Impractical weapons, armour, and equipment - Mike Sparks spinoff

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Pointless Pedant said:
It's pretty sad that someone went to all that effort to make something so completely useless and ugly.
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It actually didn't require much effort at all. It's just regular leather clothing with cheap iron nails on top and an extra layer of leather to hold them in place. Afaik the musuem needed some new interesting props for an exibit so they commissioned some local asshat artist to make something cool and outlandish they could use to draw in crowds, and the artist used the cheapest idea he could come up with so he could make a bigger profit. It served its purpose well too, to this day it still draws in plenty of crowds because of how fucking bizarre it looks.
 
Count groudon said:
It actually didn't require much effort at all. It's just regular leather clothing with cheap iron nails on top and an extra layer of leather to hold them in place. Afaik the musuem needed some new interesting props for an exibit so they commissioned some local asshat artist to make something cool and outlandish they could use to draw in crowds, and the artist used the cheapest idea he could come up with so he could make a bigger profit. It served its purpose well too, to this day it still draws in plenty of crowds because of how fucking bizarre it looks.
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It's not historical, though, so it shouldn't be in an exhibit on Siberia.
 
Pointless Pedant said:
It's not historical, though, so it shouldn't be in an exhibit on Siberia.
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Despite its crooked history it's still a very popular part of the exibit. Even though it's pretty much common knowledge that it's total bullshit these days, it's still beloved by the people who visit the museum because it is pretty interesting to look at. But yeah, I can't say I'm happy that it was fabricated for the sole purpose of making people pay money to walk over to it and say "what the shit is this thing" but by being such a weird little piece it's managed to cement itself into history anyways.
 
Francis E. Dec Esc. said:
In 1864, the Union Army issued a .52 caliber Sharps cavalry carbine that had a grain grinder built into the stock. It was popularly known as the "coffee grinder", but it was actually supposed to process grain into horse fodder.

The-coffee-grinder-Sharps-Carbine-with-a-mill-right-in-the-stock-9-e1454707358965.jpg


The-coffee-grinder-Sharps-Carbine-with-a-mill-right-in-the-stock-5.jpg
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They made an integral coffee grinder variant of the Trapdoor Springfields as well. Apparently the bean counters in the quartermaster corps found it cheaper to issue a few of those to every company than to keep issuing regular coffee grinders that troops would often lose or barter away on the black market and would constantly have to be replaced. The one thing they could be sure that troops on the frontier wouldn't barter away or lose were their rifles.
 
Pointless Pedant said:
It's pretty sad that someone went to all that effort to make something so completely useless and ugly.
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I don't know if I'd call it useless. I'm sure the BDSM community could get something out of it.
Pointless Pedant said:
A helmet is the first piece of armour a soldier would buy, but not one like that. What's even keeping it on her head? There's no chin strap.
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Would it really be the first? There were pistol bullets that could easily penetrate a helmet back in WWII, so it makes you wonder just how useful a helmet would be. If you get hit in the head and somehow live, you probably received brain damage already, but maybe I'm wrong. You'd think that with standard training telling people to aim for the center of mass (the torso), you'd want a bullet proof vest instead. Just my thoughts, but I may not be too familiar with what modern day helmets are capable of stopping.
 
Reynard said:
I don't know if I'd call it useless. I'm sure the BDSM community could get something out of it.

Would it really be the first? There were pistol bullets that could easily penetrate a helmet back in WWII, so it makes you wonder just how useful a helmet would be. If you get hit in the head and somehow live, you probably received brain damage already, but maybe I'm wrong. You'd think that with standard training telling people to aim for the center of mass (the torso), you'd want a bullet proof vest instead. Just my thoughts, but I may not be too familiar with what modern day helmets are capable of stopping.
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It's not about bullets, it's about flying shrapnel or falling debris. Artillery and bombs killed far more people than bullets in the world wars.
 
