Impractical weapons, armour, and equipment - Mike Sparks spinoff

[Foltest]

https://sneed-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/7c/7c/7a/7c7c7ad4b45384af41a1210660d95d12.jpg
They used this setup inside tanks in World War 1. It was designed to protected the user from sharpnel if the tank would be hit, but how effective it was is up to debate. It was not comfortable to use at all.

 

[Reynard]

The AN-94 deserves a mention.

I'm sure you've seen it in Call of Duty or Battlefield, in real life it was a design the Russians bought with the idea to have it replace the AK-74, but in reality it quickly became known as a highly expensive and overly complex and fragile weapon that got extremely limited use and sent to units with no chance of seeing real combat according to some.

First off, from the front the magazine bends ever so slightly to the right

This is due to some weird ass feeding mechanism (supposedly VERY similar to the G-11's) and it threw off the balance and recoil of the weapon

But also like the G-11, the entire goddamed barrel, gas tube, receiver, and bolt carrier all exist as a single component group moving back and forth across the interior with every shot. It was done to reduce recoil, which it kind of did, but it also made the whole thing extremely prone to equipment failure due to the highly complex design and precision work needed to manufacture. And if there's one word Russian manufacturing never really gets paired with, it's precision.

The Russians would later make the AK-12 as the future gun de jour, which is all around regarded as a much better successor to the AK-47 and 74

I don't know how I forgot about this one. Its unique two round burst that was supposed to have both bullets hit the same area. Not a bad idea, but it required extensive training and on top of being a failed gun, it's key feature was impossible for an average soldier.

Interesting that you said it's fragile, though. I remember it always jamming when I used it in the Stalker games. Kudos to them for the realism.

 

[TiggerNits]

I don't know how I forgot about this one. Its unique two round burst that was supposed to have both bullets hit the same area. Not a bad idea, but it required extensive training and on top of being a failed gun, it's key feature was impossible for an average soldier.

Interesting that you said it's fragile, though. I remember it always jamming when I used it in the Stalker games. Kudos to them for the realism.

To the rifle's credit, it was easily the best gun in Bad Company 2

 

[Sanshain]

Interesting that you said it's fragile, though. I remember it always jamming when I used it in the Stalker games. Kudos to them for the realism.

The STALKER games are generally pretty realistic with their firearms. The AN-94 doesn't actually have the correct fire rate, though. It's nowhere near the 1800 RPM it should be in burst mode.

 

[Reynard]

The STALKER games are generally pretty realistic with their firearms. The AN-94 doesn't actually have the correct fire rate, though. It's nowhere near the 1800 RPM it should be in burst mode.

Yeah, which is why a mentioned it (and because my autism for that series is heavy). The guns are pretty accurate to their real life stuff to my knowledge. Aside from the ejector being on the wrong side of the gun.

I guess I should be glad that my opinions on weapons sort of come from that game. I couldn't look the AN-94 in the face after that experience of it constantly jamming when it had just a little scratch.

 

[Pointless Pedant]

I'm just trying to figure out how the fuck you'd be able to effectively hurt someone with that thing. Do you just sort of press your knuckles up against them and drag them around?

It looks like an appalling attempt at making a trench knife. Of course mall ninja morons would try to make their own rather than using tried and tested designs proven on the field of battle.

 

[Count groudon]

https://sneed-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/7c/7c/7a/7c7c7ad4b45384af41a1210660d95d12.jpg
They used this setup inside tanks in World War 1. It was designed to protected the user from sharpnel if the tank would be hit, but how effective it was is up to debate. It was not comfortable to use at all.

While I'm generally a fan of armor that covers the wearer's face because it looks badass, this just looks like a particularly uncomfortable dollar store Halloween mask.

It looks like an appalling attempt at making a trench knife. Of course mall ninja morons would try to make their own rather than using tried and tested designs proven on the field of battle.

It's like someone looked at a trench knife and thought "gee this sure is swell, but it'd be way better if we took away any sort of practicality this might've had and made it look like something the protagonist of a generic anime would carry around."

 

[TiggerNits]

Next up, we have an airplane

The Sukhoi 15 "Flagon" was a Soviet interceptor that was kinda good at shooting down airliners and killed Yuri Gagarin.

The concept for the Flagon was it would take off, using 2 sizable jet engines, fly to the target area 100% on autopilot as instructions were given by ground teams, then at the last moment the pilot would take over, use the high-gain radar to try and get through the incoming bomber's ECM defenses and launch some semi-active radar guided missiles and hope for the best.

The Flagon existed around the same timeframe as the MiG-25, which did the exact same job, but better and the MiG-23, which had look-down-shoot-down capability, that the Su-15 did not and could actually turn with a low altitude strike fighter, which the flagon could not.

