Weirdness

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

"worst" weapons of WWII

http://uniqueupdates.blogspot.com/2010/02/worst-weapons-in-history-of-world-war.html

Actually, this shows the state of popular presentations on WWII. I am unfamiliar with the "flying jeep", but the rest of these systems/techniques showed real promise, as any serious research would show. Some were shelved due to the giggle factor, but that in and of itself is not a good reason for us to label them "worst". Militaries tend to be conservative, even hidebound at times, even if it's not in their best interest. (The Western Front during WWI is a very nice example of when innovation is ignored in favor of what is known and comforting, (or at least comforting to generals) - no giggles were allowed, and it bled Britain and France dry). Some of the other projects were shelved because the cost/benefit ratio didn't appear to be too good, especially by late '44 when a lot of Allied victories were at least partially being achieved through sheer quantity. But that does not make them "worst" by any means. Unusual, certainly - but not these were not bad ideas.
(For those of you in search of truly stupid WWII ideas, I'd suggest Ernest Hemingway - his plans to go out on fishing expeditions off of Cuba and take Jai Alai players to lob grenades at the hatches and snorkels of passing U-Boats gets my vote every time).

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