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DPM
Feb 23, 2015

TAKE ME HOME
I'LL CHECK YA BUM FOR GRUBS
On the suggestion of blunt for century, welcome to the first(?) ever PYF Weapon System Thread!

Hey, are you unnerved by the fact that the missiles fired from a BUK are longer than the average sedan, but have a range of 5 kays and can hit mach 3? This is the thread for you!

Perhaps you'd like more information on the new laser weaponry being deployed by the US Navy?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0DbgNju2wE

Or a little something on the development of Railguns?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ix62_oBGtg

Heck, maybe you're just into CIWS porn?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L0ZAGOuaqg


From big static platforms, to something you can carry in your pocket - post it here! Just make sure it's interesting and sourced!

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DPM
Feb 23, 2015

TAKE ME HOME
I'LL CHECK YA BUM FOR GRUBS
A bit more on the Railgun



I'm focusing mainly on the model currently under development by the US Navy since that's the one that's furthest along (AFAIK)

First, what is a Railgun?

wikipedia posted:

A railgun is an electrically powered electromagnetic projectile launcher based on similar principles to the homopolar motor. A railgun comprises a pair of parallel conducting rails, along which a sliding armature is accelerated by the electromagnetic effects of a current that flows down one rail, into the armature and then back along the other rail.

Railguns are being researched as a weapon with a projectile that would use neither explosives nor propellant, but rather rely on electromagnetic forces to achieve a very high kinetic energy... in the late 2000s, the U.S. Navy tested a railgun that accelerates a 3.2 kg (7 pound) projectile to hypersonic velocities of approximately 2.4 kilometres per second (8,600 km/h), about Mach 7. They gave the project the Latin motto "Velocitas Eradico", Latin for "I, [who am] speed, eradicate". (In the vernacular usage, "Speed kills.)

There are some design issues with Railguns, however. The immense amounts of power required, and the forces being thrown around mean that the service life of these weapon systems are...fairly short:

quote:

Chief of Naval Research, Admiral Matthew Klunder stated, "Barrel life has increased from tens of shots to over 400, with a program path to achieve 1000 shots." However, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) will not confirm that the 400 shots are full-power shots. Further there is nothing published to indicate there are any high megajoule class railguns with the capability of firing hundreds of full-power shots while staying within the strict operational parameters necessary to fire railgun shots accurately and safely. As noted in an article by Globalsecurity.org: railguns should be able to fire 6 rounds per minute with a rail life of about 3000 rounds. Given launch acceleration of up to 60,000 g's, massive pressures and mega amps of current, railgun rails are quickly destroyed and getting to the endurance to fire hundreds of full-power rounds, much less thousands of rounds will require major breakthroughs in material science that cannot be scheduled and could be decades in coming.

Additionally, Railguns rounds are currently "dumbfire" - they are not guided by any means. Considering the range they're meant to cover, this limits the usefulness of the weapon on the field. Once again from the wikipedia article:

quote:

"The [guidance] package must fit within the mass (< 2 kg), diameter (< 40 mm outer diameter), and volume (200 cm3) constraints of the projectile and do so without altering the center of gravity. It should also be able to survive accelerations of at least 20,000 g (threshold) / 40,000 g (objective) in all axes, high electromagnetic fields (E > 5,000 V/m, B > 2 T), and surface temperatures of > 800 deg C. The package should be able to operate in the presence of any plasma that may form in the bore or at the muzzle exit and must also be radiation hardened due to exo-atmospheric flight. Total power consumption must be less than 8 watts (threshold) / 5 watts (objective) and the battery life must be at least 5 minutes (from initial launch) to enable operation during the entire engagement. In order to be affordable, the production cost per projectile must be as low as possible, with a goal of less than $1,000 per unit."