The Su-15 would distinguish itself by shooting a Korean airliner (but not shooting it down) and forcing it to land on an iced over lake and killing 2 civilians'

It also "Shot down" an Israeli plane carrying arms to Iran, by running in to it by failing to be able to manuver away from it after it had tried to make visual confirmation

It would then shoot down weather balloons the USSR accused of being used to spy on them (They were actually Soviet balloons)

Next, it successfully shot down yet another Korean airliner, this time killing all 200+ people on board.

Then, finally one killed the first man in space during a parade fly by, as the pilot of the Su-15 was going too fast and could not maneuver around Mr. Gagarin's MiG-15, and killed a national hero.

The Su -15 was never exported to Warsaw nations, the Soviets claimed due to the high powered anti-ECM radar, but in reality it was because they were crash prone, hard to fly, extremely maintenance heavy and hilarious incapable of doing what it was built for. The Soviets thought they'd be better off making sure no one got a chance to get a closer look at them in use and keep an air of mysterious threat to them. But when Victor Belenko defected with his MiG-25 in 1976, any hope of the Russian interceptor force being feared had been vanquished, as their crown jewel turned out to be a paper tiger at best. So there was little hope for it's admittedly inferior and more numerous younger brother.

 

[Pointless Pedant]

While I'm generally a fan of armor that covers the wearer's face because it looks badass, this just looks like a particularly uncomfortable dollar store Halloween mask.


It's like someone looked at a trench knife and thought "gee this sure is swell, but it'd be way better if we took away any sort of practicality this might've had and made it look like something the protagonist of a generic anime would carry around."

It doesn't look like a Japanese cartoon sword. For that it would need to be as big as the man carrying it.

Cartoon writers don't understand that the only reason the nodachi was usable is because the blade wasn't very thick or wide. Even a 2 hand sword only ever weighed about 3kg at most.

 

[TiggerNits]

Time to feature dumb shit we Americans have built

Wait, gotta flip it

There we go. See the Sheridan was built in the late 60s to do two things. Be dropped from planes and be floated across rivers. Problem is, tanks, even light ones, are heavy. The mtal needed to protect the crew from small arms does add up and heavy things aren't so great at flying or floating.

So to combat this weight issue someone decided to just use aluminum instead, which did reduce the weight substantially. Unfortunately it made the tank about as bulletproof as Sonny Corleone's Lincoln (if you don't get this joke then please get off the internet, go watch The Godfather and come back. I'll wait)

Also, when aluminum burns, like say, when it's with with explosive shells, artillery or even napalm, the fumes are extremely toxic. So being trapped inside of a tank made of it while the enemy shoots at you is about as shitty of an assignment as you could get in an actual shooting war. This was amde worse by the cannon firing a 152mm caseless round that left a lot of flammable residue after a few shots, which could burn hot enough to warp the barrel and force the next round to blow the barrel apart or even worse, vent the highly toxic fumes back at the crew. So in our hopes to overcome these issues, the United States Dept of Defense decided to give it a guided rocket that fires out of the main cannon, the MGM-51 Shillelagh

We ordered a lot of these (88,000), and at about $4000 a pop, even in 1972 money, they were downright affordable for a DoD guided anything. Problem was, we would never, ever use them. These got brought in to Desert Storm, but never once got fired at anything other than paper targets. To their credit, the 15lbs of explosive charges in them could really fuck up a paper target. So what they ended up being was a really good practical training tool for Explosive Ordnance Disposal units to disarm and explode before heading to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Now, remember how this thing was made to be dropped out of planes? Well, they actually did this. The original idea is they'd push it out on a pallet with 4 parachutes attached at the corners and the crew, ammo and fuel inside. Luckily, an adult overheard this plan and made them stop even considering trying this with live humans in the tank. Instead, the new idea was that they'd just drag chute the fuckers, empty out of a low flying C-130 instead, with the ammo and fuel on seperate pallets and have a helicopter land with the crew. This proved to be safer for the crew, and equally as dangerous for the equipment (see picture at top)

That said, when it worked, it did look cool as fuck.

 

[Goofy Logic]

So to combat this weight issue someone decided to just use aluminum instead,

The Sheridan was not the only vehicle with Aluminum armor. Aluminum was becoming a commonplace metal in the 1950s (about the time a decent refining process was perfected), and manufacturers were tinkering with using it in their products. At the same time, the US military had fully accepted the tactical advantages the Air Force had, and was rapidly gearing up with equipment to be used with that.

As a result, a lot of vehicles commissioned during the Vietnam War had the requirement that they must be capible of air deployment, so manufacturers had to find ways to reduce the overall weight so a cargo plane could carry them.

On top of the aluminum armor, the steering gearboxes for the tracked vehicles were made from magnesium. While it reduced weight and absorbed gear noise, Any chemist or machinist knows that magnesium is quite flammable when given enough heat.

