Ever-burning fire … Armed icebergs ... Laser guns!?
These may sound like imaginary weapons straight out of the pages of a comic book or a sci-fi
novel, but these are all examples of very real and very weird weapons from the past
and the present.
History is full of examples of surreal weapons that actually existed, not to mention all
the examples of weird weapons failures.
What are the weirdest historical weapons that we know of?
What weird weapons are we using today?
What weirdness awaits us in the future?
Imagine yourself as an ancient Roman sailor preparing to launch a fierce naval attack
on your arch rivals, the Greeks.
As your ship approaches the city’s walls, you watch closely for any signs of movement.
The Greeks are well known for their unique defense strategies, including the much-feared
Greek Fire, an incendiary compound that the Greeks have been known to throw at invaders
in clay pots or even through tubes, creating an ancient flamethrower.
The actual ingredients in Greek Fire are a well-guarded secret - even in modern times,
no one knows exactly what this sticky compound was made of - but you do know that this ancient
version of Napalm can stick to anything and burn for an incredible amount of time, and
that not even water can extinguish it.
Yes, Greek Fire is definitely on your mind as your ship gets closer and closer to the
city’s walls.
This time, though, there’s something new in store for you.
Towering over the wall is a huge catapult-like structure with a complicated series of pulleys.
Before you can figure out what it is, a rope thrown from the top of the wall lands on the
deck of the ship next to you.
The hook on the end digs firmly into the ship’s rail, and you hear a loud groan as the monstrous
structure comes to life.
Before your eyes, the ship next to you is raised up out of the water, men and supplies
sliding along the deck and falling overboard.
Then, with a crash, the ship falls back to the water, founders and sinks.
The Claw of Archimedes claims it’s first victim, as the rest of your fleet scrambles
to escape it’s reach.
If ancient sea battles sound terrifying, you’re not going to like this.
If you were a warrior in medieval Europe, preparing to do battle for your liege lord,
you’d have your own problems to deal with.
Hand-to-hand combat is brutal, bloody business, and as a footsoldier you only have your sword
and shield to protect you in the melee.
If you were very lucky, you might have an extra, secret weapon in your arsenal.
A swordbreaker was shaped like a dagger, but its blade was full of deadly teeth that could
hook onto your enemy’s sword and break the blade clean in half with one quick motion,
leaving him defenseless.
Not many medieval warriors could afford the luxury of an extra weapon like a swordbreaker,
so many made do with a homemade pair of leather gloves reinforced with iron rings or even
spikes.
That’s right, we’re talking about medieval brass knuckles.
You may associate them with gangster movies and rap videos, but these types of fighting
gloves have actually been around since ancient times.
If you were a gladiator in ancient Rome facing an opponent in the ring, you might have nothing
to defend yourself with but a “cestus”, a series of thin leather thongs wrapped around
your hands with small bits of iron or lead attached.
Ancient Japanese warriors had their own version of ancient brass knuckles, called a “tekko”.
As a knight on horseback, you’re a bit better off than your footsoldier friends, but you’re
far from safe.
From your higher vantage point you’d be keeping a close eye out for any enemies carrying
a Man Catcher.
This device featured a spiked collar on a long wooden pole, and would be used to pull
you off your horse by the neck and drag you into the bloodbath below.
Warfare changed with the advent of guns.
Soon every soldier was equipped with firepower, but there were still plenty of weird weapons
to be found.
An early 18th century weapon called the Puckle Gun was unique because there were two different
designs, one that was capable of shooting typical round bullets, as well as one that
could fire square ones.
If you were tasked with operating the puckle gun, you would use the square bullet variety
against your Muslim enemies, since it was thought that square bullets would hurt more,
and would therefore convince the “infidel” Turks of the superiorty of Christianity.
The more “civilized” round bullet gun would be saved for use against your fellow
Christians.
The 20th century witnessed two unprecedented world wars, and these brutal wars spawned
countless new and weird weapons.
Picture yourself as an artilleryman in the German army during World War One.
Your unit is posted deep in the Western front near Paris.
You’ve been hearing a lot of rumours about a new cannon that’s on it’s way to the
front lines.
It’s said to be the biggest in history, capable of launching shells into the stratosphere!
It’s called The Paris Gun, because it will apparently be able to hit Paris from your
position an astonishing 80 miles away.
When The Paris Gun arrives a few days later, you can see that the rumours are true.
It’s so big that it’s brought in by train on a specially-made rail car.
It’s barrel measures almost 70 feet, and each shell weighs more than 200 pounds!
When the orders come down from your superiors, you’re excited and nervous to learn that
you’ll be part of the crew that will be the first to fire The Paris Gun.
You’re still recovering from the deafening sound of the massive gun firing when you get
confirmation that the shell has landed near your target in Paris.
It took a full 3 minutes for the shell to travel the 80 miles to Paris, and it reached
a height of 25 miles at its peak trajectory.
As impressive as The Paris Gun looks, though, you’re dismayed to find out that it’s
wildly inaccurate.
It’s almost impossible to accurately aim such a big gun, but it certainly has an impact
on the morale of your enemies, so it’s not a total waste.
In the wake of these world wars, with mistrust between countries at its peak, militaries
around the world are ramping up their espionage activities.
As a covert operator trying to infiltrate an enemy regime, you have weapons that wouldn’t
seem out of place in a modern James Bond movie.
