It’s time to crack open the forbidden armory. These weapons are too deadly and
brutal even for war. Affecting anyone from combatants to civilians alike,
these are the most insane weapons banned from modern warfare.
#15. Incendiary Weapons
Fire. There is no more powerful force in nature. A single spark out of place can cause a massive
blaze that can wipe out hundreds of years of human progress. The visuals on the news are
stark - homes burned, people suffering from terrible burns, and a wave of air pollution
that can poison the air for miles around and be seen a state away. When wildfires occur,
it often takes hundreds of people to put them out and the losses are massive - which makes
it no surprise that some people would try to harness that power to defeat their enemies.
This tactic has a long history.
Incendiary weapons use ignition rather than detonation to start the attack, ensuring they
burn slower and longer. Thermal weapons have been used since the time of ancient armies,
using substances like oil, animal fat, or resin to spark the flame.
Then came gunpowder, allowing bigger and more powerful incendiary devices to
be built - and eventually dropped on enemy territory from planes. They advanced fast,
with World War II being largely defined by the use of powerful weapons like napalm
that set cities afire. And this would continue in many wars to come - particularly Vietnam.
So how did these weapons wind up banned?
The Vietnam War shocked people with its stark visuals of the brutality of war,
and Napalm attacks were responsible for many of the worst visuals. Additionally, incendiary
weapons can be hard to control, and the blazes can last long enough to endanger soldiers on both
sides. That led the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons to ban their use - within
limits. They can still be used in a targeted fashion to target enemies, but not against larger
areas. And the use of tools like flamethrowers can be used to clear brush, but not as a weapon.
One of the most likely types of weapons to
be banned? Those that are only here to cause extra suffering.
#14. Cluster Munitions
Nothing is more common in a warzone than the sight of falling bombs. Civilians know this and know how
to survive these bombardments. They seek cover when the planes fly overhead, survive the initial
shock, and head out to explore once the initial danger has passed - or has it? Because the enemy
didn’t just drop a standard bomb - it dropped one that scattered hundreds of other small bombs,
meaning that every step someone takes in the bombed area could result in an explosion that
will kill or maim someone who survived the first wave. And now, the danger could last indefinitely.
This is the horror of a cluster bomb.
So why would anyone create these horrible devices? For one thing, they’re effective at
creating terror and driving people underground to decrease resistance. But they’re also used
effectively in war. Scattering mini-bombs around the battlefield could destroy enemy
vehicles when they roll into the battlefield, and they’re also good at destroying infrastructure.
If the first hit doesn’t knock out the enemy’s power or make their runways impossible to use,
maybe all the little follow-up hits will. And they’ve had a long, successful run.
Maybe too successful, and too brutal.
These weapons have been used since the Vietnam War, and have shown up in almost every battle
since. They’ve left a trail of maimed civilians and no-go zones in their wake,
and while some countries continue to use them - with the bombs showing up in recent
conflicts in Syria, Yemen, and Ethiopia - over 120 countries have said no more.
The Convention on Cluster Munitions was first adopted in 2008, and since then a majority of
the world’s countries have signed on and ensured that civilians won’t have to needlessly suffer.
One of the banned weapons left a legacy of carnage decades-long.
#13. Land Mines
Some of the deadliest weapons around turn the very terrain against the enemy.
A unit is walking through a jungle, they hear a faint click - and as soon as someone moves,
they’re blown sky-high. Not only are they maimed or killed by an explosion from the ground,
but it’s likely that anyone around them is hit by the shrapnel as well.
Any enemy soldiers in the territory also immediately hear the explosion,
and can descend on the injured unit and finish them off before they have the chance to recover.
It’s not surprising that this weapon became very popular.
Early land mines were used as far back as the ninth century, armed with gunpowder,
but it wasn’t until the First World War that their use truly exploded - in more ways than one. The
use of more powerful explosives and more sensitive technology meant European battlefields were
heavily lined with them - and those that didn’t go off stayed there after the war, rendering many
places dangerous even years after the war. But it didn’t stop them from being used in every major
conflict since, with millions of land mines being planted in countries around the world.
