let him have it
welcome to watch mojo and today we're
counting down our picks for the top 10
most terrifying weapons in history
for this list we're focusing on firsts
of their kind that brought to war
new terrors we're excluding manned
weapons platforms
which weren't a separate list although
the appearance of the first tanks
thundering across
no man's land definitely must have been
terrifying do you beg to differ on any
of our picks
cry havoc in the comments
number 10. plague bombs for people in
the middle ages
the black death was as mysterious as it
was terrifying
it swept through towns and cities like
an invisible hand
leaving millions dead imagine the horror
when in 1347
during the siege of kapha in crimea
warriors of the mongol golden horde
catapulted the corpses of plague victims
from their own ranks over the walls
according to one 14th century account
the attack
filled the city with quote mountains of
dead
it was one of the earliest instances of
biological warfare
and may have introduced the plague into
europe centuries later during world war
ii the japanese would also weaponize the
disease
dropping ceramic pots that contained
plagued carrying fleas in china
number nine the gatling gun ironically
american inventor richard gatling
created the forerunner of the modern
machine gun to
reduce wartime casualties the gatling
gun could fire 100
even 200 rounds across the battlefield
in the time it took an enemy soldier
standing in the line of fire
to charge his muzzle loading rifle and
fire once
a 100 to one advantage in shots
downrange
he theorized the gatling gun would quote
supersede the necessity of large armies
diminishing quote exposure to battle
designed in 1861
it was a crank operated multi-barrel
weapon that fired 200 rounds per minute
which increased to 3 000 once gatling
hooked it up to an electric motor
it was an unprecedented rate of fire a
whirlwind of bullets that awed
terrified and mowed down combatants
its success paved the way for the recoil
operated maxim gun
and ever lighter more portable machine
guns that soon became
standard weapons of war number eight
landmines
land mines have been called uniquely
savage in the history of modern
conventional warfare
designed to blow apart a leg or riddle
bodies with metal fragments
landmines mostly maim and kill civilians
during peace time
the song dynasty used them against
invading mongols in the 13th century
but they were first used on a wide scale
against tanks in world war 1
with anti-personnel minds soon following
suddenly
even the ground was suspect and every
step could be one's last
their use in subsequent wars has left
over 110 million minds remaining in the
ground today
in a single year as many as 8 000 people
are killed or seriously injured many of
them children
that's almost one person killed or
injured every hour
of every day number seven mustard gas
on july 12 1917 waves of
brownish yellow gas rolled over the
allied troops at ibra belgium
it was the first use of mustard gas on
the battlefield
soldiers at ipra had already faced
chlorine gas as well as fosgene
which was colorless and more lethal but
mustard gas loomed larger in the public
mind
perhaps due to its appearance and
gruesome effects
rising up like ghosts from exploded
artillery shells
the corrosive clouds blistered skin
blinded victims
and caused internal and external
bleeding its use was one of the first
steps down the dark road of modern
chemical warfare
which saw the development of much
deadlier chemical agents in the interwar
years
number 6. agent orange the use of deadly
chemicals in armed conflicts didn't stop
with the war to end all wars
or even world war ii originally known as
operation hades
the us's operation ranch hand aimed to
annihilate forest cover and food crops
used by the viet cong in the vietnam war
some 20 million gallons were sprayed on
southeast asian jungles fields and other
targets
over a nine year period from 1962 to
1971.
hades was a better name the clouds of
oily white mist that drifted down from
the skies
left the land dead and barren the
countryside was doused in 20 million
gallons of defoliants and herbicides
most notoriously agent orange which left
the toxic chemical dioxin lingering
in soil and water sources it was later
linked to cancer and crippling birth
defects
number five killer drones because they
never know when they're gonna strike
so they just hear them buzzing all the
time it keeps them up at night and it
drives them crazy
imagine a constant buzz overhead as
hunter killer drones
search your streets for targets it
sounds like dystopian science fiction
but under the obama administration the
presence of aerial assassins over
some villages in northwest pakistan
became commonplace
their use has been controversial due to
the number of civilian casualties
as well as double tap strikes that have
allegedly targeted rescuers
others have fired on funerals and in
december 2013
a wedding convoy in yemen nonetheless
unmanned aerial vehicles like the u.s
predator and reaper drones
have become a quintessential part of
modern warfare
ushering in a new era of de-personalized
remote war
and edging us closer toward ever more
automated weapons
number four v weapons
in the early hours of june 13th 1944
londoners woke to an ominous buzz
and a trail of fire in the sky it was
the first strike in a relentless barrage
of the nazis v-1 vengeance weapons
the first guided cruise missiles in
september as
countermeasures slowed the onslaught the
nazis rolled out the v2
liquid-fueled ballistic rockets that
were almost impossible to intercept
as they plummeted from the edge of space
at supersonic speed
the nazis had eliminated the barrier of
distance
and created the technology behind modern
intercontinental ballistic missiles
from now on death could fall without
warning from clear skies
anywhere and at any time number three
aerial bombs english cities had suffered
aerial bombardment before the second
world war
during nighttime raids in world war one
the throb of engines overhead preceded
the emergence of vast airships from the
dark
and indiscriminate blasts that reduced
homes to rubble
aerial bombs had first been used by the
austrian empire against venice in 1849
dropped from unmanned balloons and from
heavier than air aircraft in the italian
turkish and balkan wars
their use soon became routine and ever
more devastating
they were famously described by writer
kurt vonnegut who witnessed the british
american bombing of dresden
as like the quote ear splitting crashes
of giant's
heels they left the city looking quote
like the moon
rather than earth number two greek fire
a mysterious substance that when ignited
burns
bright and hot as arab soldiers watched
helplessly from their vessels during
their siege of constantinople in the
late 7th century
byzantine ships spewing fire bore down
on their decks
the fire was unearthly accompanied by
thunder and burning even on water fire
has long been a weapon of war
but greek fire was something new an
inextinguishable and devastating weapon
that sets ships alight
burnt soldiers alive and has been
credited for the long survival of the
byzantine empire
its composition said to have been
revealed by an angel is now
lost it may have been petroleum-based
similar to napalm
another sticky fire that wreaked
appalling horrors on its victims
finally the byzantine far ships sailed
round for battle
and according to the 9th century
historian theophanies
incinerated the arab ships and every man
aboard
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number one the atomic bomb now
i am become death the destroyer of
worlds
these were the immortal words of
physicist j robert oppenheimer
quoting from the bhagavad-gita after
witnessing the awful power of his
creation
the quote was all too apt when hiroshima
was bombed on the morning of august 6
1945 residents saw a bright flash of
light before the blast ripped off their
skin
boiled their organs and melted their
bones
solid matter began to come apart
releasing untold quantities of energy
the bombing of hiroshima and then
nagasaki killed an estimated 129
thousand to 226 thousand people
the second bomb was intended for the
city of kokura
but it was too cloudy so the plane moved
on to nagasaki
desperately short of fuel the crew
released the bomb despite more clouds
for the first time we suddenly had the
power to destroy the world
in the ensuing years nuclear weapons
would become hundreds of times
more powerful fueling cold war fears
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