Right, so Railguns aren't going to be actually deployed on anything until 2050 or some bullshit, right? WRONGO

quote:

The U.S. Navy plans to integrate a railgun that has a range of over 160 km (100 mi) onto a ship by 2016. This weapon, while having a form factor more typical of a naval gun will "utilize components largely in common with those developed and demonstrated at Dahlgren. The hyper-velocity rounds weigh 10 kg (23 lb). When in the future guided rounds are developed, the Navy is projecting each self-guided round to cost about $25,000 each, though it must be noted that developing guided projectile for guns has a history of doubling or tripling initial cost estimates. Some HPV projectiles developed by the Navy have command guidance, but it is not known nor is there any published data on the accuracy of the command guidance or even if it can survive a full power shot. A future goal is to develop projectiles that are self-guided - a necessary requirement to hit distant targets or intercepting missiles. The 18 in (460 mm) shells are fired at Mach 7.

however...

quote:

Currently the only US Navy ships that can produce enough electrical power to get desired performance are the Zumwalt-class destroyers; they can generate 78 megawatts of power, more than is necessary to power a railgun. Engineers are working to derive technologies developed for the DDG-1000 series ships into a battery system so other warships can operate a railgun...
...Single shot tests will be held in 2016, followed by an autoloader in 2018. According to the Navy "current research is focused on a rep-rate capability of multiple rounds per minute which entails development of a tactical prototype gun barrel and pulsed power systems incorporating advanced cooling techniques. Components are designed to transition directly into prototype systems now being conceptualized."

Dr. Benway
Dec 9, 2005

We can't stop here! This is bat country!
The granddaddy of insanely bad ideas has to go to Project Pluto.

quote:

The proposed use for nuclear-powered ramjets would be to power a cruise missile, called SLAM, for Supersonic Low Altitude Missile. In order to reach ramjet speed, it would be launched from the ground by a cluster of conventional rocket boosters. Once it reached cruising altitude and was far away from populated areas, the nuclear reactor would be made critical. Since nuclear power gave it almost unlimited range, the missile could cruise in circles over the ocean until ordered "down to the deck" for its supersonic dash to targets in the Soviet Union. The SLAM as proposed would carry a payload of many nuclear weapons to be dropped on multiple targets, making the cruise missile into an unmanned bomber. After delivering all its warheads, the missile could then spend weeks flying over populated areas at low altitudes, causing tremendous ground damage with its shock wave. When it finally lost enough power to fly, and crash-landed, the engine would have a good chance of spewing deadly radiation for months to come.

"Death form above" would be putting it mildly.

Solice Kirsk
Jun 1, 2004

.

Dr. Benway posted:

The granddaddy of insanely bad ideas has to go to Project Pluto.


"Death form above" would be putting it mildly.

:aaa: Now that's some next level hosed up thinking.

Kanine
Aug 5, 2014

by Nyc_Tattoo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Bgb4SGTgDY

Not terribly strange as it can be fired from any regular 1911, but still :stare:

3
Aug 26, 2006

The Magic Number


College Slice
Got a coupla' my own from the old obsolete weapons thread:

Polyus



Remember how in the eighties, Reagan got all hot and bothered about space lasers and how they would give the United States tactical superiority over the Soviets IN SPACE? Remember how it was a colossal waste of money and literally nothing good came out of it?

This was Polyus. It was the first payload the USSR sent up on their new Energia rocket booster, a massive engine stack that was designed for the never-used Buran Space Shuttle knock-off. It was a satellite that was designed with the sole purpose of countering the completely fictional threat of the Strategic Defense Initiative, and would've been the core for the proposed Mir-2 military space station.



Polyus was fitted with an inordinate amount of hardware, making it essentially the Star Wars that never was. Its payload was specifically designed to counter many of the threats SDI posed; it sported a radar-tracking cannon to defeat ASAT weapons, which also had an optical sighting system to track ASAT weapons without generating traceable signals. Hardware that was meant to test the effectiveness of barium clouds in dispersing particle weapons was also included, as was a module for the launching of space mines, most likely nuclear in nature (potentially used to neutralize MIRVs and their decoys). Also included in this delightful package was a laser and reflector for sensor blinding operations.

Now, Gorbachev wasn't a total idiot and ordered the satellite to be launched unarmed, lest the USSR be seen as deliberately provoking the West, but were Polyus and Mir-2 ever to reach full operational capacity, it would've almost certainly changed the atmosphere of the cold war at the time, heating tensions between the USSR and US in a way that even Reagan's combative rhetoric couldn't hope to match.

So, at this point you're probably asking yourself, "If the Soviets had a fully operational killsat, why haven't I heard about it ever before?"