And it wasn’t the deaths in wars that got people’s attention.
Cambodia, Sudan, and Iraq were just three of the countries where landmines were used extensively,
and the civilians in those countries soon found that just because the war was over it didn’t
mean the threat was. Countless people lost lives and limbs due to unexploded landmines,
and the world responded. In 1997, a convention was formed to ban their use in conflict,
and most of the world’s nations have signed on - but not including the three most powerful nations
in the world, Russia, China, and the United States. And while their use might be outlawed,
getting rid of the millions already planted will take a long time.
And weapons don’t always need to be fatal to get banned.
#12. Blinding Lasers
One of the newest weapons in the military’s arsenal, lasers are unique in that they don’t
expire and they don’t explode. They’re generated by the weapon firing them,
and their only limit is how much energy the machine has available. Research is being done
into many uses for lasers, from cutting through metal or shooting weapons out of the sky. But
one use is particularly controversial - using them to target the vision of enemy soldiers, blinding
them. And this is a common-enough topic that it’s become a discussion in international law.
So what are the rules relating to lasers?
For one thing, armies can still use them. Blinding weapons are still allowed - as long
as they’re meant to cause only temporary damage and neutralize the army while still
allowing them to regain their vision. Lasers can also be used in other ways, even if they have
the potential to cause blindness - so if it’s not the intended purpose to target the eyes,
the army has deniability. The effect is similar to someone staring directly at
the sun - except the sun is concentrated in a single beam, and is shooting directly at you.
This raises the question - are blinding lasers actually out there?
Unlike other banned weapons like land mines, which are everywhere and have been for a long time,
blinding lasers are rare. Some were used in Iraq,
and many reports indicate China is developing laser weapons. Israel is also looking to replace
its current Iron Dome missile system with a laser system that can intercept rockets.
It looks increasingly like that lasers might be the future - and that led the
Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons to ban their use for deliberate blinding in 1995.
This next ban dated back longer than any others.
#11. Poisoned Bullets
The Geneva Convention? Forget about it. Let’s dial it back to the Strasbourg Agreement of 1675
between France and the Holy Roman Empire, one of the very first treaties ever regarding the use
of weapons. And the man behind the weapons that led to it? None other than Leonardo Da Vinci,
who had created some of the first-ever enhanced weapons such as shells filled with arsenic
and sulfur that could be used to target the crews of ships. But it wasn’t the first time
bullets had been poisoned - that goes back to the creation of guns and bullets, when
armies would use animal dung or dead bodies to contaminate bullets, leading to fatal infections.
It wouldn’t be the last time this idea was used.
The deal between France and the Holy Roman Empire de-escalated that war, but the appeal of poisoned
bullets spread far and wide. After all, wouldn’t it be great to know you got in a fatal shot,
even if you only winged them? While poisoning each individual bullet was a time-consuming task
and this was one of the only reasons this form of warfare didn’t catch on more,
it was an ongoing threat through the next few hundred years - and
it wouldn’t be the last time that banning them was discussed.
But it’s a long road to actually removing a deadly weapon from the world.
In 1874, another conference advised the banning of early chemical weapons, and twenty-five years
later the Hague Declaration banned the use of projectiles that would distribute poison gas. But
the use of poisoned bullets largely slipped under the radar, and nothing would be firmly established
until after the First World War. Today, the use of poisoned bullets is outlawed by most nations,
and it’s rarely a threat - but that may be because it’s far more effective to target
the enemy with modern weaponry - and there is no shortage of new and deadly weapons.
But it’s not the only bullet type to be sent out to pasture.
10. Expanding Ordnance
It sounds like a funny name - dum-dum bullets. But these aren’t some gag ammo that a clown shoots
out of a neon-colored gun - they’re one of the deadliest and most brutal weapons ever invented.
