# Greatest Weapon(s) Never Used? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 9, 2010, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-weapon-s-never-used/538838 "2010-05-09T22:02:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 8:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-weapon-s-never-used/538838/21 "2010-05-10T08:44:23Z")
> [@mrpayday](#): > > The Germans in WWII planned a 1500 ton tank with 100 crew and an 800mm gun. > > [Landkreuzer P. 1500 Monster - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landkreuzer_P._1500_Monster) Impractical, yeah; but I can’t help imagining the reactions of the first platoon of Allied soldiers to see that thing coming at them. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-weapon-s-never-used/538838/22 "2010-05-10T11:04:07Z")
Even further away from being built than the Ratte, but…[Ithacus](http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/ithacus.htm). A 7000 _ton_ SSTO troop transport, capable of carrying 1200 men with equipment. (I wuz just gonna say VX, myself.) ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-weapon-s-never-used/538838/23 "2010-05-10T11:28:54Z")
What about poison gases? Both sides in WWII produced copious amounts of mustard gas, sarin, etc., but never used the stuff. Or biological agents-the Russians made anthrax, and other bacteria-but never used them. ---
**Author:** ![jinty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/dbc845/32.png) [@jinty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jinty)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-weapon-s-never-used/538838/24 "2010-05-10T12:22:51Z")
No discussion like this is complete without a mention of [HMS Habbakuk](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Habbakuk), a 200,000 ton aircraft carrier made out of ice and wood pulp. How cool is that concept? The ekranoplans that engineer\_comp\_geek mentioned are pretty awesome too - there’s some footage of the larger ones in action that looks like an ocean liner just sprouted wings and took to the air. ---
**Author:** ![jinty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/dbc845/32.png) [@jinty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jinty)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-weapon-s-never-used/538838/25 "2010-05-10T12:24:46Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > What about poison gases? Both sides in WWII produced copious amounts of mustard gas, sarin, etc., but never used the stuff. Or biological agents-the Russians made anthrax, and other bacteria-but never used them. But poison gases _have_ been used, in [WW1](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Front_%28World_War_I%29#Gas_warfare) and more recently by the Iraqis against the Kurds. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Wallenstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b5a626/32.png) [@Wallenstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallenstein)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-weapon-s-never-used/538838/26 "2010-05-10T12:58:25Z")
To my knowledge 1920’s style death rays have not been used in conflict but would have been all kinds of awesome. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-weapon-s-never-used/538838/27 "2010-05-10T13:05:02Z")
WWII. America’s “Bat Bomb” project. The main reason it probably wasnt used was it wasnt ready by the time the war ended. The idea was you took a bat and attached a small incendiary device to its leg. Once the bat was released it would fly up under the eave of a building or an attic or bridge or in a tree. The first thing it would do is chew off this attached device. The device was designed to ignite once removed. A cannister bomb of these fella’s could probably contain thousands if not 10 thousand of em. Once released over a target city they would disperse over a large area and probably start many fires. Way more than the local population could handle at one time most likely. For such fire prone areas as Japan at the time, I imagine these things would have been as devastating as the atomic bombs and the carpet bombing that caused the big fire storms. There was book written about it a decade or two back. I put it in the great category because if it was as effective as it sounds like it might have been, it would have been both pretty destructive and pretty darn cheap. Plus the idea is just too darn quirky yet clever. ---
**Author:** ![yendis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ed8c4c/32.png) [@yendis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yendis)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-weapon-s-never-used/538838/28 "2010-05-10T14:00:39Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > WWII. America’s “Bat Bomb” project. The main reason it probably wasnt used was it wasnt ready by the time the war ended. The was also an attempt to make a pigeon guided missile, [Project Pigeon](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pigeon). ---
**Author:** ![acetylene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@acetylene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/acetylene)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-weapon-s-never-used/538838/29 "2010-05-10T14:18:15Z")
[N-stoff, or chlorine trifluoride](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorine_trifluoride#Military_applications). It burns almost anythig it contacts. When it contacts human skin it hydrolizes to produce hydrofluoric **acid** and hydrochloric **acid**. And, oh yeah, it lights you on fire, too. Thankfully the Nazis never got the chance to use it. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-weapon-s-never-used/538838/30 "2010-05-10T14:21:07Z")
How about the “Doomsday Machine” (in the movie "Dr. Strangelove). Now THAT was a deterrent! Cheap to build, effective, and unstoppable! ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-weapon-s-never-used/538838/31 "2010-05-10T14:25:21Z")
> [@jinty](#): > > No discussion like this is complete without a mention of [HMS Habbakuk](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Habbakuk), a 200,000 ton aircraft carrier made out of ice and wood pulp. How cool is that concept? Darn, you beat me to it. Well, don’t forget that this was an absolutely awesome thing, and there’s not reason it wouldn’t have worked very well. The only problem was that it took do long to put together that there simply was not real reason to use it by the time the could have put it into action. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-weapon-s-never-used/538838/32 "2010-05-10T14:31:54Z")
> [@yendis](#): > > The was also an attempt to make a pigeon guided missile, [Project Pigeon](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pigeon). Though the neat thing about the bat-bomb is that it sounds like, in principle, the bat could have survived its contribution to the war effort. Go bats! ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-weapon-s-never-used/538838/33 "2010-05-10T14:51:52Z")