You might be issued a small caliber mini-pistol cleverly disguised as a flashlight, a tube
of lipstick, or even a ring.
As inventive as these hidden guns are, it may be hard to imagine them as anything other
than spy-movie foder.
But they could be all too effective - in London in 1978, a KGB agent successfully used an
umbrella gun that shot poisoned pellets to assassinate a target.
As a modern day soldier, no doubt you’re grateful that you don’t have to participate
in hand-to-hand combat or trench warfare, or face any of the weird historical weapons
we’ve covered so far.
But modern soldiers have weird modern weapons to deal with.
Today’s technological advances have led to the creation of some truly weird and futuristic
weapons.
Put yourself in the shoes of a modern soldier for a moment.
You’re just as likely to be deployed against your own rioting countrymen than against forgein
enemies, and even soldiers stationed overseas will interact with civilians more than armed
combatants.
That’s why modern weapons are designed to be non-lethal - more often than not, you’re
aiming to incapacitate, not to kill.
We’re all familiar with the TASER stun guns favored by police officers and suspicious
mothers everywhere.
As a modern soldier called in to control a large-scale riot, you might use the TASER
Shockwave to keep the angry mob in check.
Essentially a wall of TASER stun guns, the Shockwave is capable of protecting a 20-degree
arc with 6 TASERS.
Each Shockwave has a 25-foot range, and they can be combined to cover a larger area.
If somehow the Shockwave isn’t effective in dispersing the crowd, you also have the
Active Denial System at your disposal.
Also known as the “pain ray”, this futuristic weapon works on the same principles as a microwave
oven.
It emits a type of electromagnetic radiation that creates a brief but intense burning sensation
when it comes into contact with human skin.
This weapon is powerful enough to stop the angriest mob, but is non-lethal and was designed
for crowd control, not combat.
As a modern soldier, you’re getting to live out every sci-fi nerd’s fantasy.
Laser technology is no longer science-fiction, but science fact.
Laser weapons work by harnessing and focusing light rays to incapacitate enemies and disable
electronic systems.
The LaWS (pronounced “laws”) ship-mounted cannon is powerful enough to scramble electronics
systems, blind enemies, and even damage boats, aircraft and drones.
There is even a laser rifle, the PHASR (pronounced “phaser”) stun-gun, that lets you dazzle
and confuse your enemies, but more testing is needed before the gun is widely used and
lasers replace bullets completely.
When modern weapons seem like something straight out of a sci-fi movie, it begs the question
- what weird weapons will the soldiers of the future be using?
Maybe more importantly, what futuristic weapons might the Zeti Reticuli aliens be developing
to use against us in their quest to harvest our brains!?
If the idea of being a soldier in the future scares you, this might ease your mind a bit.
It sounds like something straight out of a Harry Potter movie, but scientists are actually
working on developing an invisibility cloak - and they think they’ve almost got it figured
out!
Our vision works by detecting light bouncing off of an object, and a special coating under
development could make it possible to absorb or redirect these light waves, making you
invisible to your enemies.
Of course, not all brilliant ideas turn out to be a brilliant success.
Although plenty of weird weapons exist now and in the past, there are even more examples
of weird weapon failures.
There is a long and frankly unsettling history of militaries attempting to weaponize animals.
During the 1960s, the CIA had the brilliant idea of turning cats into covert listening
devices.
The idea was that the cats would be able to get close to foreign adversaries without being
detected, so scientists implanted radio transmitters, microphones and batteries inside the cats’
bodies to gather top-secret intel.
Needless to say, it didn’t go well.
Not only were there countless issues with the technology and the implantation process,
but anyone who has ever had a cat can tell you just how impossible it is to train them
to do what you want.
During World War II, the soviet military strapped explosives to dogs who had been starved and
trained to search for food underneath tanks.
The idea was that the dogs would see the enemy tanks, and, expecting a tasty meal, dive under
the tanks where the bombs would detonate.
However, the dogs had not been trained with live tanks and were not used to the chaos
and noise of battle.
If you were soviet soldier, you would have been dismayed to see that the dogs, understandably
terrified, ignored the tanks and ran straight back into your lines with their deadly payload.
A much more humane version of animal weaponry was the robot named Big Dog.
Built by Boston Dynamics in 2005, it looked like this was the next big thing in military
supply transport, but after initial testing showed that it’s gas engines and hydraulics
were way too loud, Big Dog was put into storage and Boston Dynamics was sold to Google.
During World War II, Britain was desperate for a solution to the problem of German u-boats,
which were sinking military and even civilian ships at an alarming rate.
Enter Project Habakkuk, eccentric inventor Geoffrey Pyke’s plan to construct a massive
aircraft carrier out of a new material he called “Pykrete”.
Pykrete was a mix of ice reinforced with wood pulp, and this new material was lightweight
and very strong, allowing for a much larger ship with thicker walls that could withstand
u-boat attacks.
The war ended before Pyke gained any real support for his design, so we’ll never know
if “Pykrete” would live up to its claims.
As weird as some of these failed weapons sound, humans have clearly been trying out crazy
weapons for centuries, and things are only going to get weirder in the future.
So, which weird weapons of the past are you most surprised by?
What do you think of the future of weapons?
Which weapon fail most surprised you?
Let us know in the comments.
If you enjoyed learning about weird weapons, then go on and check out our videos, like
this one The Top 10 Weapons of the Future, or this one!
Whichever one you pick, we promise it will be a lot more fun than facing a laser gun!