Pointless Pedant said:
It's not about bullets, it's about flying shrapnel or falling debris. Artillery and bombs killed far more people than bullets in the world wars.
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Very good point, actually. Considering how the Brodie helmet was made specifically for protecting from stuff like that coming from above, I don't know why I didn't realize that there. My bad.
 
Randall Fragg said:
It's still pretty cool looking in a "people were expected to use this steampunk reject" way.
In a similar note, here's how they first dropped bombs from airplanes in WW1
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Just tossed it right over the side.
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You think that's bad? They originally started with bricks (i shit you not), having said that my favourite improvised munition is from a musket fired by the British in Spain, a soldier is on record as being killed by a yard stick (ruler).
 
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Pointless Pedant said:
Why do fantasy armour designs always have absurdly massive pauldrons? Having loads of weight on the shoulders isn't good for anything, man or machine.
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Because they're invariably designed by narrow-shouldered milquetoasts that have the rampant horn for what they see as being hyper-masculine design.
 
Cato said:
The Streetsweeper shotgun.

latest


https://youtube.com/watch?v=Uoy14h6K5TY
http://www.grantcunningham.com/2013/12/the-streetsweeper-shotgun-gone-and-unlamentedly-so/

A shotgun that has all the disadvantages of single action revolver, plus terrible design, functionality and construction, ridiculous loading time, gases that propel directly into the face and hands of the user while they shoot it, and an awful stock with a sharp metal edge that presses against the user's face and rides up and into it during recoil.
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Cobray arms made sub-par weapons and relied on edgy naming to try and market them.

They mostly made MAC clones, but they had a 45-70 PISTOL version of the Streetsweeper called the Ladies Home Companion:

And a slam-fire shotgun called the Terminator.

The Streetsweeper design itself was concieved in South Africa to address issues with shotguns being used in riot control. I believe the Streetsweeper was the second iteration of this design, as there is a third design that is supposed to eject the spent shells.

As for another piece of useless military gear, you might have heard of the Ross Rifle debacle the Canadians had in WW1. Well, Sam Hughes, the minister of defence and the center of that controversy, also concieved a Shovel That Doubled As A Shield
 
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Pointless Pedant said:
Why do fantasy armour designs always have absurdly massive pauldrons? Having loads of weight on the shoulders isn't good for anything, man or machine.
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To look intimidating? Fantasy armor itself will always have some sort of impractical look be it bikinis made of chain, overly large pauldrons that can be a euphenism for penis size, and lots of spikes that would be saying "this guy is really evil". Speaking of fantasy armor, I feel fantasy weapons can end up being no better, especially with weapons that look like they were designed for a teenage edgelord.
 
c-no said:
To look intimidating? Fantasy armor itself will always have some sort of impractical look be it bikinis made of chain, overly large pauldrons that can be a euphenism for penis size, and lots of spikes that would be saying "this guy is really evil". Speaking of fantasy armor, I feel fantasy weapons can end up being no better, especially with weapons that look like they were designed for a teenage edgelord.
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Massive codpieces were popular among the German Landsknechte of the 16th century. Some were big enough to store wine in. People were usually more direct about phallic symbolism in the days when plate armour was common.

The armour in the Lord of the Rings films looks like armour for the most part. They made imitation maille out of cut up bits of PVC pipe, which looked a lot more convincing than the "knitted maille" made out of a painted sweater often seen in films.
 
Goofy Logic said:
As for another piece of useless military gear, you might have heard of the Ross Rifle debacle the Canadians had in WW1. Well, Sam Hughes, the minister of defence, also concieved a Shovel That Doubled As A Shield
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The shovel was basically the multi tool of WWI. It was a tool and a weapon. But a shield? You could probably use it to block a club the way you would with a sword or something, but specifically a shield? That's new.
 
For the Mall Ninja in your life...though this one looks like it would be as dangerous to the person carrying it as it would be to anyone else. Oh, right. For the Mall Ninja in your life.

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Powerlevel: 12 year old me would have loved this.

Image shamelessly stolen from /r/fantasy.
 
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