The 'aluminum craze' also led to fun stuff like armalite's stubborn insistence on developing an all-aluminum gun. It actually took some outside interference for them to compromise and produce the M16.

 

[Curt Sibling]

Although incredibly impressive, and enormously destructive, the Dora rail-mounted artillery was a typical example of
the Germanic fixation with massive power being the solution to tactical challenges. A giant drain on resources and
men, these colossal wastes of time never succeeded in their mission to crush the soviet defences at Leningrad...

Fortunately, the sausage-guzzlers seemed foolishly obsessed with these diabolical projects, instead of going to total war
mode and mass-building the war-winning machines they already had...Which was a lucky situation for the Allies...

 

[Irwin M. Felcher]

Fucking scythes. I hate 'em.

 

[Pointless Pedant]

View attachment 216817
Although incredibly impressive, and enormously destructive, the Dora rail-mounted artillery was a typical example of
the Germanic fixation with massive power being the solution to tactical challenges. A giant drain on resources and
men, these colossal wastes of time never succeeded in their mission to crush the soviet defences at Leningrad...

Fortunately, the sausage-guzzlers seemed foolishly obsessed with these diabolical projects, instead of going to total war
mode and mass-building the war-winning machines they already had...Which was a lucky situation for the Allies...

Even when Germany did finally go to total war production in 1944, their production was still far less than the United States alone, never mind the Allies as a whole, and if they'd built more materiel they'd have had serious problems finding the fuel for it.

Fucking scythes. I hate 'em.

Do you realise they're supposed to be farm tools, and they're actually quite good at that?

 

[Irwin M. Felcher]

Do you realise they're supposed to be farm tools, and they're actually quite good at that?

Yeah, but they're stupid weapons. Just use a damn sword, ya posers.

 

[Pointless Pedant]

Yeah, but they're stupid weapons. Just use a damn sword, ya posers.

The only people who used scythes to fight were peasants who didn't have proper weapons. Swords were usually a backup or sidearm unless used with a shield, but most peasants didn't have a shield either.

 

[Curt Sibling]

Even when Germany did finally go to total war production in 1944, their production was still far less than the United States alone, never mind the Allies as a whole, and if they'd built more materiel they'd have had serious problems finding the fuel for it.

The point you make about US war production is totally obvious, and you omit to mention the colossal output of the USSR's weaponry. Russia replaced 5000 tank lossess in a fortnight.
What's more, the krauts never actually went into full total war in the same way the UK did. They still had thousands of able bodied men working as sevants/butlers in 1944.
Not to mention all the troops and resources tied up in the utterly pointless genocide. In 1940, Germany had an excellent chance of winning the war, but totally squandered it.

Anyway. This is a debate for another thread.

 

[millais]

View attachment 216817
Although incredibly impressive, and enormously destructive, the Dora rail-mounted artillery was a typical example of
the Germanic fixation with massive power being the solution to tactical challenges. A giant drain on resources and
men, these colossal wastes of time never succeeded in their mission to crush the soviet defences at Leningrad...

Fortunately, the sausage-guzzlers seemed foolishly obsessed with these diabolical projects, instead of going to total war
mode and mass-building the war-winning machines they already had...Which was a lucky situation for the Allies...

The Gustav railway gun (of the same production series as the Dora) saw a lot of good use in the Crimean campaign when it came time to reduce the coastal fortress defenses of Sevastopol. The coastal fortresses dominated all the approaches with their big naval guns making ground assaults prohibitively costly, so it ended up being more economical to bring in the Gustav to knock the fortresses out of action from beyond the reach of the naval guns. In one famous incident during the siege of Sevastopol, the Gustav even blew up an offshore Soviet ammunition bunker that was 30 meters below the surface of the Black Sea and protected by 10 meters of hardened concrete roof on top of that.

 

[Curt Sibling]

The Gustav railway gun (of the same production series as the Dora) saw a lot of good use in the Crimean campaign when it came time to reduce the coastal fortress defenses of Sevastopol. The coastal fortresses dominated all the approaches with their big naval guns making ground assaults prohibitively costly, so it ended up being more economical to bring in the Gustav to knock the fortresses out of action from beyond the reach of the naval guns. In one famous incident during the siege of Sevastopol, the Gustav even blew up an offshore Soviet ammunition bunker that was 30 meters below the surface of the Black Sea and protected by 10 meters of hardened concrete roof on top of that.

Indeed. It did have it's moments, but ultimately, it was a giant gun that didn't help the campaign in the East as much as a long-range heavy bomber would have.

 

[Pointless Pedant]

In 1940, Germany had an excellent chance of winning the war, but totally squandered it.

They didn't, though. They were so short of transports for the planned invasion of Britain that they had to take barges from the Rhine, and they still didn't have enough. Germany's navy simply wasn't big enough to challenge the UK's, and they couldn't have built one big enough very easily given that they were starting with very little when Hitler took power in 1933.