When someone gets shot in the battlefield, their odds are thin. Conditions aren't great,
the unit is under fire, and the choice is either to get them back to a field hospital before they
bleed out, or try a risky battlefield surgery with a high risk of infection. But those odds
go from slim to none when the bullet is designed to make a life-saving surgery more difficult.
Because these bullets aren’t designed to just pass straight through the body.
When hollow-point or soft-point bullets enter the body, they expand on impact and grow inside
the body. This slows their impact and causes more damage as they move through, often stopping inside
the body. While standard bullets might go in and out and leave the target alive, expanding bullets
are more likely to cause a fatal injury. They’re popular for use in hunting, because nothing ruins
a good shot more quickly than an angry deer with a bullet wound charging right at you.
But if you’re trying to save a gunshot victim, it’s a very different story.
Because the bullet expands behind the wound, it’s common for it to be as much as twice the
entry wound - which makes it tricky to remove it in a safe way. The bullets are still legal
for use by hunters and by police departments - although that use is controversial - but
they’ve been illegal according to the Hague Convention since 1899. Surprisingly,
there is no mention of these weapons in the Geneva Conventions, but most countries abide by
this long-standing international taboo - with the Nazis being one of the few to violate it in 1941.
Other weapons leave behind even trickier remnants.
#9. Non-Detectable Fragments
There’s been a terrible explosion, and several soldiers are bleeding.
They’re rushed to a field hospital, and the surgeon gets to work removing the shrapnel. But
something’s wrong - the soldier is still bleeding out, and X-rays aren’t showing any remaining
shrapnel. The surgeon has only two choices - start digging around in the body manually,
causing additional injuries and prolonging the soldier’s recovery, or simply letting
nature take its course. But what dark secret is lurking in the wounded soldier’s body?
It’s one of the darkest secrets of warfare.
Bombs and landmines are often equipped with a dirty little secret - a payload
of fragments not made of metal, but of other material like plastic or glass.
While large pieces might show up on X-rays, it’s easy for tiny fragments of this material
to hide in the body and continue causing damage even after the surgery is done. In minor cases,
this could cause chronic pain and become a major problem later if they shift. In major cases,
they can cause uncontrolled bleeding that makes it impossible to save a patient.
And the world decided it was time to act.
The Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons banned a lot of weapons that had no function
other than to cause additional pain and death, and weapons equipped with these hidden dangers
were among them. It’s considered to be a war crime to use them, and they can primarily be
found in tactics used by guerilla armies, similar to poisoned bullets. But the ban on non-detectable
fragments expanded to something else - land mines. While not every country banned the hidden weapons,
the ban on plastic land mines that can’t be found by x-rays is more widespread.
Surprisingly, some weapons are banned in war - but legal elsewhere.
#8. Tear Gas and Pepper Spray
It doesn’t seem like the same level as the other weapons on this list. After all,
tear gas is frequently used by police in domestic conflicts to disperse groups of protestors or make
it easier to arrest them. It’s painful, but rarely fatal - and the similar pepper spray can even be
used in some places as a personal weapon. But it’s classified as an inhalant chemical weapon, and
that means it’s covered under the Hague Convention - making it technically illegal to use in combat.
Why are non-lethal weapons like this banned in war?
It’s not just because it’s a chemical weapon - it’s because its use violates the laws of war
by incapacitating soldiers in the middle of a lethal engagement. While in civilian use,
tear gas is assumed to be a non-lethal crowd control weapon used as a substitute
for lethal force, there’s no such thing as a non-lethal engagement in warfare.
Soldiers are prepared to shoot and kill their enemy - and it wouldn’t be very sporting
to gun them down while they can’t even see or breathe properly because of a wave of tear gas.
But just because it’s illegal, it doesn't mean it wasn’t used.
