on a design originally abandoned by NASA. This hypersonic missile engine will
theoretically propel a nuclear weapon at 6000 mph (9656 kph). A Chinese research team has allegedly
already built and tested a functional prototype. The prototype was based on a radical design put
forth by NASA over 20 years ago, only to be abandoned because it was considered too costly.
This new weapon allows a nuclear weapon to travel at over five times the speed of sound.
The original technology comes from the Boeing Manta X-47C, developed back in the early 2000s
and then abandoned by the US government because they thought it was too expensive. But as China's
military rapidly advances, money doesn't seem to be an object for them. They've now allegedly
built their own hypersonic missile system, with an impressive range of over 1500 miles (2414 km). And
at 6000 miles per hour (9656 kph)… well, a missile can reach its destination with startling haste.
Thanks for watching! How do you feel about the existence of a hypersonic nuke missile?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below and if you enjoyed the video today,
remember to hit subscribe to help support the channel! See you next time! Bye! :)