The Polyus payload was so enormous that it had to be loaded upside down on the Energia booster to counteract massive accelerative stress, placing the engines required for orbital insertion of the craft in the nose. This required the craft to yaw 180 degrees and then roll 90 degrees for orbital insertion burn.

On May 15, 1987, the Polyus and its enormous booster roared of the launchpad at Baikonur and sped into the inky blackness of space. When the time came to perform the orbital insertion maneuver, the beweaponed satellite performed the 180 degree yaw, and then continued the turn to the full 360 degrees, rolled, and deorbited over the South Pacific. Whoops.

In a way, the tale of Polyus and its sordid fate perfectly encapsulates the entirety of the Soviet Space Program. So it goes.

3
Aug 26, 2006

The Magic Number


College Slice
IJN Carrier Shinano



Most folks are aware of the Yamato-class battleships built for the Imperial Japanese Navy. These monsters were the largest battleships ever laid down, armed with the largest guns ever put on a naval craft. Originally designed for what the IJN envisioned as a grand naval battle where top-tier battleships slugged it out on the high seas, they actually ended up being the collective gravestone for the age of the battleship. Both Yamato and Musashi were ignominiously sunk not in glorious naval combat, but by swarms of carrier-based airplanes who made short work of the two behemoths using air-dropped torpedoes and bombs. Perhaps somewhat ironically, there was a third Yamato hull that was converted to what, at the time, was the largest aircraft carrier ever built, but unfortunately it was terrible garbage.

The Shinano was an enormous hulk of a carrier, dwarfing its contemporaries in the IJN. It had a flight deck capacity for 47 aircraft, though by her launch in November 1944, there likely would not have been enough experienced pilots left alive for that to have mattered. Having been converted from the third Yamato laid down, she was initially hilariously over-armored for a carrier, so the designers stripped the thickness down reasoning there was no reason for a carrier to ever enter front-line combat. This ended up being her downfall.

After her commissioning in 1944, she was rushed into service as the IJN was worried about her being destroyed in her docks by US bombers. She was hurriedly launched on November 28, escorted by a measly 3 destroyers, and with the majority of her watertight doors not yet installed. About eight hours later, the American submarine Archer-Fish put four torpedoes into her and then retreated. Immediately, the Shinano began listing; though initially dismissed as little more than cosmetic damage thanks to her gratuitous armor, it soon became apparent that the mighty carrier had suffered catastrophic damage due to her shoddy construction. Within hours, the carrier had sunk beneath the waves, having been in service for less than a day.

The crew of Archer-Fish had no idea what they had accomplished until back at base in Guam, having believed they had sunk just a 28,000 ton carrier. It wasn't until later that Naval intelligence was able to determine that they had actually sunk the 72,000 ton Shinano, making it the largest vessel in history to have been sunk by a submarine. The sub received the Presidential Unit Citation, and her captain, Joseph Enright, received the Naval Cross. Not a bad trade for four torpedoes.

Interestingly, because of the immense secrecy behind the construction of the Shinano and its embarrassingly short service history, only two photographs of the ship exist: a high-altitude reconnaissance photograph taken by a B-29, and the photograph above, taken by a civilian tug during the initial sea trials.

Pneub
Mar 12, 2007

I'M THE DEVIL, AND I WILL WASH OVER THE EARTH AND THE SEAS WILL RUN RED WITH THE BLOOD OF ALL THE SINNERS

I AM REBORN
The APS Underwater Assault Rifle. The picture kinda explains it as good as anything else could:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APS_underwater_rifle

Automatic Retard
Oct 21, 2010

PUT THIS WANKSTAIN ON IGNORE
I'm on my phone and too busy for effort posting, but I thought the METALSTORM weapons system was pretty cool

George Rouncewell
Jul 20, 2007

You think that's illegal? Heh, watch this.

3 posted:

Mir-2 military space station.
:laffo:

How very russian to call their orbital murder station "Peace-2"

Grandmother of Five
May 9, 2008


I'm tired of hearing about money, money, money, money, money. I just want to play the game, drink Pepsi, wear Reebok.
Mouse VSIM

Olympic Mathlete
Feb 25, 2011

:h:

Automatic Retard posted:

I'm on my phone and too busy for effort posting, but I thought the METALSTORM weapons system was pretty cool

Agreed, a theoretical million rounds a minute is pretty nuts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8hlj4EbdsE

Babe Magnet
Jun 2, 2008

medieval weapon system



lantern shields motherfucker, get some



this guy is so unstoppable because of this weapon he's actually still alive 1000 years later

xiw
Sep 25, 2011

i wake up at night
night action madness nightmares
maybe i am scum

Cpig Haiku contest 2020 winner
I ran across http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgarian_anti-helicopter_mines yesterday. Neat.