In World War I, Tear Gas was actually the most commonly used chemical weapon, and the Hague
Convention was largely ignored. It continues to be used commonly in combat situations,
and international law agencies usually have higher priorities. But it’s common enough
that when soldiers go through military training, they’re usually deliberately exposed to tear gas
to show them how their protective gear works - and to build their endurance. Because
would there be anything scarier than a soldier walking through tear gas seemingly unbothered?
But it’s far from the most lethal gas used in combat.
#7. Poison Gas
It might sound like something you’d spray on your hot dog to give it a little added kick,
but mustard gas has nothing to do with the condiment. It’s actually one of the most
notorious chemical weapons of all time and gets its name from the yellow-brown color it
takes on when it’s released and its scent that vaguely resembles mustard plants. But don’t take
a nice long whiff. Based on sulfur, it can have devastating consequences for those who
inhale it - starting with painful blisters on the skin that can make it impossible to move.
But that’s nothing compared to what happens if you inhale it.
It causes devastating chemical burns, which can affect the lungs and make it painful or
impossible to breathe. It can also cause damage to the eyes, and studies have shown the gas is
heavily carcinogenic. That means it can have a devastating effect even after the initial
effects have passed - but no one really knew that when it was used en masse in the First World War.
Poison gases had been in development since 1822, but when the Germans used them in combat,
it kicked off an arms race - and soon the battlefields were lousy with poison gas.
It was bad enough that it horrified the world.
The aftermath of the war made people question whether gas should be used in combat - especially
since it lingered in the air and could poison the ground. The deadlier gases that
followed - including phosgene gas, which caused lethal fluid build-up in the lungs;
and nerve gas, a neurotoxin that affected organ function and caused long-term physical issues
in the few survivors - only made the case stronger. The world soon acted, and these
poison gases were banned in the 1925 Geneva Protocol. Surprisingly, it stuck - with even
the Axis Powers largely refraining from the use of these deadly weapons in World War II. However,
they haven’t gone away completely - Nerve gas was used in deadly terror attacks around the world,
and these lethal gases continue to show up in conflicts like the Syrian Civil War.
Now, let’s take a look at some of the oddest weapons ever banned from war.
#6. Animals
This doesn’t mean that animals can’t be used in war at all - although
PETA might disagree. For thousands of years, armies used horses and other steeds to carry
warriors and equipment into battle. Man’s best friend can help sniff out danger as well. But
other uses of animals as weapons of war are far more unethical. Rats and insects could be used
to spread disease - and would be considered a form of biological warfare. But some armies tried much
more creative methods of using animals as weapons of war. The US investigated using bats and birds
to deliver weapons during World War II, while the Soviets used dogs as kamikaze bombers to take out
tanks. While whether these strange uses of animals would be illegal is up for debate, any attempt to
use animals to spread pathogens or distribute incendiary weapons would fall under the ban
on those weapons in combat - after all, animals can’t aim a weapon to avoid civilian casualties.
Recycling isn’t always a great idea.
#5. Unexploded Bombs
Land mines, cluster mines, and other remnants of war - they’re not just dangerous to those
wandering around, they can be a low-cost alternative to fight back in asymmetrical wars.
This became especially clear in the long-term insurgent war in Afghanistan. The Soviet Union
deployed a lot of bombs in the infamous “graveyard of empires” - and not all of them exploded. The
next generation of radicals in the country, the Taliban, would later collect these bombs and use
them to line the roads - causing an explosion when a truck drove over them. These low-cost
IEDs were no less deadly than modern bombs, even if they were decades-old. So the world
banned them in Protocol V of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, but this one
doesn’t fall entirely on the people using the old bombs. The Convention requires the parties
involved in hostility to clear any explosive remnants of war once the hostilities are over.
#4. Spike Pits
It seems like something out of Looney Tunes - a pit full of spikes,
carefully covered to make it look like just part of the terrain. But as soon as an enemy
soldier steps on the ground - it gives way and they plummet down to a painful death below.
