I think the giant glider qualifies for the thread, since the Germans didn’t have a plane big enough to tow it. They did make a few test flights with multiple tow planes held separated by a framework, but that’s an even worse idea.
IIRC every single Me323 was shot down trying to reach the Afrika Korps.
Since the nefarious organization Cobra has been mentioned (by me) I wanted to point out that the new action figure of Scrap Iron (the Cobra anti-armor specialist) comes with a gyrojet rifle.
I have to tell you, this is a sound concept, and the Navy is putting it to sea, albeit in a very different form than this.
What they are doing is converting some Ohio class ballistic missile subs to carry more than 150 Tomahawks, so that they can creep up close to shore, launch them and then creep away.
Proven missile, proven platform. You’ll see them at sea very soon.
Many sea critters, such as a number of different species of squid, bioluminesce for this purpose.
Thank you for your kind words (and you are right about the Gigants being shot down over the Med in 1943).
As an encore I present you with the Bachem Natter
Bumped.
You can visit the remains of the project in a Canadian lake today: https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/project-habbakuk-ice-aircraft-carrier/index.html
Hmm… actually, if you had a double-barreled cannon sharing a common breech so that the pressure out both barrels was about equal, it might work.
Apparently they DID use a double-barreled cannon- but as far as I can tell they didn’t share a common breech, which is what would have been needed.
Aw. I wanted to mention that one. I did see the idea used in a terrific science fiction novel, though.
Thought that Stranger On A Train used the idea for habitat construction during one of the Dopes periodic “What will human space exploration look like?” threads. I thought it was neat.
The USAF Project Orion Orbital Battleship from 1962. Basically an orbital spacestation with a crew of 120 people that carried over 500 20 megaton nuclear missiles that could be dropped anywhere on Earth from orbit, and for defense had some standard Navy 5 inch cannons and 20mm cannons, as well as nuclear powered cannons that shot nuclear flame (for the peskier attackers). In case of emergencies the entire ship could be de-orbited and the crew evacuated (using 5 landing shuttles on-board) so the entire space station would become a gigantic one gigaton nuclear missile dropped on any target. The Air Force was completely on-board with it until a bad meeting with President Kennedy caused him to cancel the entire program of putting nuclear weapons in space.
Now I get to mention some of the failed ideas to counter the German U-boat menace in WWII, like commandeering private yachts along the Gulf Coast to detect and attack subs. Some were armed with a few depth charges (more apt to blow themselves up than U-boats) and radios to report U-boat sightings, which would’ve been effective if the yachts also had navigation equipment and knew where the hell they were.
Elsewhere, small craft were supposed to sneak up on U-boats and throw a bag over their periscopes, then smash them with hammers. Probably the best idea was training seagulls* to defecate on periscopes and thus spoil the view.
*never understood why they couldn’t train the pigeon corps to do this.
The Bat Bomb, and Project Stargate (a remote viewing program) among others have been covered in segments of the (excellent) show Dark Matters. With one or two exceptions, DM showed weird scientifical stuff that verifiably happened. Soviet attempts to crossbreed humans and gorillas also got a segment.
I love Dark Matters.
As I understood was that the Spruce Goose was simply late to the party. It was a troop transport made without metal, the prototype delivered after the war was over and air transport of troops to avoid submarines was no longer important, and after war production was over so metal was not in short supply. Last I saw it was in a museum outside Portland (Oregon). It’s quite impressive. The single flight by accident during a taxi test has been turned into “it could barely fly”. It could - it just was never tested beyond that.
Using lights on an aircraft to make it invisible is a tactic I’ve heard that even military drones use today. It’s ideal for them - smaller, high flying and slow but wanting to be invisible; creating a matching amount of light to compensate for what the silhouette blocks when viewed from below.
I’ve read a few things that said the gliders used by the allies for D-Day were not the best choice either - far more dangerous than initially anticipated, as if landing unpowered on random terrain in the dark at gliding speeds was ever a good idea.
It still is (McMinneville, Oregon). It’s a nice museum of flight (and a spacecraft museum across the parking lot), burdened a bit by being in the literal middle of nowhere.
Isn’t “attempts” a bit overstated? Closer to “proposal” from what I’ve read.
As far as I know, they actually attempted to inseminate volunteer women with gorilla sperm. The episode is on YouTube. The segment is Ape Man Army
ETASecond segment of the episode, roughly 15 minutes in.
I’ve not seen the show, and I don’t know if it was covered upthread, but in another animal-related bizarre ‘military idea’, the CIA tried to surgically implant a microphone, radio transmitter, and power supply in a house cat. The CIA implanted microphones into the skin of CATS | Daily Mail Online
I don’t believe it worked.
I was just there a few days ago. It’s a beautiful space, but as aviation museums go, it has a slightly weird vibe. More than one docent asked my younger son (7) technical questions and then pedantically corrected him—incorrectly. One guy tried to tell my kid that the Spruce Goose was the only true seaplane ever built. Aside from that being demonstrably false, what kind of person needs to outshine a seven-year-old?
Plus, the whole place is kind of a shrine to Michael Smith, the founder’s son. He died in a car accident, which must have been awful for his family, but the various plaques and larger-than-life bronze statues strike a slightly strange tone.
I loved seeing the Spruce Goose and a ton of effort and money clearly went into its restoration. The museum is fascinating—it’s also a little quirky and, yes, in the middle of nowhere.