KozmoNaut
Apr 23, 2008

Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle



Plus they were developed by the Bulgarian Institute of Metal Science :black101:

Thwomp
Apr 10, 2003

BA-DUHHH

Grimey Drawer
No discussion of outdated/weird/WTF weapon systems is complete without the Davy Crockett nuclear delivery system.

So the Army wanted to get some of that sweet nuclear research money the Air Force and Navy kept holding over their heads and came up with one of the smallest nuclear devices ever developed. The warhead itself weighed 51 pounds (the whole round ended up being 71 pounds) and had the explosive yield of 10-20 tons of TNT. Note: there's no kilo attached here. This was a very small nuclear boom intended for use on the battlefield. You know, like artillery or an anti-tank column weapon. Because that's the perfect use of a nuclear weapon...

The range of the launcher ended up being anywhere from 1.25 to 2.5 miles, depending on the launcher system used. But it turns out, testing revealed the system being horribly inaccurate. Additionally, it wasn't so much a destructive weapon as a pure radioactive one. Anything within 500 feet was an instantly lethal exposure and anything within a quarter mile was probably got a fatal dose as well. So really you just aimed it towards an advancing enemy army and irradiated the hell out of them while also running seriously quickly away in case you undershot the ideal range.

The scary thing though? 2,100 of these were built and deployed in the 60s.

Usually these were mounted to either a Jeep or an APC.

Thwomp has a new favorite as of 14:44 on Apr 8, 2015

DrBouvenstein
Feb 28, 2007

I think I'm a doctor, but that doesn't make me a doctor. This fancy avatar does.
For the "Horrific" category, can't rule out the GAU-8 Avenger:


The gently caress-off death cannon that they decided to build a plane around:

ZeusCannon
Nov 5, 2009

BLAAAAAARGH PLEASE KILL ME BLAAAAAAAARGH
Grimey Drawer

Dr. Benway posted:

The granddaddy of insanely bad ideas has to go to Project Pluto.


"Death form above" would be putting it mildly.

Holy gently caress.

blunt for century
Jul 4, 2008

I've got a bone to pick.

The Gay Bomb

wikipedia posted:

The "halitosis bomb" and "gay bomb" are informal names for two theoretical non-lethal chemical weapons that a United States Air Force research laboratory speculated about producing; the theories involve discharging female sex pheromones over enemy forces in order to make them sexually attracted to each other.[1][2][2] [3][3][4][5][6]

In 1994 the Wright Laboratory in Ohio, a predecessor to today's United States Air Force Research Laboratory, produced a three-page proposal on a variety of possible nonlethal chemical weapons, which was later obtained by the Sunshine Project through a Freedom of Information Act request.

:gay:

pienipple
Mar 20, 2009

That's wrong!
The one about spraying troops with bee pheromones so the bees in the hives they've strategically hidden on the battlefield ahead of time will swarm them is even better.


You so freakin' crazy, military. :allears:

Rivethead
Feb 22, 2008

ZeusCannon posted:

Holy gently caress.

Holy gently caress is right. This is only the poo poo that we know about....

Frostwerks
Sep 24, 2007

by Lowtax

Caro used to rant about making anti-helicopter Vortex mines but he likely took the secret with him to... wherever people in torture prisons go.

blunt for century
Jul 4, 2008

I've got a bone to pick.

The Davy Crockett

It's a recoilless rifle that fires nuclear warheads, but not far enough to keep from irradiating those firing it.