The traps were usually laden with sharpened sticks or bamboo, making them a low-cost, low-tech, but
high-energy way to fill the battlefield with booby traps. In many ways, they were the first land
mines, and they were a problem for armies going back millennia. But they were used as recently
as World War II in the Pacific Theater and the Vietnam War, before being eventually outlawed
by the 1979 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. Making them even more controversial,
many armies would up the danger factor on these traps by contaminating the traps with animal
droppings - making them likely to give the victim a fatal infection. While they’ve long fallen out
of favor with modern armies, it’s impossible to know which battlefield they’ll show up on next.
Death comes from below - but it can also come from above.
#3. Balloon Bombs
While they fall under the general ban on incendiary weapons, the balloon bomb is its
own twisted creation - creating free-floating balloons of death that explode when punctured
and unleash unpredictable, deadly fire on the enemy battlefield. They were proposed as far
back as 1792 and were unleashed upon Italy by Austrian forces in 1849. But in World War II,
the skies were full of fire. The British launched nearly a hundred thousand balloons at Germany,
over half of them carrying incendiary payloads. And the only successful attack to hit the US
mainland was the Japanese Fu-Go Balloon attack - one of which killed six civilians in Oregon. While
the balloons didn’t have a high success rate, they created a climate of terror. And because they were
free-floating and impossible to control, there was no way to know where the fire they ignited would
burn. It was a relief to all when they were banned in 1979 - but they haven’t gone away completely,
showing up in the recent conflict between Israeli and Palestinian forces at the Gaza Strip.
But some weapons can leave a much longer legacy.
#2. Nuclear Weapons
Wait, what? But the nuclear arms race is ongoing - and the US and Russia have a stockpile of
thousands. But despite these massive weapons defining the 20th century and beyond, they are
technically illegal. In 1968, a treaty banning the further proliferation of nuclear weapons
was ratified and countries that violate it could face sanctions. But it’s controversial for one big
reason - it recognizes the states who currently have nuclear weapons and doesn’t require them to
give them up. The only states who have refused to sign it are India and Pakistan, which developed
nuclear weapons; Israel, which is believed to have a secret nuclear program; and North Korea,
which withdrew from the treaty to begin developing its own. Given the earth-shattering danger these
weapons - now much more powerful than the ones deployed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki - pose, it’s
not surprising many people want them banned altogether. In 2021, a UN treaty banning their
future production went into effect… without the signatures of any of the world’s nuclear powers.
But there is one type of weapon scientists and watchdogs fear even more.
#1. Biological Weapons
A virus unleashed on the world can kill millions, or even endanger humanity’s survival. The Black
Death alone killed up to a third of Europe in the middle ages. Biological warfare is similar to the
pandora’s box, because when a novel disease is unleashed that no one knows how to treat or cure,
it can be unstoppable. But that hasn’t stopped people from trying to weaponize these deadly
plagues and unleash them on the enemy - no matter the consequences. And this form of warfare goes
back centuries, starting with contaminating weapons with diseases from the deceased.
But when combined with modern technology, the threat only increased.
Some of the deadliest diseases around were processed into weaponized forms,
including Anthrax, Cholera, Dysentery, Typhus, and even the notorious Plague.
Experiments were also done on a fast-acting rice fungus that could devastate food crops,
and on engineering mosquitos and fleas to spread disease. If unleashed effectively,
these weapons could deliver a blow to the population that would far outstrip
any conventional weapon. But there was one thing holding the armies in check.
Diseases don’t stop where you want them to.
Not only can you not control how diseases spread, but the more they spread, the more they mutate.
That meant that the very same virus one army unleashed could eventually cross their borders in
a much deadlier form. That fear was enough for the world to ratify a treaty banning the development,
production, or stockpiling of biological weapons in 1972. All but fourteen countries have signed
the treaty, largely consigning these weapons to the dustbin of history - but many countries
still have these deadly weaponized diseases sitting in cold storage.
Want to learn more about science gone wrong? Check
out “Scary Experiments That Could Have Ended the World”,
or watch “Disturbing Experiments on US Soldiers” for another dark chapter in military history.