Dwarfed by the 1500 ton Monster, but the 100 ton [Panzer VIII Maus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panzer_VIII_Maus) actually reached the prototype stage, and the [Panzerkampfwagen E-100](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panzerkampfwagen_E-100) almost did. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-weapon-s-never-used/538838/34 "2010-05-10T14:57:37Z")
Re: Bat Bombs: the basic concept worked pretty well for [Harald Hardrada](http://scribalterror.blogs.com/scribal_terror/2009/01/harald-hardrada-and-the-birds.html). ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-weapon-s-never-used/538838/35 "2010-05-10T15:13:20Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > How about the “Doomsday Machine” (in the movie "Dr. Strangelove). Now THAT was a deterrent! Cheap to build, effective, and unstoppable! [Here you go](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand_%28nuclear_war%29) - but ironically, not fully automatic and explicitly NOT used as a deterrent (at least, not a deterrent for the _enemy_). ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-weapon-s-never-used/538838/36 "2010-05-10T15:47:47Z")
Not Great, but Awesomely Bizarre (and amazing it ever got the go-ahead) – **Panjandrum** > [@](#): > > Panjandrum, known also as the The Great Panjandrum, was a massive, rocket-propelled, explosive-laden cart designed by the British military during World War II. It was one of a number of highly experimental projects It was propelled by rockets along the edges of the giant double wheel, not by a single backward-pointing rocket motor. It was supposed to use this tangential propulsion to roll it up to the supposed Atlantic Wall, then blow up there. It had a dismal track record in testing > **[Panjandrum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panjandrum)** > > Panjandrum, also known as The Great Panjandrum, was a massive, rocket-propelled, explosive-laden cart designed by the British military during World War II. It was one of a number of highly experimental projects, including Hajile and the Hedgehog, that were developed by the Admiralty's Directorate of Miscellaneous Weapons Development (DMWD) in the final years of the war. The Panjandrum was never used in battle. > The DMWD had been asked to come up with a device capable of penetrating the 10 ft (3.0... Other wonderful, failed projects: > **[Hajile](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hajile)** > > Hajile (Elijah Backwards) was an experimental project developed by the British Admiralty's Directorate of Miscellaneous Weapons Development (DMWD) during the final years of Second World War for slowing the landing of air-dropped supplies with retrorockets. > The project was initiated by a request from the Army for a method of dropping heavy equipment and vehicles from aircraft at high speed, retaining the materiel's terminal velocity for as long as possible in order to minimise drift and damage fr... > **[Hedgehog (weapon)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedgehog_%28weapon%29)** > > The Hedgehog (also known as an Anti-Submarine Projector) was a forward-throwing anti-submarine mortar that was used primarily during the Second World War. The device, which was developed by the Royal Navy, fired up to 24 spigot mortars ahead of a ship when attacking a U-boat. It was deployed on convoy escort warships such as destroyers and corvettes to supplement the depth charges. > As the mortar projectiles employed contact fuzes rather than time or bathymetric (depth) fuzes, detonation occur... There was also another Allied project that was supposed to send a huge flame up to deter airplanes. In practice this would have been as effective as a candle flame is in burning you as you pass your finger rapidly through it, but it was thought it might be psychologically deterring. Nah. ---
**Author:** ![Valgard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/7feea3/32.png) [@Valgard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valgard)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-weapon-s-never-used/538838/37 "2010-05-10T16:17:50Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Other wonderful, failed projects: > > [Hajile - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hajile) > > [Hedgehog (weapon) - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedgehog_%28weapon%29) Hedgehog was used and was pretty successful - your own Wiki link shows it in action! I remember seeing some video of the Soviet version of Hajile being used to airdrop an APC with crew inside. Brave men. There’s some old film of the Panjandrum tests - it’s a pretty spectacular failure as the thing goes spinning about shooting rocket flames in every direction like a severely unbalanced clothes dryer full of fireworks. To the OP - were you looking for the most devastating weapon developed but never actually used? Or the most unusual ideas for a weapon system? What about things that never made it off the drawing board at all? ---
**Author:** ![Si\_Amigo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/si_amigo/32/2877_2.png) [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-weapon-s-never-used/538838/38 "2010-05-10T16:20:42Z")
Dr. Strangelove’s [Doomsday Machine](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113242681)is real (and still operational). ---
**Author:** ![jinty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/dbc845/32.png) [@jinty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jinty)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-weapon-s-never-used/538838/39 "2010-05-10T16:35:24Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > WWII. America’s “Bat Bomb” project. Ha! Love it. I’ll take your Bat Bomb and raise you a Soviet [Anti-Tank Dog](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-tank_dog). Had some drawbacks, apparently… [Quote=Wikipedia] They performed well on a single target, but became confused after the target or location was changed and often returned to the operator with the bomb unreleased. [/Quote] Oops! :eek: Get away! Bad doggy! _Boom_ 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2010, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-weapon-s-never-used/538838/40 "2010-05-10T16:37:15Z")
I’m going to go for two real ships. [La Gloire](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Gloire) and [HMS Warrior](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Warrior_%281860%29). La Gloire was the first ocean going Ironclad warship. It effectively made wooden hulled warships obsolete. The next year, the British launched the Warrior, the first iron hulled warship. That consigned ironclads to the scrapheap and led directly to concept of the battleship. Neither ship ever saw combat, and were only operational for a very limited time, but between them they completely changed naval warfare. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-weapon-s-never-used/538838.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-weapon-s-never-used/538838.md?page=3)