:stonk:

wikipedia posted:

The M-28 or M-29 Davy Crockett Weapon System(s) was a tactical nuclear recoilless gun (smoothbore) for firing the M-388 nuclear projectile that was deployed by the United States during the Cold War. Named after American soldier, congressman, and folk hero Davy Crockett, it was one of the smallest nuclear weapon systems ever built.
...
Both recoilless guns proved to have poor accuracy in testing, so the shell's greatest effect would have been its extreme radiation hazard. The M-388 would produce an almost instantly lethal radiation dosage (in excess of 10,000 rem) within 500 feet (150 m), and a probably fatal dose (around 600 rem) within a quarter mile (400 m).[3]



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khyZI3RK2lE


edit. Beaten like a Gitmo prisoner :downsgun:

blunt for century has a new favorite as of 18:19 on Apr 8, 2015

IAMNOTADOCTOR
Sep 26, 2013

Combine the cunning of the bat with the charming personality of napalm and you get: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_bomb

quote:

Bat bombs were an experimental World War II weapon developed by the United States. The bomb consisted of a bomb-shaped casing with over a thousand compartments, each containing a hibernating Mexican Free-tailed Bat with a small timed incendiary bomb attached. Dropped from a bomber at dawn, the casings would deploy a parachute in mid-flight and open to release the bats which would then roost in eaves and attics in a 20-40 mile radius. The incendiaries would start fires in inaccessible places in the largely wood and paper construction of the Japanese cities that were the weapon's intended target.

Were they effective?

quote:

It was envisioned that ten B-24 bombers flying from Alaska, each carrying a hundred shells packed with bomb-carrying bats could release 1,040,000 bat bombs over the target—the industrial cities of Osaka Bay. The chief of incendiary testing at Dugway wrote: “A reasonable number of destructive fires can be started in spite of the extremely small size of the units. The main advantage of the units would seem to be their placement within the enemy structures without the knowledge of the householder or fire watchers, thus allowing the fire to establish itself before being discovered.”[1] The National Defense Research Committee (NDRC) observer stated: "It was concluded that X-Ray is an effective weapon." The Chief Chemist’s report stated that on a weight basis X-Ray was more effective than the standard incendiary bombs in use at the time: "Expressed in another way, the regular bombs would give probably 167 to 400 fires per bomb load where X-Ray would give 3,625 to 4,748 fires."

Why hasn't it been used?

quote:

More tests were scheduled for the summer of 1944 but the program was cancelled by Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King when he heard that it would likely not be combat ready until mid-1945. By that time it was estimated that $2 million had been spent on the project. It is thought that development of the bat bomb was moving too slowly, and was overtaken in the race for a quick end to the war by the atomic bomb project. Dr. Adams maintained that the bat bombs would have been effective without the devastating effects of the atomic bomb. He is quoted as having said: "Think of thousands of fires breaking out simultaneously over a circle of forty miles in diameter for every bomb dropped. Japan could have been devastated, yet with small loss of life.

Comedy result of accidental bat release

Gyro Zeppeli
Jul 19, 2012

sure hope no-one throws me off a bridge

Say you really want to wipe something the gently caress off the planet, but don't want all that pesky radiation that comes from nuclear explosions.

Kinetic Bombardment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment

Essentially, you take a rod of tungsten the same side as a telegraph pole, you put it on a satellite, and you drop it, from orbit, on whatever you want dead.

No explosion, no radiation, just a giant log of hugely dense metal making contact with the earth while travelling at Mach 10.

Stupid_Sexy_Flander
Mar 14, 2007

Is a man not entitled to the haw of his maw?
Grimey Drawer
Don't forget Rods From God, or Project Thor.

Telephone pole sized rods of tungsten that they would drop from space, which would impact with the force of a small tactical nuke.

I don't think they were even made illegal with the treaty for no WMDs in space, since this counts as a "conventional" weapon.

Frostwerks
Sep 24, 2007

by Lowtax

blunt for century posted:

The Davy Crockett

It's a recoilless rifle that fires nuclear warheads, but not far enough to keep from irradiating those firing it.

:stonk:




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khyZI3RK2lE

Somebody report this post please, I don't believe in it.

blunt for century
Jul 4, 2008

I've got a bone to pick.

Frostwerks posted:

Somebody report this post please, I don't believe in it.

I'm a huge loving idiot and didn't see that someone posted about it just a few posts before mine, in a thread with only one page so far. :downsgun:

blunt for century has a new favorite as of 18:27 on Apr 8, 2015

blunt for century
Jul 4, 2008

I've got a bone to pick.

To redeem my stupid, stupid, very stupid self:

Tsar Bomba

The largest nuke ever built at 50mt, and it was only half the size of one they wanted to make.

wikipedia posted:

Tsar Bomba (Russian: Царь-бомба; "Tsar of bombs") is the nickname for the AN602 hydrogen bomb, the most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated. Its October 30, 1961 test remains the most powerful artificial explosion in human history. It was also referred to as Kuz'kina Mat' (Russian: Кузькина мать, Kuzka's mother),[2] referring to Nikita Khrushchev's promise to show the United States a "Kuz'kina Mat'" at the 1960 United Nations General Assembly. Developed by the Soviet Union, the bomb had the yield of 50 megaton TNT (210 PJ). Only one bomb of this type was ever officially built and it was tested on October 30, 1961, in the Novaya Zemlya archipelago, at Sukhoy Nos.[3][4][5]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwlNPhn64TA

The detonation site:


The fireball 5 miles in diameter:

blunt for century has a new favorite as of 18:30 on Apr 8, 2015

Frostwerks
Sep 24, 2007

by Lowtax
Have you ever seen your name in the queue? I imagine it's pretty funny.

Aphrodite
Jun 27, 2006

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-tank_dog

Anti-tank dogs!

Except they trained them on stationary tanks, so when they were deployed the movement and noise scared the dogs and they ran back to the Soviet lines where they exploded and killed Soviet troops.

Also they trained them using Soviet diesel tanks instead of German gasoline tanks, so the dogs would seek out Soviet tanks instead of German tanks because of the familiar smell.

Pondex
Jul 8, 2014

Dr. Benway posted:

The granddaddy of insanely bad ideas has to go to Project Pluto.


"Death form above" would be putting it mildly.

Imagine you're a russian farmer who just happens to live near a secret missile-silo.
Suddenly a giant shockwave levels your house, your barn, your cows, everything.
And it happens completely without warning since this thing moves several times faster than the speed of sound. Unbeknownst to you, it also irridates everything it flies over. So you're not going to be growing a lot of healthy crops in those fields of yours anymore.
Provided you even survived the shockwave. And if you did, you now have 1-2 minutes to ponder what the hell happened before the nuke hits.
Because this thing doesn't drop bombs. To buy itself some time for the getaway it fires them upwards in a parabolic arch. So there's a built in delay for considering your imminent doom.


The reason this never got off the ground is AFAIK, that it was too insane for even the cold war nuclear arms-race. I don't know if there's some comfort to be found in that.

elendilmir
Apr 19, 2005

Frostwerks posted:

Somebody report this post please, I don't believe in it.

Heck, I don't believe they would let an NCO near a nuclear munition.

ZeusCannon
Nov 5, 2009

BLAAAAAARGH PLEASE KILL ME BLAAAAAAAARGH
Grimey Drawer
I like to think that the guy proposes that and stands there in front of the Generals, the situation room fills with silence and then one brave soul says " Are you loving insane." .

Achernar
Sep 2, 2011

pienipple posted:

The one about spraying troops with bee pheromones so the bees in the hives they've strategically hidden on the battlefield ahead of time will swarm them is even better.


You so freakin' crazy, military. :allears:

Hey, it worked once at the Battle of Tanga

Pondex
Jul 8, 2014

ZeusCannon posted:

I like to think that the guy proposes that and stands there in front of the Generals, the situation room fills with silence and then one brave soul says " Are you loving insane." .

Not exactly. The airforce (I think) ordered that nuclear jet-engine as a way to keep their nuclear deterrent-bombers airborne for longer stretches of time without refueling. So they weren't entirely out of the loop.

Tuxedo Ted
Apr 24, 2007

I remember watching a documentary about Operation Chastise many years back.

Back in WW2, the British needed to destroy the Möhne dam. It was the lynch pin for the whole Ruhr Valley industrial center. Destroying the dam would sap their electric power, render them unable to produce pure quality water for steelmaking, and just in general make it tougher for the Nazis to produce their own war machines. Traditional bombing might have worked, but it would require multiple strikes and unerring precision. Plus, the whole area was highly fortified and defended. Whatever high altitude bombing force send would face massive losses for a slim chance at success. Torpedo attacks were also considered, but all along the river were several torpedo nets that would catch or prematurely detonate the torpedo, keeping the dam safe and sound.

The solution:


This.

An odd barrel shaped bomb fitted to a modified Lancaster bomber. The idea was that the bomber would fly low over the river leading to the dam, drop the bomb, and bomb would skip along the river right up against the dam before sinking, avoiding all the submerged nets, just in time for the long fuse to finish and detonate the payload right at the base of the dam. The bomb bay even had motors that would set the bomb spinning backward so that it would skip further, and to have it "roll" down the side of the dam like a wheel once it reached its target, helping it reach a further depth below the surface.



The bomber couldn't drop it just anywhere, though. They would have to maintain an exact speed and altitude and drop it at just the right moment to ensure the bomb would reach the dam, sink the exact distance needed, and detonate at just the right time. Also, because of those pesky AA guns they had to do the mission at night, using a pair of spotlights to help gauge the distance from the river and from the dam.

It sounds ridiculous and far-fetched, like a few other failed or cancelled projects already posted here, but it worked!


Two and a half times, even:

Pharnakes
Aug 14, 2009

3 posted:

IJN Carrier Shinano


Most folks are aware of the Yamato-class battleships built for the Imperial Japanese Navy. These monsters were the largest battleships ever laid down, armed with the largest guns ever put on a naval craft. Originally designed for what the IJN envisioned as a grand naval battle where top-tier battleships slugged it out on the high seas, they actually ended up being the collective gravestone for the age of the battleship. Both Yamato and Musashi were ignominiously sunk not in glorious naval combat, but by swarms of carrier-based airplanes who made short work of the two behemoths using air-dropped torpedoes and bombs. Perhaps somewhat ironically, there was a third Yamato hull that was converted to what, at the time, was the largest aircraft carrier ever built, but unfortunately it was terrible garbage.


Guess what the second largest naval gun was? Most people would probably think the 16"s on an Iowa, but they would be wrong. The royal navy built a mere 6k ton monitor in WW1 for use bombarding the occupied Belgian coastline, and fitted it with a gun a mere 3mm less than that carried by a battleship weighting well over 10 times as much.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_General_Wolfe_(1915)


Since this is a royal navy post, obligatory HMS Warspite. Most decorated battleship in British history, did doughnuts infront of the entire German high seas fleet at Jutland due to a damaged rudder, drawing so much fire on herself that a heavily damaged cruiser nearby was able to limp away. She was hit 150 times at Jutland, by survived long enough to regain control and escape into the dark. Limping home she came under attack by a uboat, which she promptly charged at full speed before arriving for 2 months of repairs. Despite suffering permanent problems with her rudder gear from then out, she was modernised in the 30s and went on to server in WW2, socring the (at the time) longest ranged gun hit in naval history on an Italian battleship. She did this using optical rangefinders, Iowa later broke her record, but only by a few hundred yards and using a radar directed sight.

DISCO KING
Oct 30, 2012

STILL
TRYING
TOO
HARD
While this isn't exactly a weapon system, it's both batshit insane and includes nukes.

Project Orion was a space race design by our friend Freeman Dyson (also known for the Tungsten Rods program Rods from God, mentioned above) and was built to go interplanetary, or even interstellar.



The whole thing ran on nuclear explosions.

quote:

Project Orion was a study of a spacecraft intended to be directly propelled by a series of explosions of atomic bombs behind the craft (nuclear pulse propulsion). Early versions of this vehicle were proposed to take off from the ground with significant associated nuclear fallout; later versions were presented for use only in space.

Crazy, right? The funny thing is, the nuke-flinging spaceship is still the only design that is both highly efficient and has exceptional thrust capacity. The velocities achievable by this are still unmatched

quote:

The Orion nuclear pulse drive combines a very high exhaust velocity, from 19 to 31 km/s in typical interplanetary designs, with meganewtons of thrust.[4] Many spacecraft propulsion drives can achieve one of these or the other, but nuclear pulse rockets are the only proposed technology that could potentially meet the extreme power requirements to deliver both at once (see spacecraft propulsion for more speculative systems).

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Pile Of Garbage
May 28, 2007



Throw money at Rosoboronexport and get a 3M-54E Club-K system: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbUU_9bOcnM

Includes terminal-phase supersonic sprint in the ASM variant (Shown at 6:45 in the video). Apparently even the new US carriers couldn't defend against >1 missiles at once.

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